I write a column for our club's newsletter (Trenton Country Club, New Jersey, USA) on the golf course (history, architecture, etc), and I decided in a recent newsletter to do a playing interview with the golf pro emeritus, Dennis Milne.
A contemporary of his at a different club, Pete Trenham, wrote a great piece on him a few years ago. I had a chance to play with him (awesome guy) and he shared the piece with me. I think its great so I've posted below to share. They just don't make them like these guys anymore!
(Circa 2008)
************
Later this year Dennis Reid Milne will retire as the golf professional at the Trenton Country Club. Dennis’s father, George Reid Milne, took over as the professional at Trenton CC in 1941 and Dennis succeeded him as the pro so this will be the end of an era that featured Milnes at Trenton CC for 65 years. Trenton CC is located within the boundaries of the New Jersey Section PGA but the club is a member of the Golf Association of Philadelphia. Thus, the New Jersey PGA allows the Trenton golf professionals to be a member of the Philadelphia PGA
There have been Milne golf professionals in New Jersey since the early 1900s. Alexander M. Milne arrived in the states from Aberdeen, Scotland in the late 1800s. He was employed as a golf professional in New England and then he was a partner in the Kroydon Golf Company in Newark before becoming a head professional in New Jersey. At one point Milne designed greens for A.W. Tillinghast. Tillinghast would describe what he wanted and Milne would create a mold of the green out of clay. The shapers would then use the mold to build the green.
In the early 1920s a local dentist, Dr. William Lowell, asked Alex Milne to test a new golf gadget. The gadget was a golf tee. Lowell’s tee that Milne tested was made from gutta-percha, which the dentists used to make false teeth. When Milne drove a ball from the tee it disintegrated with the first swing and Milne told Lowell that the tee had to last more than one shot. Dr. Lowell then made some tees of white birch wood and the game was changed once more. Before that the golfers had teed their golf balls on little mounds of damp sand. Others had made versions of a tee but no one had tried to promote them. Lowell’s tee was not an instant success. It wasn’t until Lowell invested $1,500 in a 1924 Walter Hagen-Joe Kirkwood exhibition tour that the wooden tee became accepted. Hagen and Kirkwood were paid to use the tees and not pick them up, leaving the tees for the spectators to pick up. Hagen said that there was such a mad scramble among the spectators for the tees that the teeing areas had to be roped off to maintain order.
Alex Milne fathered three sons (Alex, Jr., Kenneth and George) who all became golf professionals also. Alex, Jr. wound up in LaGrange, Georgia as the golf professional at the Highland Country Club. George and Ken remained in northern New Jersey as golf pros until moving to the Philadelphia Section. Ken spent over twenty years as the pro at Northampton Country Club and the Hanover Country Club.
Dennis grew up playing golf at Trenton CC under his father’s tutelage until he left for college. He attended Wake Forest University where he played on the golf team and graduated in 1965. He turned pro in 1966 and joined his father at Trenton. That made it a complete Milne staff at Trenton as Dennis’s mother managed the pro shop. George and Dennis gave the golf lessons and oversaw the golf programs. (In later years Dennis’s wife Bobbi and then their daughter Tracy managed the pro shop.) In 1973 George retired to the role of pro emeritus and Dennis replaced him as the head professional.
Dennis’s career has been defined by his playing record and his passion for teaching the game. As a player he was usually near the top of the Section’s tournaments. Twice he finished second in the New Jersey Open and he won the Philadelphia Section Senior Championship. Dennis qualified for the PGA Club Professional Championship nine times and he was a member of eight Challenge Cup Teams.
Dennis has spent countless hours on the lesson tee giving thousands of golf lessons but his pride and joy are the juniors. Each year his junior program gives 125 plus boys and girls an opportunity to learn the game. More than 60 of his junior golfers have earned college golf scholarships. In 1992 Golf Digest selected the Trenton CC junior golf program #1 in the United States.
The Milne dynasty might have continued but Dennis’s son Andrew, who was already a nice player before his teens, died from injuries suffered in a skateboard accident. For many years the members at Trenton CC have been raising money for the Andrew Milne Scholarship Fund. The scholarship fund, which goes to aid a member of the Wake Forest golf team each year, now totals $360,000. As a result of that scholarship the Milne name will continue to be a part of the game of golf, as it should be.