Word: sobel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...quite accurate to say that Ross Sobel has been playing pro golf for 49 years without ever winning a tournament. In 1922, he beat Willie MacFarlane for a new suit of clothes in the John David Invitational-a pitch-and-putt tournament that was played in midtown Manhattan on the cutting floor of a men's clothing store. "It wasn't as easy as it sounds," says Sobel. "The greens were trapped with buckets of sand and water, and I had to shoot a 40-ft. hole...
...slender five-footer who parts his hair squarely in the middle a la Rudolph Valentino, Sobel, 74, is one of the oldest and best-known of 5,000-odd U.S. teaching pros, who make their living by selling clubs, balls and assorted haberdashery, and by giving lessons-mostly to amateurs, but often to the big-name stars of the tournament circuit. Arnold Palmer still takes lessons from his dad, a teaching pro at Pennsylvania's Latrobe Country Club, and Jack Nicklaus polishes his game under the watchful eye of Jack Grout at Miami Beach's La Gorce Country...
...Sobel taught Ed ("Porky") Oliver, who won nine pro tournaments between 1940 and 1959, was runner-up in the U.S. Open, the P.G.A. and the Masters. He put the first golf club in Frank Sinatra's hands, tutored Joe Louis, Adlai Stevenson ("Short but straight as a string"), Rocky Marciano, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Eddie Arcaro, and Sophie Tucker ("Anybody with a pair of hands like that...
Tails & Patent Leathers. Sobel's own introduction to golf came at the age of 22, after he had already made something of a name for himself as a ragtime pianist in Europe. Early one morning, after a show at Ciro's in Paris, Ross and some friends set out by car for a tour of the French countryside. As luck would have it, the car ran out of gas alongside a suburban golf course -so Sobel played his first round dressed in tails and patent leather shoes. Within four years he was good enough to attract the attention...
Back in the U.S. in 1920, Sobel took a brief fling at the pro tournament circuit ("I couldn't make a dime"), settled into a succession of club jobs-at Long Island's Valley Stream Country Club, at the Westchester Embassy Club, at Grossinger's in the Catskill Mountains. His students included Steelman Charles M. Schwab ("The lousiest golf swing I ever saw"), and his reputation grew quickly. In 1953, as head pro at Miami's West View Country Club, Ross taught Cleveland Indians Third Baseman Al Rosen the fundamentals of golf. That summer Rosen clouted...