A Look Inside Golf’s Most Legendary Museum 👀

We’re going inside the USGA Golf Museum to uncover some of the most amazing and rarest items from American golf history, including some of the most famous golf clubs and other memorabilia in the world.

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USGA Golf Museum ► https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/usga-golf-museum.html

Timecodes:
0:00 – Introduction to the USGA Museum
1:51 – Bob Jones Room at the USGA Museum
2:46 – Ben Hogan Room at the USGA Museum
3:42 – Jack Nicklaus Room at the USGA Museum
5:01 – Arnold Palmer Room at the USGA Museum
6:07 – Mickey Wright Room at the USGA Museum
6:57 – USGA Hall of Champions
9:13 – Chronological History of Golf
11:55 – Inside the Vault at the USGA Museum
15:07 – Importance of the USGA Museum

#golf #golfer #golflife #history #golfing

So the mission of the usj golf Museum and library is to preserve and celebrate the history of golf our goal is to really educate people about the ways in which golf captivates us as humans and putting golf in a social political economic context that’s of relevance to

Them ultimately we want our visitors to find a moment or a story that they can relate to that connects with them in my opinion it’s incredibly important to preserve the history of the sport and it’s one of the things I like to say is that myself and my team we are Museum

Professionals first and golf is our subject matter so we are cultural historians so we are very much in the business of preserving and celebrating these moments to survive long after we’re gone um and golf has many of those amazing moments and our work is really centered around around taking care of

These objects providing connections with our visitors and our Champions and our players to these Great Moments in the game and if we weren’t doing that sort of work here at the USGA no one else would be so it’s extremely important so nice to meet you wel than

For having us I was just saying I we lived in Jersey for a long time I didn’t even know this was here it’s a bucket list item for sure golfers everywhere awesome all right so where do we start let’s get started so you are in the world’s largest and most comprehensive

Collection related to golf in the world we have about 85,000 artifacts in the collection um a library with over 100,000 volumes more than 25 languages 3/4 of a million photographs and about 300,000 hours of film and video footage okay room one room one Bob Jones room so

You were in the Bob Jones room this was the original library in the house you can see it’s got that sort of neat architecture original floors original walls Bob Jones obviously one of the greatest amateurs of all time um sort of retired at the peak of his game in 1930

And here you can see the breadth and the depth of the material that we have related to Jones probably one of the best in the world um we had the benefit of having Jones be on our Museum committee um and he gave the bulk of his memorabilia to us throughout his life so

Some of the highlights that I like to point out is behind you the Stevens portrait you may have seen this uh in Butler cabin this is actually the original painting this is one of um our visitors favorites this is actually a painting that Dwight Eisenhower did MH

Um of the 16th at Augusta yeah and gifted it to Bob Jones so again trying to just show the diverse side of our Champions so now we’re going into the Ben Hogan room people obviously very interested in Hogan kind of a unique very interesting character I think

People will say not only one of their favorite golfers but also very intense very focused um and here we really try to tell all of the different sides of Hogan as a player as a writer uh we talk about follow the sun which is the movie based

On his life and then of course his professional victories so got everything from this little trophy here is the first trophy he ever won we have a replica of his locker atos exactly that’s so cool the trophy case in the middle obviously highlights um some of

His wins in the center of that trophy case you see um the Hickok belt um hicock belt of course going to the athlete of the year that’s so cool which he won in 1953 it’s amazing to see what they wore when they played golf exactly a little

Bit different than today right so now we’re headed to the Jack Nicholas room this is the newest addition to the museum opened in 2015 you can sort of it still smells new sort of looks new I should say ahead of us is not related to Jack Nicholas but this is President

Eisenhower’s golf cart no way uh this came to us from the World Golf Hall Hall of Fame in St Augustine and I knew I had to have it it’s an amazing three-seater you know golf cart with The Fringe on top just love it anyway Jack Nicholas

Room um this room is a little bit different than our others cuz actually everything is told first person through Jack’s perspective so we spend a lot of time with him and his team building the content for this exhibit but some of the highlights that I love in this room just

