Stanwich pro Farrell was golf’s great teacher, family man
Billy Farrell, longtime resident of Greenwich, longtime head professional at The Stanwich Club and one of the longest hitters anywhere, died Friday in Jupiter, Fla., from complications of COVID-19.
Yet even Billy’s driver and his 84 years cannot cover the length of the Farrell family golf story. For their love affair with the sport, their accomplishments on the course, their mission to teach the game, began before Billy was born on Aug. 3, 1935, and shows no signs of ending. The Farrells pass the torch.
“My dad was quite the golfer, quite the competitor,” said Bobby Farrell, the head golf pro at Tamarack Country Club in Greenwich the past 18 years. “But a big part of him that people didn’t really see was how big his heart was and what a family man he was.”
Billy — whose own dad, Johnny, won 22 PGA Tour events, including the 1928 U.S. Open — was a husband to Alvera, a father to seven … Billy Jr., Tommy, Bobby, Ricky (who passed), Cathy, Marybeth and Susan. He was a grandfather to 18. With the Farrell family, who emigrated from Ireland shortly before Johnny was born in 1901, it’s impossible to know where to start and where to end. We’ll just start in 1962.
“I was born on a Friday the 13th and my father delivered me at home in New Jersey,” Bobby said. “It was golf from birth. He’d grab me and my three brothers, throw us in the back of the car and we’d go up and caddy at Stanwich. We also were members. I was on the swim team. I was brought up through the ranks. I worked for my dad for 25 years.
“People ask what it’s like working every weekend. I don’t know anything different. Getting up and smelling the grass every morning. It’s not work. The relationships I have with members of both Stanwich and Tamarack — two of the best courses in Connecticut — I’m as lucky as any human can get.”
They called Billy “The Springfield Rifle.” He was born in Springfield, N.J., near Baltusrol, and he could hit a golf ball …
“So long you couldn’t imagine,” Bobby said. “He could hit a 1-iron sometimes closer (to the pin) than he could a wedge. That was his downfall.”
Billy enjoyed telling the story of playing in some tournament with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.
“My dad rips one way out there,” Bobby said. “Arnie turns to Jack and says, ‘Let’s see you go get
that one.’ Jack couldn’t reach him.
“Mike Gilmore, now the head pro at Winged Foot (mentored by Billy) couldn’t believe how long he was even into his 50s. We were young and long and my dad would still outdrive us.”
There was the June day in 1993. It was widely reported that John Daly had become the first player to reach the longest hole in U.S. Open history, the 17th at Baltusrol, in two shots. Pretty big stuff in the golf world. That’s when Sid Dorfman of the Newark Star-Ledger remembered Billy Farrell had done it at the 1967 Open.
“Channel 12 showed up, all these people showed up at Stanwich, wanting to talk to Billy,” Bobby said.
The Stanwich head pro from 1963 to 2000, Billy won the 1964 Met PGA Championship, won a bunch of area events. Still, his highlight was qualifying for eight U.S. Opens and seven PGA Championships. He finished 23rd in the U.S. Open and 11th in the PGA in 1967. He had four top-25 major finishes.
“In the ’60s, my dad played the winter tour, the California swing, the Florida swing, right up until before the Masters when he came back to work,” Bobby said. “He’d be gone all winter. He never played the Masters or the British Open. It was in his (Stanwich) contract that he had to be at the member-guest. That was always in July. So no British.”
Johnny taught. Billy taught. Bobby teaches. That’s what the Farrells do.
“My dad played with President Clinton,” Bobby said, “taught anybody and everybody.”
Still, it was Johnny — the son of an Ossining, N.Y., milkman and later nicknamed “The Gentleman” and “Handsome Johnny” — who had the highest-profile list of golf pupils maybe ever. The Duke of Windsor, Ike, JFK, Nixon, Ford, Mussolini and on and on. Johnny golfed with Ed Sullivan, Joe DiMaggio, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Babe Ruth.
