How Crooked Stick got its name.
Working with Pete and Alice Dye, I just finished writing the history of Crooked Stick Golf Club. Originally a number of other names were devised and considered. This 1964 letter from Eugene S. Pulliam (one of the club's founding members and later, USGA Exec VP) to the other principals discusses the matter:
June 15, 1964
Messrs. Cummings, Dye, Sweeney and Wick:
If I am to act capably as publicity man for our venture, we have to have a name for it. We’ve thrashed around and never made a decision, having more important things to decide. But now is the time to get his settled.
I am listing below some possibilities. Will you please indicate your first and second choices on this letter and mail it back to me? If we have anything approaching a consensus, that will be the name. If not, I guess we’ll have to hold a meeting. (If you have other suggestions, list them and I’ll recirculate this memorandum.)
The “Spring Run Golf Club” is based on a determination by Pete that one of the streams that runs through the property is known as Spring Run. The others, I hope, are more or less self-explanatory. It does seem to me we should pick a name which is distinctive, emphasizes golf and also has something to do with the unusual features of our club. My suggestions are as follows:
The Golf Club of Indianapolis
The Golfer’s Club of Indianapolis
The Spring Run Golf Club
The Creek Club
The Springs Golf Club
The Beech Golf Club
The Burn Club
Others _____________________
Best regards,
ESP
As we now know, none of these stuck; the name Crooked Stick winning out instead. Here's the story (from the book) of how it came to be known as Crooked Stick...
A small booklet, published by the club a decade later, recounts how the club comes by this name:
“According to legend (probably apocryphal), Pete Dye and co-director Bill Wick were ambling through the fields that were the unfinished nine holes of the yet unnamed golf club. Still yet, according to legend, Pete began idly swinging a gnarled stick at some stones on the ground, and the name “Crooked Stick” leaped to the forefront for consideration.”
According to Pete, “While I was banging a stick on the ground, Bill Wick was the one that figured it out!”
Shortly after, Wick writes this essay proposing the club’s name – and observing the significance surrounding the seemingly innocent act:
What’s in a Name?
One of man’s most basic instincts is to pick up a stick. Make no mistake of this! Take a child into the woods and what is the first thing he will do? He will pick up a stick. And when he becomes a man, he will not put away this childish thing.
Without a stick, man is a puny creature. With it, he is superior to the other animals – and all because he learned to pick up a stick!
A stick is a weapon. It is a tool. It is a means of support. It is a companion when we walk alone. It is fuel for the fire that warms us. It is the shelter over our heads. It is a measuring rod. It is the fence that bounds our property. It is a mast on our ships. It is the pole from which our flag flies.
A stick is a plaything. It is a cane, a fishing rod, a vaulting pole, a baseball bat, a billiard cue, a tennis racket – yes, and a golf club.
Sticks are featured in our religion: ‘Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me’: in our folklore: diving rods, magic wands, witches’ broomsticks; in our songs; ‘The Same Old Shillelagh’ and even in our nursery rhymes:
‘There was a crooked man, Who had a crooked stick.’
It was just such a stick that we picked up one day while walking through a field on the site of our golf course: gnarled, knobby and crooked. As we absently swung it at a stone, it occurred to us that the game of golf must have had its informal beginnings just that way, more than eight centuries ago: with a boy and a shepherd’s crook and a stone and the smell of the open field.
And suddenly, we had a name for our Club! Gentlemen, may we propose CROOKED STICK GOLF CLUB!”
By April 8, 1965, shortly before the official opening of the back nine, members officially ratify Wick’s suggestion. Pete and Alice’s newborn has its name!
The book about Crooked Stick (entitled "Love at First Site -- Pete & Alice Dye's Crooked Stick Golf Club") is at the publisher and will be released mid-July...just in time for the U.S. Senior Open at Crooked Stick. I just saw the proofs of the first 75 pages yesterday. At this point, it's looking like 200+ pages and 200+ illustrations. I'll let folks know how to get a copy if you're interested.