Really neat things are you know the first check that Jack ever won you know a Mother’s Day card that he made for his mom so I I tend to sort of like the more personal things I love it what’s the story with this statue so this is a statue by Zeno

Frudakis who you may know he did the pain Stewart statue at Pinehurst no way yeah that’s probably one of his better known um so he Comm we commissioned this I believe for this room um this is of course jacket at the 1980 US Open sort of famous famous pose Jack is back so

Now we’re entering the Arnold Palmer room where we talk about one of the game’s greatest champions of course Arnold Palmer um when we decided to open the museum and name it after Mr Palmer he said sure absolutely but you have to include this portrait so this is a

Portrait by an artist named Jim Chase made up of over 23,000 words wow it took him about 14 years to make and he surprised Arnold Palmer with it this is one of the most amazing pieces of art you’ve ever seen we have this touchcreen where you can sort of dive into the

Portrait um and look for example if you look in his eye you can see the name of his first wife Winnie MH over and over and over again and you can see quotes that Arnold Palmer said or places that he went um and really just an amazing wow

Piece of art so we also have a great uh relationship with the Palmer family still so a lot of the object Jacks in here are also on loan from them so we can we can share different parts of Arnold’s story too so now we’ll head

Into the Mickey Wright room as I say uh the first currently the only room dedicated to a woman but hopefully the first um Mickey Wright some say who had the best swing ever um won 82 times and I got a call that she’d passed away and anything that we wanted the USGA wanted

We were the first to have so of the things she gave us she was most upset about giving this practice mat up and we actually found one on her back patio that she’d replaced wow she’ just shag balls onto the golf course where she lived you see this is a training aid

That she made herself also similar you know had a similar mentality to Hogan just rigorous very diligent with practice and that’s the first swing sleeve jacket device exactly that’s crazy this is the Crown Jewel of the museum welcome to the Hall of Champions this houses the original

Trophies in our collection which you see in front of you in the case in the center you see the two open trophies and the two amateur trophies so we used to give out the original trophies until 1985 and then they were sort of coming back to us you know someone was eating

Ice cream out of it or having a few beverages so they’ve now been retired and live here permanently at the Museum but otherwise we have a trophy that goes from Champion to Champion and then we have what we call a media replica so you can see right here this is the women’s

Amer trophy it’s the oldest trophy in our collection given in N uh 1896 by a member of Scottish Parliament Robert Cox which is why you see the Scottish thistle The Tartan from his clan it it is leaning a little bit people ask me that all the time and

You’ve got the US Open trophy here with the winged victory on the top and the US am this is actually the second iteration of the US Amer trophy the original one I don’t know if you’ve seen it was much more ornate we have a replica in the

Gallery it actually burned in a fire oh wow um at East Lake so we changed the design the US Open trophy also burned in a fire but the design remained the same and then you see on the bronze plaques around you starting here in 1895 the

Names of all of our Champions and it goes all the way around and around to 2023 you can really kind of stand in this room and get an amazing sense of the history of golf in this country some of the some of the things I love to

Point out um Tiger Woods of course wins three consecutive Junior amers and three us amers one of the greatest stretches of match play probably ever is there a talks of a tiger room eventually or is that you know people ask me that all the

Time Tiger has held on to a lot of his things so we have a few things from him but um absolutely an important part of the story we want to share um currently working with him and his team on some things for the Hall of Fame so yep

Hopefully down the road seems like a logical Next Step yeah of course now we are entering the chronological history of golf so this is the first US Open medal which is won by Horus Rollins in 1895 um looks a little bit more elaborate than the one they get today um

And this is the mashi that he used in 1895 so again amazing that we have artifacts from our first I’m thinking that how do you get these things 1895 exactly wow so now we move into the Golden Age so the Golden Age we’re talking about really 1919 to 1930 at the

