US Am USGA History error

[Mark Mammel]

As club historian for the White Bear Yacht Club, I want to point out the USGA's error in their effort to recognize H.R. "Jimmy" Johnston, the 1929 US Amateur Champion from our club. The fellow in their photo is quite handsome, but is NOT Jimmy Johnston! The JJ photo is from 1929.

[Carl Johnson]

So who is the player on the poster?

[Kevin_Reilly]

Why post here and not notify the USGA?

[Carl Johnson]

Why post here and not notify the USGA?

Although I didn't initiate the post, I'll take a shot at it.


Obviously, this is OT (off topic).  Though not identified as such in the subject line, that should be obvious.  There's lots of OT stuff posted here, just of general interest to many hardcore golf people.  I'd put this in that category.  I see no harm and those who are architecture-only people can ignore the OTs.


Contact the USGA?  Sure, maybe Mark did ask them about it.  That, too, would be an obvious approach if one thought it worthwhile.  On the other hand, I can understand why some might think it not worthwhile.  On items of general interest I've had mixed results with the USGA and our affiliated organization.  I attribute that to small staffs and very busy people operating on a shoestring.

[Kevin_Reilly]

Carl, thanks. 


I am one of the "old guys" on this forum who doesn't care one bit about OT threads, so that wasn't the point of my post.  It was more centered on the fact that if I saw an error like this (and cared enough to do something about it), I would go directly to the source of the error.  As you said, maybe Mark did in fact contact the USGA.


Anyway, no big deal and I hope they identify the golfer in the picture!

[BCrosby]

Thanks for pointing out a possible attribution error.


I have forwarded this thread to Hilary Cronheim and Mike Trostel at the USGA. They will be happy to look into this and make corrections as needed.


Bob

[Matt Schoolfield]

After looking at lots of old photos of US Open and US Am champions, I suspect the photo may be Johnny Goodman, though I'm not 100% confident. However, we can see Goodman in this photo after defeating Bobby Jones in the first round the 1929 US Am: https://i.imgur.com/YPFYvYu.png (source). Perhaps that's where the error came from.

[Sean_A]

After looking at lots of old photos of US Open and US Am champions, I suspect the photo may be Johnny Goodman, though I'm not 100% confident. However, we can see Goodman in this photo after defeating Bobby Jones in the first round the 1929 US Am: https://i.imgur.com/YPFYvYu.png (source). Perhaps that's where the error came from.

I too thought the chap was Johnny Goodman, but I didn't dig deep...just from memory...so could be wrong.

Ciao

[Bret Lawrence]

Considering the champions attire, isn’t it more likely this golfer was from the 1940’s or 1950’s? To me, his attire matches up more with the Ben Hogan era than the Bobby Jones era.  He is wearing what looks to be a v-neck pocketed tee shirt.  It almost looks like a modern day scrub top a nurse would wear.  He is also wearing a fingerless golf glove.  In the pictures I have seen of Johnny Goodman, Goodman appears to be more stout than this fellow. 

[Chris Hughes]

Why post here and not notify the USGA?

Obviously, this is OT (off topic).  Though not identified as such in the subject line, that should be obvious.  There's lots of OT stuff posted here, just of general interest to many hardcore golf people.  I'd put this in that category.  I see no harm and those who are architecture-only people can ignore the OTs.


[Agreed.  Also, it sure appears the battle against "OT" posts -- has been lost.]


On items of general interest I've had mixed results with the USGA and our affiliated organization.  I attribute that to small staffs and very busy people operating on a shoestring.

"Small staffs and operating on a shoestring" very well might describe the Carolinas Golf Association -- but that is definitely not the case with the USGA!!

For perspective, in 2022 the CGA had $7.85M of total revenues and the Executive Director was paid $218K.

In 2022 at the USGA the top-8 execs collected more comp ($8.0M) than the total revenues of the CGA! 

(top-2 collected $4.2M, and 15 collected more than $400K)

Personally I've found the USGA to be very responsive (don't always make sense, but they do pick up the phone and/or return emails!)