Post #490, 30 Aug. 2018
Jim Burke and Harold “Catfish” Kneece
Classmate John Kenefik alerted me to an article that appeared in the August
2018 issue of the Chicago District Golfer.
Jim Burke, a caddie in the 1963
Western Open golf tournament, had a reunion with his pro golfer Harold “Catfish”
Kneece. Jim took the initiative to contact Catfish and meet him at his home in
Naples, Florida this past March. Below is the story as it appeared in the
magazine:
Click on the photo
to see a larger image.
I called Jim to speak with him about his
recollections of the 1963 Western Open. Here is what he had to say:
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I grew up in an area on the south side of
Chicago called South Shore. My father belonged to the neighborhood golf
course––all nine holes of it. The club would not allow the children of members
to caddie. Dad had previously belonged to the Beverly Country Club, located
eight miles west of the South Shore Country Club, and knew the caddie master at
Beverly. That is how I ended up caddying there for three summers in high
school.
I did not caddie every day because it was
not an easy commute from home to the Beverly CC. I had to take the bus or
hitchhike my way to the course. I probably carried a bag two or three times a
week. Caddies earned points for how frequently they showed up at the caddy
shack and how often they carried bags. I was definitely not one of the top
point earners. The standard fee for golfers to pay their caddies was $2.50 for
a round before a tip of a dollar or two. During my three years caddying there,
I made a lot of friends––some guys I am still friends with to this day.
The PGA’s Western Open was played at
Beverly Country Club on the last weekend of July in 1963. At that time, the
Western was rotated among several country clubs in the Chicago area beginning
in 1962. The Western, today the second oldest tournament in the U.S., was
considered one of the more important tournaments in the 1960s––the “fifth
major.” Today, it is known as the BMW Championship.
In those days, the golfers did not have
dedicated caddies. They relied on the host club to supply a roster of caddies
to carry their bags. When the Western Open came to our club, the caddies with
the most points were assigned to the big-name players of the day like Arnold
Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Julius Boros, etc. I was one of the caddies on the low
end of the totem pole and was assigned to a journey-man golfer named Harold
“Catfish” Kneece.
The golfers in the 1960s were not like the
polished professionals of today. Most of them were only high school graduates
at best, as was Catfish. He was a crusty guy who came from south of the
Mason-Dixon line and had a twangy southern accent. Those guys were not
interested in chatting with their caddy and were very serious about the game.
They were trying to earn a buck by beating the other guy; every stroke was
money to them. He drove from tournament to tournament in his Thunderbird and
stayed with friends in the area whenever he could. He told me it took him five
days to drive out to California for tournaments out there. It was a
hard-scrabble life, not at all cushy like many of today’s professionals.
I carried Catfish’s bag for six days: two
practice rounds and four days of the tournament plus shagging practice balls
before and after each round. The total purse for the tournament in 1963 was
about $100,000. Palmer earned $11,000 for winning. A caddy could expect to earn
five percent of a pro’s winnings. All the caddies knew what their player earned
because all the winnings were listed at the end of the tournament. Catfish
earned about $2,000 at the ’63 Western, so I was expecting him to pay me $100.
He only gave me sixty dollars––ten dollars each day––and I was quite bummed out
about it. A friend of my father’s drove me home and I told him what happened.
He said, “Don’t worry about it, Jimmy. You would have carried his bag for
nothing. It was a great experience.” He was right about that and I got over it
soon enough.
The best part of the weekend was the Sunday
round. Catfish was in a three-some with Jack Nicklaus in one of the final
groups. Nicklaus was a chubby-faced phenom at the time who won the U.S. Open in
1962 and the Masters the previous April. It was clear he was an up-and-comer
and a force to be reckoned with. The golfers played with balata balls back then
that whistled when the pros hit them. Most of them hit low shots that rose like
stairsteps. Nicklaus hit a ball with a high trajectory, which I had never seen.
He was beginning to play chess when the other golfers were playing checkers.
Jack Nicklaus at the 1963 Masters
Jack’s wife of three years, Barbara, walked
along with Jack inside the ropes during that round. What struck me was Jack and
Barbara were so polite. After the Sunday round, the three golfers and their
caddies, including me, sat on the terrace; I sat next to Jack. All kinds of
people tried to speak with Jack. He was still very polite with everyone. I will
never forget how pleasant of a man he was.
When I went down to visit Catfish this past
March, we went out to lunch. I offered to pick up the tab, but he said, “Oh no.
I will take care of this. I probably underpaid you after the tournament.” I
never told him about my reaction to sixty dollars he paid me. It was a fun
encounter.
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Thanks, Jim, for a great story.
James P. Burke III
Chicago, Illinois
A.B., Economics
Related
Blog Stories:
* Yearbook Photos
of Six ’69 Domers Who Graduated from Chicago’s Mount Carmel High School in 1965
(link)
* Index to the University of Notre Dame
Class of 1969 Blog (link)
Photo
Credits
* Jack Nicklaus at the 1963 Masters
Tournament (link)
* James P. Burke III: 1969 Dome, p. 265.
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