Harry Obitz is yet another legend with Red Cloud connections. His is a story that needs to be better told, but we pieced together a few items that we feel capture his spirit and importance to the world of golf and the Red Cloud community. June/July seems to be the perfect time to talk about Harry as the golf course he designed just a few miles outside of Red Cloud is more popular than ever and hosting an array of tournaments this season. Harry may have only been a part-time resident of Red Cloud, but his legend will live on here forever. We think it's time someone told Harry's story in more detail, don't you?
For now here's a brief bio of Harry from Trenham Golf History, a website that chronicles the importance of the Philadelphia Section of the Professional Golf Association (PGA):
Harry “Jake” Obitz, Jr.
Harry Obitz was born in California in 1913. He held head pro positions in California and was a vice president of the PGA before moving to the Philadelphia Section in 1940. Obitz came to the Section as the assistant to Joe Kirkwood, Sr. at the Huntingdon Valley Country Club. He spent the war years in the navy and soon after that he became the pro at the Shawnee Inn & Country Club in the Poconos.
One rainy day in 1945 at Shawnee there were about 250 guests in the hotel with nothing to do. To keep them entertained Obitz gathered them into the lounge and demonstrated golf shots off the carpet by hitting celluloid balls. The clinic was so well received that they decided to make it a regular show. The clinic was staged on the driving range as a regular 90 minute show on Sundays and took on the name 'The Swing is the Thing”' Obitz soon began receiving requests to take the show to other sites. He quite often donated his fee to charity.
In 1955 Obitz was selected as the Philadelphia Section’s first “Professional Golfer of the Year”. He was selected for ten years of service developing Swing Clubs at veteran’s hospitals throughout the country. Obitz hosted the Section Championship at Shawnee for seven straight years. In 1977 he and his associate professional, Dick Farley, wrote an instruction book called Six Days to Better Golf.
For 36 years he was an instruction editor for Golf Digest magazine. He spent the winters in his wife’s home state, Nebraska, and helped design a number of golf courses there. He could be called the father of the “shotgun start”. At Shawnee he devised a way to start players off several tees and within 40 minutes he had 144 players on the golf course. A number of assistants who worked under Obitz became successful head professionals in the Philadelphia Section. In 2014 Obitz was inducted into the Philadelphia PGA Hall of Fame."
From "The First Guru":
Within a few minutes he had attracted a crowd and I was very impressed when he walked over to Gary Player who was making his 100 putts from 2.5 feet (this really was his confidence drill). Harry bent over, adjusted Gary’s putter shaft, said something and then returned to the side of the green. I asked him how long he had been helping Player and his answer was so ahead of his time.
“Pal-O-Mine” he said, “Let me tell you something. I’ve never taught Gary anything, he’s self taught. What I was doing was a photo op for the paper guy, and myself. The picture will be on my wall at Shawnee by next Monday.”
Credits:
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