MONEY IN GOLF

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 202, 11 September 1937, Page 18

MONEY IN GOLF

' HENRY COTTON'S £5000 A YEAR U.S.A. PRO'S EARN MORE THAN ENGLISH

Hensy Cotton has won the open ciiampronship, and I hear on the best authority that if he wished to capitalise his success by going to America he could make £7000in the course of a six monthV tour. Following the championship h» played Densmore Shute for £500 put up by the News of the World, won ihe cash, and announced that he was making £5000 a year.f So there is big money in golf,- writes Charles Graves in The Sphere. Just how big it is 1 have been learning from Harry Piccard, the third biggest money earner in golf in America this year, from Tony Manero, and from Charles Lacey. Charles Lacey was very interesting. He is the brother of our A. J. Lacey, and has now become a naturalised American citizen. He tells me that he earns £3000 a year, owns a house in California, an apartment in New York, and would never dream of coming back to live permanently as a professional in England. 'T am among the first twenty Americut golf professionals," he told me, "my brother Arthur is among the first half dozen in England, and has perhaps the second best post as a professional over here, and yet I earn at least double what *he does, lead a much more pleasant life, and find people much nicer to professionals over there. I advise any English professional, who has the chance to go to the United States, but it depends very much on your individual charac- 1 ter and behaviour how you succeed. American golf clubs primarily want a first-class coach for their professional. "You must, however, be. a pretty good golfer as weiy* There are to-day in the United States 3340 gp3f clubs and 1760 members of the Profes§ional Golfing Association of tftv United States. On Long Island alone there are 111 golf clubs, while afc Jackson Park, in the heart of Chicago, over 100,000 rounds of golf are played in the brief season of three or four months. The average U.S. professional begins his career at 25, earns £600 a year, and expects to retire at 55. But there are 30 firstclass top-notch American golf professionals whose retainers from their golf club range from £500 a year to £2000 a year. In addition, each professional receives a third profit on anything he sells. His fees for giving lessons are about £1 an hour, or 12s 6d a half-hour. It is true that Alex Morrison, Tommy Armour and Ernest Jopes, the one-legged Scottish professional, get £2 for a half-hour, but they art txceptional. Only 5 per cent. of

th* golf clubs provide a house free for the professional, and it is only in the south that the professional receives a rake-off on the payment ofithe caddies (10 cents per eaddie). ^ Harry Piccard was very frank about his eamings. Last year he made 7000 dojlars in tournament play; the previous year he made 9000 dollars. That was over and above his retainer and his profits from the sale of golf clubs, golf balls and other accessories. "I xeckon that I spend 10 dollars a day travelling, and my family costs me 200 dollars a month," he said. "This means that I have an overhead of 400 dollars (£80) a month to get back before I show any profit at all. He actually forgot the cost of his assistant, who works out at £15 a week. It means, therefore, that he is in the red to the tune of £140 a month before he starts. Other financial statistics he gave me include the fact that he travelled 28,000 miles last year In one car and 13,000 miles in another. He reckons that this works out at* a cost of six cents a mile. This cdmes to £480 for his petrol bill alone. The actual record of mileage in one year is held by Harry Revolta, who travelled 60,000 miles in his car last year. Since January of this year Harry Piccard has played in 21 tournaments. He selects them with the greatest care, notices what other professionals are entering, and reckons that ten of them will be off their game and ten will be out of training. This leaves only ten to beat, and he says that if he is in the first ten it clears his expenses. Piccard is the professional at Ihe Hershey Country Club but not surprisingly did not wish to tell me what his retainer was. "There must be very few American professionals who can put away 7500 dollars a year," he vouchsafed, however. "Over there things are rather different; one has to be a good guy and spend money. Of course, if I had won the open championshij) the year before last I should have been very nicely off. I had two eontrasts in writing in my poeket guaranteeing me respectively £6000 and £10,000 for writing newspapcr articles on golf. Unfortunately, I didn't wln." -r v*.. I tben asked Tony Mrmero, who von

the open championship not long ago, what it was worth to him. He replied that it was between 15,000 and 25.000 dollars. In view of income tax officials he did not care to be more exact. Indeed, I fancy that it was worth much more- to him. . The American Open The actual prize money for winning the open championship is only £200, but the sports requisites manufacturer for whom the new champion works gives him a bonus of £400 in addition and guarantees him £500 a year for five years. Beyond this comes the automatic £200 payment for one month which the Miami Biltmore Golf Club offers the reigning • champion. Naturally there are various other financial rewards. The champion lends his name to new sets of graded J »

golf clubs at 25 cents a club. This brings in £2000 a year. Tony Manero, like other champions, signed a number of affidavits (testimonials). These are worth anything from £40 to £100 apiece. Tony did ten. He also spoke on the wireless in sponsored programmes four times for £50, twice for £25. Another financial advantage in becoming the champion is the money for exhibition matches. Before he be--comes champion the first-class American professional will be given a guarantee of £20 plus half the gate money. When he becomes champion he receives a guarantee of £50, all his expenses paid, and if he likes to chance it he can accept the whole of the gate money in lieu of the guarantee. Sometimes the gate money amounts to as much as £400. Manero himself was never invited to act in a film, but Dick Metz has been offered £10,000 by a Hollywood film company if he ever wins the United States open golf championship. That is because Dick is a good looker. As Harry Piccard said to me, the open championship is worth just as much as your contracts. In other words, the financial rewards depend very largely on your personality and what you can secure on the side from the various syndicates interested directly or indirectly in golf. In addition to the open championship there are a number of big tournaments which are well worth winning. There is an average of one a week throughout the year. The list is headed by the New England match play open tournament with a total prize money of £2500', of which the winner receives £700 and the runner-up £300. There are a number of £2000 tournaments, such as the Chicago medal tournament. In this event the amateur prize money amounts to £1000. Quite how the amateur is able to accept this and remain an amateur I do not know. Other big events are the Miami Biltmore £2000 tournament and the Los Angeles £1600 tournament. There are any number of £1000 and £500 tournaments. The actual American national open championship provides £1300 in prize money. As I said, the winner draws £200 of this. Of the individual golf clubs, the juiciest appointments are to Fres Meadow, Metropolis, Profress, Lake View, Wing Foot and Siwanay, the latter being the real plum. Tommy Kerrrigan, the professional there, sold as much as £4000 worth of golf balls, golf clubs, and so on in one month during the boom, and generally sells more goods in one month than most clubs do in a year. Charles Lacey told me that this May he sold £1500 worth of goods. This means that he made £500 in four weeks. Times, of course, are not so good as they were in the boom. I think I told you once before that Walter Hagen made £15,000 in 1929. He actualiy received £1720 for playing Bobby Jones over 36 holes. Even at Moor Park a few years ago he received £500 for playing a challenge match against Archie Compston, and being defeated by 18 up and 17 to play. On an average, English professionals receive a retainer of loss than £100 a year. In many cases, it is entirely nominal. Abe Mitchell, it is true, received £2000 a year as professional at North Foreland when the late Lord Northeliffe was alive, but the average golf professional is exceedingly lucky to receive £200 a year as a retainer and to earn £500 a year all told. Quite true, the News of the World, the Daily Mail, and various manufacturers of golf balls put up considerable suras of money for open competition among professionals, and Padgham last year must have earned nearly £2000 in prize money. This, however, is quite exccptional, and Cotton indccd had a particularly lean year, although his average was only a fraction over level fours for goodness knows how many rounds.