MATCH VS. THE MYSTERIOUS MONTAGUE
ad was involved in a famous match with a notorious and mysterious Lakeside member. His name was LaVerne Moore, though he had taken the name John Montague, or Mysterious Montague, as he came to be known because of his clandestine nature. He was a very good golfer, purportedly one of the best in the country, according to legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice. Montague fell in with the Hollywood crowd, even living for a time with Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy fame. One day, Montague defeated my father in a match at Lakeside. Afterward, in the clubhouse bar, my father complained that he hadn’t been given enough strokes.
“I could beat you with a shovel, a bat and a rake,” Montague replied. “For how much?” Dad asked. “For $5 a hole.” That was how it widely has been report- golfdigestme. com january 2017 ed, but I’ve heard that the bet was for $5,000 a hole, a tidy sum among the well-heeled even today, but more so in those days.
They repaired to the first hole. Montague used a fungo bat off the tee and drove the ball into a bunker. From there, he took a shovel and scooped the ball onto the green about two feet from the hole. He made the putt by using the rake like a pool cue. “I was history,” Dad said. The mystery surrounding Montague turned out to be the questionable past from which he was hiding. A story with photos on Montague, as his legend grew, appeared in Time magazine, piquing the interest of a law-enforcement official who had spent seven years working on a criminal case involving armed robbery and assault in upstate New York. Montague was arrested for the crimes, though later was acquitted of them. KEEPING A SECRET FROM THE DUKE s for Dad’s association with kings (or former kings), one was a golf partner, the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, who had abdicated his throne to marry an American socialite and divorcee, Wallis Simpson. On a visit to Paris one year, Dad teamed with a friend, Ray Graham, in a match with the Duke and Chris Dunphy, the chairman of the greens committee at Seminole Golf Club and one of Dad’s friends. The Duke was notorious for his aversion to wagering any more than a few dollars. So neither Dunphy nor Dad bothered to tell him what the bet was that day. Yet every hole or two, either Dunphy or Dad would holler, “Texas!” Curious, the Duke asked Dunphy why they were always talking about Texas.
“Never mind,” Dunphy said. “I’ll explain later.” He waited until the end of the round to tell him. “Every time Bing or I said ‘Texas,’