Phil Mickelson
George Jacobus: Ridgewood Visionary Paved the Way For Barclays Event
By M. James Ward | August 21, 2014
Last Updated: August 23, 2014 5:36 am
Paramus, NJ—Thursday marked the start of the FedEx playoffs for the top 125 players on the PGA Tour. For the third time the event is played at The Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, NJ.
Lost in the shuffle on who will finish high enough to advance to the second stage of the playoffs is a name few know or will even appreciate.
Before there was a FedEx Cup, or even for that matter a PGA Tour, there was a time when a fledgling group of vagabond players conducted events that comprised the heart and soul of professional golf here in America.
Golf on the professional side was miles away from the glamorous image seen today through the PGA Tour with such heavyweight stars like Tiger Woods, Rory McIlory and Phil Mickelson. In the early days professional golf was part competition, part exhibition, and part vaudeville. In most cases the most successful of players were usually in the employ of well-to-do clubs—many in the northeast United States. These clubs would allow their professional to “tour” in hope of adding publicity to the sponsoring club but the “touring pro” would also be responsible for working at the club—giving lessons and assisting with the membership in all golf related ways.
The Depression that impacted not only America but throughout the globe had a seismic impact on the development of professional golf in the 1930s. The events that existed were low key tournaments and the purses were small—with only a few high finishers making whatever money was available.
From 1933 to 1939 George Jacobus, who headed the New Jersey PGA Section for many years, became the first American-born President of the Professional Golfer’s Association of America (PGA).
Jacobus served as the head professional at Ridgewood and in his time a number of top tier players would grace the grounds of the Paramus club—most notably the Hall-of-Famer Byron Nelson who Jacobus offered a job after seeing him finish tied for ninth at the 1935 Masters. Nelson was hired as the first assistant for the sum of $400 for an entire season—plus half of his lesson fees. The incomparable sweet-swinging 23-year-old Texan would remain for a short time after laying the seeds of his considerable talents—winning the N.J. Open and the more prestigious Met Open—before moving ahead with what became a stellar playing career.
In those lean years The Ryder Cup Matches were nowhere near the kind of galvanizing and world-renowned event one sees today. Raising the money to handle the expenses in order to conduct the fifth edition of the matches was no small feat—especially for the visiting Great Britain & Ireland team. What was not known at the time was that four years later, for what would be a planned return to the States, was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War II throughout the European continent.
Jacobus was a visionary in getting Ridgewood to host the matches and, at the same time, provide for the kind of respect often times lacking for the professional game. In those years amateur golf was looked upon by many as the “gentlemen’s” way to play the game. Professional golfers were viewed by many as raconteurs analogous to card players, horse bettors and other loose money profiteers.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/903871-george-jacobus-ridgewood-visionary-paved-the-way-for-barclays-event/
