What are some outstanding questions about the history of golf that you eventually hope to answer?  

How to cure the yips! No golfer wants to experience that. I played enough competitive golf that it finally did get to me. 

The thing about golf is its history. It's got an awful lot of background, going into the 12 and 1300s in Scotland. And then, of course, whatever happened yesterday is going to be history tomorrow. Everything is of interest to me. I try, as a history major, to stay on top of as much of it as I can.  

Whether it's a golf club, a school, or any organization, if they don't know what their history is, they don't know what their future is going to be either. For that reason, I've helped a number of organizations and clubs around the world to get their archive programs started. I would certainly be glad to do that for any of my classmates or my fellow Haverfordians. 

Archives need people with a lot of time and passion. Some people say “We're a brand new organization; we don’t need to keep archives.” Well, if you don't know what happened in the past, you're just going to be recreating history. Too many times, people say, “We're turning 50, or we're going to turn 100 years old as an organization. We need to write a book!” And then they realize that they don’t have one sheet of paper on the history of their organization.

So, it's got to be started from grassroots. Find somebody who has the time and passion to do it. I'm certainly available to help, as I have helped a lot of clubs around the country get started.

What are some of your favorite golf artifacts, and what were their stories?  

Well obviously, being 80 years old, I've got to be the favorite either way! 

In reality, there are several great artifacts. We have a portrait in the foyer at Merion Golf Club of Hugh Wilson, who, in the early 20th century, was the 30 year old architect of the Merion Golf Club. He had never designed a golf course in his life. He was on the Green Committee, and, in those days, they just picked someone to do it. We're fortunate to have a very good oil painting of him in the library. 

Merion archives hold over 1,500 books, going back to the 1860s. We have an equal number of golf artifacts at Merion, and then we have close to 250,000 digitized documents in the collection. 

In the artifacts area, we have contestant badges from multiple United States Golf Association events. These metal badges are usually clipped on hats and belts to identify players. The first time we had an event at the Merion Golf Club (then called the Merion Cricket Club) in Ardmore was 1916, and there have been 19 events since. We have a contestant's badge from every one of those events. In many cases, we have badges held by event winners and team captains, be it the Walker Cup or the Curtis Cup that were played at Merion. We're very fortunate that we got to the level of material that we have and there are very few things that we’re still searching for. 

Of course, our efforts are often driven by the next event that we're hosting, which is coming up in next two years—the United States Amateur Championship at Merion.

What are some of your lasting memories of Haverford?  

The squash team of 1961 is one of the only two undefeated squash teams at the Haverford School up until that time. I believe we're on the short list for the Hall of Fame. As I said to somebody when this started a while ago, I hope I live long enough to see us on it. Everybody on that list on that team is now 80 or older. A number of them went onto be captains of Ivy League teams, and win individual and team national championships. We had a pretty solid organization. 

The only problem was that I went to the University of the South and they'd never seen squash at that time. They had two handball courts in the gymnasium. My brother and I took squash balls and rackets down there. We realized we were marking up the court with some pretty bad black spots. The next week, the school newspaper said they were looking for the vandals who had marked up the courts! The director of athletics was also the golf coach. I asked him to please come and watch a demonstration of how squash was played, and he did. When it was over, he said, “That's one of the craziest things I've ever seen. I don't know how you guys don't kill each other with those rackets!”

As a student, I preferred anything outside and athletic. But, I took three years of Latin at Haverford under Mr. Blackburn—my freshman, junior, and sophomore years. I’d had two years away from Latin when I went to Sewanee. I had the opportunity, as every freshman did, to take a course for advanced placement. My roommate said, “Hey, you got nothing to lose but an hour and a half of your time.” So, I went and took an exam on Latin. Having not touched it in two years, I immediately jumped into my second year of Latin at the University of the South. I only had to take two years of the three year requirement. Even though I wasn't a good student, Blackburn must have done something right. Being able to jump into that level of Latin at college was quite an accomplishment. I give him all the credit for it, because I sure don't know where it came from. 

What first inspired your passion for golf? 

I played golf my junior and senior year. I was captain the senior year.  I went to the University of the South—Sewanee—in Tennessee and played down there for four years. It was a family affair to begin with. That's what golf is supposed to be about—playing alongside other people and enjoying the game.