Some special memories of the late USGA president Sandy Tatum (from GolfWeek.com) By: Geoff Shackelford | June 23, 2017
Sandy Tatum was the kind of person who would leave a voice mail you could not delete. The voice, the gravitas, the command of English and his love for golf was uncanny. The Stanfordian, lawyer, USGA president and, later in life, advocate for public golf, could always be counted on to return a call in short time. No matter how busy with work duties–even well into his 90s–Tatum was actively involved in the game in meaningful ways. I treasured talking golf distance issues, television contract dynamics and of course, golf architecture with a man who grew up playing Los Angeles courses when Howard Hughes was flirting at Wilshire with Katharine Hepburn.
Here is just a snippet from Ron Kroichick in the San Francisco Chronicle, which addresses many elements of Sandy’s life, though 1974 at Winged Foot inevitably is near the top:
Asked about ringing criticism of daunting course conditions at that ’74 Open and asked if the USGA was trying to embarrass the best golfers in the world, ( Johnny Miller’ had shot a closing 63 the year before at Oakmont) . The result was the so called “Massacre at Winged Foot . Hale Irwin won with a seven OVER par 287. Mr. Tatum succinctly offered one of the most memorable quotes in golf history.
“We are not trying to humiliate the best golfers in the world,” he said, in a line repeated often since then. “We are simply trying to identify who they are.”