The Great Survivor

The Depression tested (but never beat) Long Islander Jerry Travers, America's top amateur a century ago

hEADY TIMES: A young man of privilege who learned the game on his father's estate, Travers won the 1915 U.S. Open at Baltusrol (above) after taking four U.S. Amateur titles.

By Mike Cullity

Photo Courtesy of USGA

June 15, 2009

Peering into the scrubby woods bordering the fourth hole at Baltusrol GC's Upper Course, one can discern the remains of an old elevated tee. On June 18, 1915, Jerry Travers scaled this modest ledge with a chance to win the U.S. Open. Leading after three rounds, the nation's most accomplished amateur stood on Baltusrol's old 10th tee in the last round, figuring a back-nine 39 would give him the title.

Although a dominant match player, Travers had never contended in the Open because of a prominent Achilles' heel: erratic driving. Consequently, he eyed Baltusrol's treacherous "island hole"—a drive-and-pitch test to a green surrounded by a moat—wielding a driving iron.

Seeking control, Travers sliced his tee shot out-of- bounds. After he re-teed, his second effort dove left into tall grass 175 yards from the hole. Lying two in the deep stuff—the out-of-bounds penalty in 1915 was distance only —his title prospects looked grim.

But Travers wasn't a player to be counted out. Apt to deflate match-play opponents with miraculous recoveries, Travers pulled out his jigger and launched a high-arcing salvo that cleared the moat before settling a yard from the flagstick. After making a 4, Travers birdied the 15th, posted a back-nine 37 and won the championship by a stroke. He later called his third shot at 10 "the greatest I have ever made in all my golfing career."

As a boy, Travers swatted gutta perchas on the back lawn of his father's sprawling estate in Oyster Bay, N.Y., a wealthy enclave on Long Island's Gold Coast not far from the land that would become Bethpage Black. Before Francis Ouimet won the 1913 Open, Travers won four U.S. Amateurs; inspired by Ouimet's victory, he became the second amateur to win the U.S. Open.

After his crowning triumph Travers abandoned national competition for a budding Wall Street career. But after prospering in the 1920s, he met misfortune following the 1929 stock-market crash. During the Great Depression, middle-aged Travers turned pro but couldn't earn a living; his family bounced from New Jersey to Manhattan to a modest Connecticut farm, worlds away from tony Oyster Bay. Although he later regained respectability, Travers died having suffered terribly in the wake of our nation's greatest economic calamity.

Photo: Courtesy of baltusrol

Jerome Dunstan Travers was born in New York on May 19, 1887. His father, Vincent Paul Travers, was president of Standard Rope and Twine Co. and treasurer of Travers Brothers Co., a maker of cordage products. Owner of an Oyster Bay estate, Vincent knew Theodore Roosevelt, whose nearby Sagamore Hill estate would serve as the summer White House during his 1901-09 presidency. With his wife, Catherine, Vincent had five children; born on the feast of St. Dunstan, Jerry was the youngest of three Travers sons.

Jerry's back-lawn experimentation started in 1896 after one of his brothers gave him a mid-iron and some gutties. For the next three summers he played incessantly on a makeshift three-hole course he devised on the estate's front lawn. As a teen he honed his skills at Oyster Bay GC and later at Nassau CC, where he was taught by Alex Smith, the club's Scottish professional who later won two U.S. Opens.

In 1904 Travers was just 17 when he upset reigning British Amateur champion Walter J. Travis at the Nassau Invitational. Travers and Travis, a 42-year-old Australian immigrant dubbed "The Old Man," would trade victories for the next decade in what would become American golf's first great rivalry. Travers won the U.S. Amateur in 1907, 1908, 1912 and 1913, twice defeating Travis en route to winning. He captured five Metropolitan Amateurs, four New Jersey Amateurs and several other titles, establishing himself as the country's top amateur.

Standing 5-foot-7 and weighing 135 pounds, Travers held his woods with a baseball grip, his thumbs positioned between his index and middle fingers. When playing irons, he repositioned his right thumb so that its nail dug into the top of the shaft. Despite his driving troubles, he was precise with his irons and deadly with his center-shafted Schenectady putter.