Amateur shootout shot down by USGA

The Worcester Country Club will stage the 2000 Massachusetts Amateur Golf Championship, and Fordie Pitts Jr had been particularly looking forward to participating this year. Not only would the State Open have been contested on the site of the first Ryder Cup matches, but Pitts would have been playing in the event for the 50th time.

Instead, he will be watching from the sidelines, a disappointed and decidedly bitter spectator. This February, Pitts, along with 14 other golfers, was informed by the United States Golf Association (USGA) that he had been relieved of his amateur status. Barring a last-minute (and extremely unlikely) reversal at an appeal hearing scheduled for Pebble Beach two weeks from tomorrow, Fordie Pitts has, at the age of 69, been declared a professional.

Pitts won his first golf competition - the State Caddie Championship - in 1946. In addition to appearing in 49 Massachusetts Amateurs, he has played in the State Open 30 times, and has also played in the US and British Amateur Championships.

Almost five years ago, at Cohasset Country Club, he scored better than his age when he shot 64 in a US Senior Amateur qualifier. Over the years he had become the most revered Massachusetts amateur since Francis Ouimet.

It probably didn't help much that the event central to the controversy bore his name. Last November 26th, 33 professionals and 99 amateurs gathered at Hyannis Golf Club on Cape Cod - a venue co-owned by Pitts and fellow amateur Joe Keller - to participate in the "Fordie Pitts Shootout".

Each participant paid an entry fee of $125 - $25 of which was earmarked to cover green fees, carts, and refreshments. The remainder was, in Pitts' words, "placed in a cigar box" to be divided up among the winning teams.

"The Fordie Pitts shootout had a cash pool of over $13,000, and the rules clearly do not allow amateurs to play for that kind of money," said Tom Landry, the executive director of the Massachusetts Golf Association (MGA), which handled the initial investigation.

Within a day of the tournament, the MGA was in receipt of an anonymous tip which prompted the investigation. Landry interviewed many of those who had competed in the Hyannis event, and on January 4th, each of the 99 amateurs was sent a letter from the MGA advising them of the organisation's surprisingly lenient decision: to retain his amateur status, each would be asked to sign an admission acknowledging the transgression, and would further be required to forward any cash winnings to the MGA, which would disburse the money to charity through a specially-created fund.

The USGA official who oversaw the investigation explained that the treatment had been "lenient" because the miscreants were all deemed to have been first-time offenders. In any case, 84 of the amateurs signed the letters and returned their winnings by the February 4th deadline. Fordie Pitts did not.

Pitts explained that his initial reluctance to comply with the directive stemmed first from his conviction that he was not in violation of the rules, but also from a desire to protect his fellow participants. ("After all, the thing had my name on it," he pointed out.) Pitts later relented, and in March returned the signed letter, along with a cheque for $600 - a month past the deadline.

The USGA's policy on the subject is spelled out in what would appear to be clear-cut language. In an addendum to the Rules of Golf, the body states: "Organised amateur events open to the general golfing public and designed and promoted to create cash prizes are not approved by the USGA. Golfers participating in such events without irrevocably waiving their right to cash prizes are deemed by the USGA to be playing for prize money."

The language of the R&A rulebook denotes a similar policy, and a golfer in Britain or Ireland would have recognised immediately that participating in such an event would jeopardise his amateur status. Why, then, didn't the Americans?

Part of the problem is that despite its highminded posture, the USGA has traditionally looked the other way on these matters. By allowing "optional" cash pools (which are thus deemed "wagers" and not prize money) and by allowing (though theoretically discouraging) massive calcutta and pari-mutuel wagering, the USGA has allowed the situation to fester.

Were the body to strictly apply its rules, there might not be a dozen bona fide amateurs left in the whole country - including the board members charged with administering the rules. Just by way of example: two sons of a former MGA treasurer, Don Page, played in the Fordie Pitts Shootout.

At my own club, the members gather at least four mornings a week, throw $15 or $20 into a kitty, conduct a blind draw for four-man teams, and play better-ball for the pot. According to Mickey Herron, the head professional and director of golf at Hyannis, literally the only difference between what we do at South Shore (and what golfers do at every club in the country) and what took place on the Cape last November comes in the substantial difference in the amount of cash involved.

"Technically, you're playing for prize money, too," said Herron. "The problem is that the rule has been so vaguely interpreted over the years that it's lost its meaning."

Pitts, according to some intimates, felt "bulletproof" in this instance, in part because of his own stature in the golfing community, but mainly because he had modelled his "Shootout" on a similar event Arnold Palmer runs at his Bay Hill course in Florida nearly every day.

Pitts, along with many other top amateurs, has played in the so-called "Arnie Shootout" many times. Since Palmer is effectively the poster boy for the USGA, Fordie apparently felt secure in his belief that the governing body would never come after him if it meant it might have to hound down Palmer as well.

Herron added: "Look, I myself had serious reservations about (the Shootout) being a violation, but if it was so obviously wrong, why were so many high-profile amateurs playing in it? "To me, there are only two explanations," Herron concluded. "One would be that the MGA and USGA people are incredibly stupid. The other would be that they've deliberately kept their heads in the sand."