OT: RIP Dick Trickle and Ken Venturi
Michigan fans should be aware of the very important link between the University of Michigan Golf Course and the late great Ken Venturi.
The first-ever USGA Junior Championship was conducted in 1948 on the UMGC. The final match featured Dean Lind of Rockford, IL and Ken Venturi of San Francisco, CA. It was a good match; they were probably the two best junior golfers in America by a wide margin, and Lind defeated Venturi 4-and-2 in the (then) 18-hole final.
It was, I think, the only USGA Championship conducted at UMGC. Venturi impressed everyone, and even though he was the runner up I seem to recall an old yellowed Ann Arbor News article with his picture (not Lind's) after the championship.
A story that is less clear to me is that Dean Lind was promptly offered a Michigan golf scholarship on the spot, and he accepted.
http://www.usga.org/news/2010/December/First-U-S--Junior-Amateur-Champ-Lind-Dies/
Rest in peace, Ken and Dean.
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Ven Venturi (left) and Dean Lind at the University of Michigan Golf Course in 1948.
Thanks for the mention of my dad and Ken Venturi. Yes, my dad did tell of walking off the 18th green after his win and the Michigan coach walking over to him and offering him a full ride scholarship. Dad was all set to attend Northwestern University, but not on a scholarship. So he immediately accepted the deal. He said the coach from Northwestern was pretty miffed at him for not giving him the chance to match the deal that he never talked to him again. Glad he didn't or my dad wouldn't have met and married my mom at U of M! Oh well. I believe it was meant to be. Venturi didn't make out so badly in life either! My grandfather didn't believe being a golf pro was the way to make a living so dad got his mechanical enginieering degree, served in the Marines during the Korean War, and worked in Grandpa's water softening business in Rockford, Illinois. But in his early 30's he built a course in northern Illinois called The Ledges, with a couple other men. He settled down as a club pro and lived his dream of teaching the game, playing on the winter tour in Florida, and later in his 50's competing in pro tournaments in Asia with my mother at his side. Golf provided a great life for them both and it all started at U of M. He was very proud of his accomplishments there. Someday I hope to come to the campus, and see where it all began. GO BLUE!
I always cheered for Dick Trickle. As an estate attorney, I can tell you a 71 year old that dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound found out from his doctors he was in for a hard end from some shitty disease like dementia and took a race car driver's way out instead. 100% chance. god speed.
I can 100% understand and sympathize with his reaction and his decision if that's what it was for Trickle. I've lost close family members to it, and IMHO there is no fate worse than dementia/Alzheimers/decaying brain diseases.
You are not oblivious with Alzheimers. You are cognizant and suffer with the deteriorization evey inch of the way.
Both are horrible illnesses that could make a sane person consider suicide, as is Parkinsons, advanced Diabetes, and a dozen other crappy illnesses.
No need to try to win the Misery Olympics.
I was thinking the same thing. You sometimes here people say that if they get a terrible disease that they just want to be put out of their misery. And some poeple just go ahead and do it.
My grandfather died of Parkinson's, but before he died, he spent about 10 shitty years alive. Hard on him, maybe harder on my grandmother. Had he known what he was really in for, I wouldn't be surprised if he had done the same.
This is the tribute video that Jim Nantz made for Ken Venturi's induction into the World Golf Hall Of Fame this year actually...great video and very appropriate now as it highlights Venturi's career on and off (but really still on) the course.
One thing that I did not know - Venturi had the longest career as a lead analyst of any broadcaster in any sport.
Venturi's 64 US Open win is one for the ages. RIP Ken.
"In a story posted on the Las Vegas Review-Journal's website Thursday night, Chuck Trickle said his brother went to doctors twice a day for pain under his left breast, but they couldn't identify the cause."
"He was very down," Chuck Trickle told the newspaper. "He more or less said he didn't know how much longer he could take the pain."
http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2216269
"He only won this tournament before you were born."
-"Cheech" Marin's character Romeo Posar suggesting that Venturi's analysis of Roy McAvoy's game at the US Open MIGHT be worth listening to in "Tin Cup", the "Slap Shot" of golf movies.