It’s still a couple of months until the opening of the Longshore golf course.
But the other day, alert “06880” reader Phil Bancroft spotted an interesting item on an online auction site: A score card for that very course, signed by Babe Ruth.
Nearly 7 years ago, I wrote about that week in 1946 the Bambino spent at the River Lane home of Dr. Vito Caselnova, a longtime friend. The doctor was chairman of the golf committee at Longshore, at the time a private club.
Ruth played on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon with Caselnova; Ruth’s physician Dr. George Irwin; Norwalk police commissioner Thomas Murphy, and club pro George Buck. The Sultan of Swat shot a 79, highlighted by a 35-foot eagle putt on the 12th hole.
Babe Ruth at Longshore. (Photo courtesy of Norwalk Hour)
The next day, Hour sports editor Williard Williams wrote that Ruth “did not dub a shot. His drive was good, his approach shots excellent, and his putting almost perfect.
“In between his golf, he shook hands with scores of persons introduced to him on the course and took care of autographs for the youngsters who swarmed all over him. The Babe was as gracious as ever and seemed to enjoy it all.”
Ruth played several more times at Longshore that week. His partners included US Senator Brien McMahon.
Babe Ruth autographs a baseball for George “Nookie” Powers. Powers’ fiancee looks on.
Ruth also visited Norwalk Hospital, where he met Westport firefighters injured in a horrific Post Road truck blaze. He signed baseballs for — among others — brothers Nookie and Chick Powers. Both had been legendary athletes at Staples.
Just 2 years later, Ruth was dead from cancer. It started in his throat, and moved to his brain.
Caselnova’s son, Vito Jr., told Albano:
When he stayed with us he used to complain about headaches. He would come downstairs in the morning, go right to the refrigerator, and pull out a can of beer. Not to drink it, but to rub the cold can over his head. He said it made him feel better.
He said he was going to come back next year, but he never made it. He said he was going to bring another player with him, a guy named Joe DiMaggio.
Bancroft remembered all that. But he was fascinated by something more: the score card itself.
The hole numbers, distances and pars were different from today’s course. He was confused too by some of the rules.
So Bancroft went sleuthing. Comparing a 1934 aerial view (below) with one from 1965, he determined that although none of the yardages are the same, identifying the par 3s and par 5s seems to fit — if today’s 17th hole is made into the original hole number 1, and today’s 16th is the original 18th.
A1934 aerial photo. Longshore is at the center; Compo Beach at the bottom of the image.
He adds, “Rules regarding balls on the then 2nd and 3rd holes have similar rules to today’s 18th and 1st. And the roads mentioned related to then holes 13 and 17 would be today’s 11th and 15th holes.”
Bancroft concludes that when Babe Ruth played Longshore, the road ran to the left of today’s 11th hole. Today it runs down the right hand side. Today’s 11th and 12th holes would have been “oceanfront,” with 12 having an “over-ocean tee shot at high tide, and mud at low tide.”
Fore!
The holes that Babe Ruth played.
