www.teetimespaper.com
April 2016
TEE TIMES
3
Parker loves to tell golf’s stories, and he’s got a lot of them By Gregg Dewalt Tee Times Editor When Dr. Tony Parker walks into his workplace at the World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum each day, he never is quite sure what the day will bring. A self-proclaimed golf freak, Parker is the keeper of the castle. Since 2014 he’s the WGHOF’s historian and perhaps the world’s top authority on the history of the game. He’s also like a kid in a candy shop -- so much history to detail, so much more to uncover. He’s a storyteller, a curator and a fan. He’s got, possibly, the best job in the golf industry. Every day has the potential to be Christmas when Parker answers the phone, receives an email or gets a visitor. And, he loves every minute of it. “There is a story behind every artifact in the museum, and we have 35,000 feet of exhibition space,” Parker said. “That’s a lot of stories.” And Parker loves to tell them. Like the one about the woman who contacted him after finding a caddie’s bib while cleaning out some of her father’s items. She told him that her father had caddied in the 1930s and 1940s, including a couple of PGA Championships and the bib had been signed by almost all of the great players of the era, including Walter Hagen and Paul Runyon. “She brought it in and donated it to us,” Parker said. “Paul Runyon – that’s who her dad caddied for, and he won the 1938 PGA Championship. She had no idea whatsoever.
Things like that happen.” Another favorite story is the nongolfer who brought in a Ping putter that he had bought at a yard sale for $5. After authenticating it, turns out the putter was a Ping 1A, one of Karsten Solheim’s original designs made in his garage. “It actually goes ‘Ping,’ ” Parker said. The putter currently is on display along with the Ping 2A, 3A and 4A in Solheim’s locker in the Member Locker display. “Those things happen on a regular basis,” Parker said. Parker recently acquired a golf club and golf ball that were on the International Space Station. Both are 24-carat gold. “Nobody else has that,” he said. “When I talk about golf now, it’s no longer global, it’s intergalactic.” It hasn’t always been about the stories for Parker, who owned a photo studio and lab before becoming the director of the school of American studies at the University of Dundee for 12 years between 1996 and 2008. In 2012, Parker got the first opportunity of a lifetime when he became the curator of golf collections and Levy Golf photographic collection at the St. Andrews University library. There, he helped develop a world-class research center for the study of the history of golf. In 2014, the World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum beckoned and Parker answered the call. Parker was behind a golf exhibit on display at the International Olympic Committee’s
Dr. Tony Parker, Golf Hall of Fame historian in his home office headquarters in Switzerland, and will launch another in Rio de Janeiro celebrating golf in the Olympics ahead of the Summer Games later this year. “We have found some real treasures that haven’t been seen in about 100 years,” he said. One thing Parker can’t do is tell you how much that hickory-shafted driver you found at an estate sale is worth. The World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum is a charity and not allowed to give valuations. But if it is historic and has a story, Parker won’t hesitate asking for you to donate it or lend it to the museum.
“I don’t mind asking if it is something that belongs in the World Golf Hall of Fame and Museum,” he said. Parker isn’t planning on leaving his dream job anytime soon. Why would he? “This is a treasure house,” he said. “There’s no other place in the world like it now, and I get to be the guy. This is not work; it’s pure joy. I played golf with Gary Player last year. I went down to Mark O’Meara’s house. I meet everybody and talk with everybody. John Q, Public doesn’t get to do that. I’ll do this until they carry me out.”
The Slammer & Squire, No. 17