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April 28, 2005Hagen felt 'at home' in TCLegendary golfer 'perfectly happy' at Long Lake homeByRecord-Eagle staff writer  Special to the Record-Eagle "Sir Walter," written by Tom Clavin, has two chapters devoted to the time he spent in Traverse City. What he found was that the legendary golfer may have felt the most "at home" in Traverse City, spending the final years of his life in near seclusion on the shores of Long Lake. Clavin, author of the recently-released biography "Sir Walter: Walter Hagen and the Invention of Professional Golf," said Wednesday that Hagen was satisfied to "hunt and fish and make an occasional appearance." He said Hagen rarely flaunted his world-renowned status - unless it scored him a free beverage or two at the Little Bohemian Bar, now known as Little Bo's. "He was perfectly happy (in Traverse City)," Clavin said of Hagen, who died of cancer on Oct. 6, 1969. "He had his companion, Doris Brandes. He had his friends, Joe Peck and Carlton and Shelby Plyler. He lived in beautiful surroundings. "He was content." Clavin, a former New York Times reporter and author of six other books, became interested in Hagen while writing "The Ryder Cup: Golf's Greatest Event," which was released in 1999. Hagen and Samuel Ryder co-founded the semi-annual Ryder Cup tournament between the best golfers in America and England. The event now pits the best of the U.S. and Europe. "I wanted to know more about Walter, and I just assumed that there were a lot of books out there," Clavin said. "But the only one I found was Walter's autobiography." That book, "The Walter Hagen Story," which was published in 1956, left a little to be desired. "At best, it's 50 percent accurate," Clavin said. "There are a lot of tall tales in there." As Clavin explains in his own book on Hagen, the flamboyant golfer signed a contract with Simon and Schuster two years before pen was put to paper. Hagen himself never really wrote a word. After several newspaper reporters tried to work with Hagen but quit out of frustration, Hagen was put in touch with a local writer named Margaret Seaton Heck. "Hagen would pour himself a drink, light a cigarette and start telling stories," Clavin said. "(Heck) recorded everything. There was no fact checking. "There's an old saying, 'If you're not sure whether to print the fact or the legend, go with the legend.' So that's what she did." That decision seemed appropriate for the man whose name carried as much weight with sports fans of the 1910s and '20s as Babe Ruth and Jack Dempsey. It took another two years before Heck had enough material to finish the book. As Clavin recalls in his book, Heck described Hagen as "a wonderful and hospitable host." "The Haig likes to dine shortly before midnight on a thick steak and chef salad," Heck wrote. "And one sunny afternoon in the summer he cut a pretty fancy Charleston on the boardwalk near his boat dock. Football and baseball on the television broke up many an afternoon of our collaboration. He is greatly interested in promising young golfers coming up and always ready to give of his experience and skill to help them along." Although Hagen wasn't big on public appearances later in his life, he made himself available to the locals. One afternoon, a woman knocked on Hagen's door and asked for a golf lesson. He brought out a bucket of balls, had her hit them into the lake and then offered some suggestions. The woman returned several days later, loaf of bread in hand, announcing she had won her local club tournament. When Clavin, 50, began work on his book, he knew his biggest task would be trying to separate fact from fiction. As Gene Sarazen, another golf legend, once told him, "Walter Hagen has been swallowed up by the myths of time." Even more troublesome for Clavin was that Hagen had only one child, Walter Jr., and only one grandchild, Walter III, and neither was alive. Walter III was 15 when he was accidentally shot and killed by a friend in 1963. Walter Jr. passed away in 1982 at the age of 64. With no close relatives available, Clavin went looking for anything personal that Hagen might have written. He found only "two half-written letters" in the United States Golf Association library. "The only thing Hagen wrote," Clavin joked, "was his signature on a bar tab." Hagen, known as much for his robust personality as his skills as a professional golfer, grew up in Rochester, N.Y., when golf "pros" were treated as second-class citizens, making and repairing golf clubs for wealthy country club members in addition to giving lessons. There was no professional tour then. Hagen changed all that by taking his show on the road after winning the 1914 U.S. Open at the age of 21. He was the first American to win the British Open. He won 11 major championships - still second all-time behind Jack Nicklaus (18), despite the fact that the first Masters tournament was held in 1934, five years after Hagen's last major victory. But it was his personality that made him a favorite of sports fans around the world. He called women "My dear" or "Sugar" because he had difficulty remembering names. Men were "Junior" or "Kid" or "Buddy." He chatted up the galleries during tournaments and enjoyed talking with the press. He made more than a million dollars as a professional player - an extraordinary amount for the time - and had a good time spending it. In fact, his most famous quote was, "I never wanted to be a millionaire. I just wanted to live like one." "If Walter Hagen was playing today he'd make Tiger Woods look like Dick Cheney," Clavin said. "He would really shake things up. No doubt he would be the most popular player." Hagen spent his final days battling throat cancer, the result of years of heavy smoking. He rarely made public appearances, but he relented when his friends in Traverse City held a star-studded tribute at the TC Golf & Country Club on Aug. 14, 1967. Even a young Arnold Palmer flew in to give The Haig his due. When Hagen finally succumbed to the disease, he was two months shy of his 75th birthday. The tributes poured in once again. New York Times writer Arthur Daley called Hagen "the most important single figure ever to swing a golf club." Clavin would be hard-pressed to disagree.
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