18 -- Manito Golf & Country Club In Spokane Bears Few Reminders Of Last Pga Championship In Washington

"It will be a long day before the PGA boys forget their 1944 tourney here, and they'll be coming back to Spokane as soon as possible."

- William Steedman,

The Seattle Times

SPOKANE - Fifty-four years later the PGA has returned to Washington, not to Spokane, but to the towering trees of Sahalee.

But Steedman can be forgiven for his enthusiasm and prophecy in 1944, as misplaced as they might have been.

He had just witnessed Bob Hamilton's 1-up upset of Byron Nelson in the 36-hole final of the 1944 PGA Championship at Manito Golf & Country Club, high on the plateau south of Spokane, a remarkable event that not only ended a hiatus of major tournaments during World War II but set PGA attendance records.

A final-day crowd of 10,000, ringing the 18th green three and four deep, helped produce profits of almost $30,000, which went to a nearby military hospital.

The PGA hadn't held a championship in 1943. The Masters, British Open and U.S. Open were dark in 1944 as well.

The idea of playing in 1944 was attributed to the PGA's director of tournaments, Fred Corcoran, who 18 months earlier had visited St. Andrews, Scotland, where citizens crowded the famous Old Course minutes after an air raid. They played as usual down bomb-pocked fairways. Corcoran decided to follow their lead.

Walkie-talkies from a Spokane air base were used at Manito to provide the first instantaneous reports of scores from across the

course.

Last month, the air was still and the temperature near 100 degrees as I teed it up at Manito. One of my playing partners was Eric, a college golfer at Gonzaga who had just finished a day's work on the club's maintenance staff.

"The PGA was played here?" he asked when I told him the reason for my round. "I knew they'd had some tournaments here, but the PGA?"

A picture of the trophy ceremony after Nelson's defeat by Hamilton, an unknown 28-year-old awaiting induction into the Army, hangs in a corner of the pro shop. Upstairs, in a hallway off the dining room, are four more photographs taken around the 18th green on the final day.

But there is no mention of the PGA on the Manito scorecard. No shirts with "Manito, site of the PGA Championship" on them.

"People don't care much about history," said Manito pro emeritus, James Shriver, who did what he could to keep the past alive and give his club a tradition. He had Nelson sign a Manito scorecard, which Shriver framed.

Those were the salad days of Northwest golf - the PGA at Manito in 1944, Nelson shooting a record 259 at Broadmoor in Seattle in 1945, Ben Hogan winning the PGA at Portland Golf Club in 1946, the first U.S. Women's Open at Spokane Country Club in 1946 and the Ryder Cup coming to Portland in 1947.

Shriver, a pro at Indian Canyon, a great public layout in Spokane, and Manito, attended the 1944 PGA. He was overwhelmed by the ability of Nelson, who was under par every day. The next year Nelson would win nine straight tournaments.

But his memory is filled most with the antics of Hamilton, a surprisingly brash and confident player whom golf writers sparingly compared to Walter Hagen. Newspaper reports I read had only adulation for Hamilton and mild criticism for Nelson and his failure to make short putts when needed.

Afterward, Nelson, who had won the PGA only once despite making it to the match-play final four times, said he ought to consider quitting the game.

"What I remember," said Shriver, 79, "was Hamilton's unsportsmanlike conduct. He would clear his throat just as Byron was about to putt. He was continually jingling coins in his pocket. At one point, he was reminded by a PGA official of the role of sportsmanship in the game.

"Byron was too much a gentleman to say anything, but I knew it wasn't right."

This year, Nelson admitted he lost concentration in the face of Hamilton's tactics.

"He knew what he was doing," Nelson said in May at the Byron Nelson Classic in Irving, Texas. "It bothered me. I'm a good enough player I shouldn't have let it, however."

As Shriver understands it, the PGA picked Spokane as the place to end the darkness in golf caused by World War II because sports-minded folks in Spokane - Joe Albi's Spokane Sports Athletic Roundtable - pitched in $20,000 to more than cover the purse of $14,500.

Shriver wasn't sure why the PGA picked Manito over Spokane Country Club, where two years later Patty Berg would win the first Women's Open.

The colonial clubhouse at Manito that was the backdrop to Hamilton's victory is gone, the concession to a developer who wanted the land along the bluff to build expensive homes. The course has been rerouted, a lake added to spice the ninth and 18th holes, and a new clubhouse constructed.

The course sits just above the new city course, The Creek at Qualshan, and just north of the county course, Hangman Valley.

From the back tees, today's course measures 6,378 yards with a rating of 70 and a slope of 123. It isn't mean enough or big enough for today's majors but remains a delightful members course.

While kids splash in the club's pool and members tee off, the PGA Championship is ancient history. Still, vestiges of the 1944 championship remain. Six holes (Nos. 4, 5, 6, 10, 13 and 15) are as they were when Nelson played. They are long, graceful holes, the bordering pines penal for the most errant shots, but nothing like the severity the trees at Sahalee will provide.

"Byron Nelson said the greens at Manito were among the trickiest he's ever played," Shriver said. "And they are still tricky."

Today's course is impeccably maintained and, except for the new lake, a classic Northwest place, as appropriate in 1944 to play championship golf in our part of the world as Sahalee is today.