“I have pictures all over my shop with him playing with Babe Ruth,” Bobby said. “They were buddies. I used to say to Grandpa, ‘How come you didn’t get Babe’s autograph?’ He goes, ‘He never asked for mine.’ ”
Johnny won a legendary 36-hole playoff over Bobby Jones — essentially beating Tiger Woods in his prime — at the 1928 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields. In 1927, he won eight events in a row. In 1929, he was second at the British and PGA. He was 6-1-1 in three Ryder Cups. Named Player of the Year in 1927 and ’28, Johnny also was selected “Best Dressed Golfer” in 1928 by Wanamaker.
He dated Fay Wray of “King Kong” fame for a time before, the story goes, he purposely chipped a ball in the direction of a beautiful young woman during an exhibition with Gene Sarazen at the Innis Arden Club in Old Greenwich. He apologized to Kay Hush, the daughter of a wealthy engineer, and, yes, they would be married for 56 years.
They socialized with Jack Dempsey, Douglas Fairbanks and George Gershwin. According to The New York Times, Ruth once gave Kay a jade necklace and Gershwin played “Rhapsody in Blue” for her.
Later, DiMaggio was a guest on Johnny’s show, “Golf Time,” the first show of its kind on television. All live, so there’s no tape, Bobby explained. Years earlier, Johnny did instruction video with Kay as his student.
After serving as golf pro at Quaker Ridge in Scarsdale, N.Y., Johnny would settle in as the golf pro at Baltusrol for 38 years and later at the Country Club of Florida, where he lived next to the 13th hole. Johnny, who helped start women’s and junior programs and wrote three golf instruction books, died in 1988 at 87. When Kay passed in 1997, The New York Times called her “Glamorous Socialite of Golf” in the headline.
“My grandfather was really the pioneer in teaching,” Bobby said. “He was the Butch Harmon of his day. Teaching is a huge part of my family. My father was the same way. In the early 1990s we were the first club really that had that indoor teaching facilities.
“Everything in our family is ingrained through golf. Father’s Day, it’s go to work, cross our books off in the afternoon and go watch the U.S. Open.”
It’s no surprise the Farrells were selected Golf Family of the Year in 1966 by the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association. All of Billy’s children played. Sue is still in the golf business as a merchandise manager in Colorado.
It would have been terrific if Johnny, selected to the PGA Hall of Fame in 1961, had been elected to the World Golf of Fame before Billy passed. That didn’t happen. Among the male golfers, he was on the ballot this year with Tiger.
“We were pushing hard,” Bobby said. “He belongs, without a doubt.”
After Billy retired in 2000, he and Alvera would spend six months in Florida and six in Connecticut. He had his knees replaced. He was doing great until he had a stent put in and he developed a major staph infection. He was hospitalized for more than a year.
“I remember the doctors saying this is the worst case of staph where someone actually lived,” Bobby said.
Physically, the last handful of years weren’t easy.
“We talked every day,” Bobby said. “I’d call him after every greens committee meeting, every golf committee meeting. He loved that stuff.”
With Billy in assisted living in Tequesta and Alvera living nearby, Bobby was able to spend time in Florida with his dad over the winter. That was a blessing.
With COVID-19, however, came confinement and meals in his room.
“He had pretty severe acid reflux and they decided to get him to the hospital,” Bobby said. “He did have a little congestion going on. They put him in the COVID ward. They gave him the test and it came back negative. After three days in the ward, they took him out. We were making plans to do all the things to take care of the acid reflux issue. Within three, four more days he went completely downhill. He tested for positive.”
The COVID was too much to overcome.
“He was my father, my best friend, my teacher, my everything,” Bobby said. “I look at it like my dad is in a better place, sitting up there with Johnny. When the COVID clears, there’ll be a big shindig at Stanwich in the fall — they’ve already stepped forward. We’ll celebrate his life. We’ll tell all the stories.”
The Farrell torch will be passed and it will be held high.