Center of get this Gallery um we have Calamity Jane so this is the putter that Bob Jones used to win 10 of his 13 national championships what’s even more crazy is we have um the ball that he used to win the Grand Slam in 1930 wow

Um and the scorecard from that event as well we have a rich history of artifacts um during war time these are two golf balls that are made out of shoe leather from prisoners in a German concentration camp which is crazy and shows just the level to which people would go to play

Golf that’s an important part of the story too heroic comeback so we were talking about Ben Hogan earlier this is probably one of the second most famous clubs in our collection this is Ben Hogan’s one iron from the 1950 Us open at Maran so this shot this photo we know

Well Hogan on 18 to force a playoff actually after this shot the club and the shoes were stolen out of his locker and disappeared for almost 40 years they were discovered in for lack of a better term of garage sale by a golf collector authenticated by Hogan and donated to us

So this is probably one of our most loved artifacts Alan Shepard of course a voracious golfer um in 1971 sort of plans this secret golf Mission To The Moon so this is the head of a six iron on a tool that collapses and it’s a tool that that’s used to collect uh lunar

Rock samples so he worked with one person at Nasa to create this contraption took this and two golf balls in a sock and essentially not smuggled it up his spacit but that’s pretty much what he did right um to play golf on the moon so the first shot you know he’s of

Course swinging like this because of his suit the first one he Shanks M and the second one he hits and says goes miles miles and miles the club comes back down sits in quarantine for about a year and then he donates it to the USGA in 1974 one of

Our most loved objects there aren’t that many things that have been to the moon and come back all right we’re going to head down to the Vault now and there’s some unique stuff in there absolutely let a lot of people in there or nope nope okay um we actually this is a space

That’s accessible only to museum staff um a lot of the USGA staff does not even have access here okay um mostly because it’s a working space um and but we’re happy to share it with you give you a bit of a behind the scenes look let’s do

It at what we have so come on down come on in wow so this is the Vault we have a couple different types of material down here um in these drawers we have Championship scorecards I was mentioning so when the Championships are complete the scorecards are shipped back

To us and they live here um and we keep them for historical record and then often we’ll have if a player makes you know a hole in one or has a particular record will often reproduce a scorecard for them oh that’s cool um but the championship scorecards live here

There’s no happier day for me than when the scorecards make it into this building yeah because there’s a lot that can happen between the championship site and here so this is our collections um processing table so on this table you have things that are in various stages of coming

Into the collection or coming out so in front of you um we’re just about to announce um we were donated the memorabilia by the cord Family Charlie cord of course who um became the first African-American to get his PJ tour card so these are some objects that we got from the cfer family

This is Charlie sifford’s mini presidential Freedom Obama gave him the presidential medal of freedom in 2014 so his son Charlie has held on to the original one but this is the mini pin that he donated and then the program from that ceremony which is really neat

I’m an art art historian by training so fine art growing that collection is important to me personally um so this is our rbrand print um etching from 1654 actually the sport of cul not golf so we collect uh material related to other stick and ball games cough is really

More like hockey than it is like golf but um rbrand of course one of the greatest artists of all time so this is the drawer of our Championship medals some of them got you know all different types of contestant badges you know all different types of teas wow um do you

Know what these little guys are up here do you want to take a guess they do you know what it is is it a golf Russian doll does it hold a bottle of liquor you are correct a Prohibition era figurine we have Bryson Das shambo’s hat

From the 2020 US Open Bryson Des Shambo of course signs things backwards and in reverse which is sort of one of his signature things I don’t know why but we also have a hat from when he won the US amiter and it’s the same in my opinion it’s incredibly important to preserve the

History of the sport and it’s one of the things I like to say is that myself and my team we are Museum professionals first and golf is our subject matter so we are cultural historians so we are very much in the business of preserving and celebrating these moments to survive

Long after we’re gone um and golf has many of those amazing moments and our work is really centered around taking care of these objects providing connections with our visitors and our Champions and our players to these Great Moments in the game and if we weren’t

Doing that sort of work here at the USGA no one else would be so it’s extremely important he