{{ubiquityData.prevArticle.description}}
{{ubiquityData.nextArticle.description}}
THE TAKE By Ron Green Jr.
The old man finally surrendered last week, breathing his last breath at age 82 in the small town of Iron Station, N.C.
Ultimately, Alzheimer’s got Leon Crump after emphysema and heart issues didn’t. For a man who spent his life beating the odds, Crump finally met a match he couldn’t win.
Crump never made it full time to the PGA Tour – he tried a couple of times and once missed by two strokes after receiving a four-stroke penalty for carrying too many clubs in his bag – but he was a legendary figure on the dark end of golf’s street.
Unlike the Tour players he teed it up against and beat back in his prime, back in the days of Vitalis and Motown, Crump was a money player rather than a professional who played for money. Crump finished T66 in his only U.S. Open in 1970 at Hazeltine National, tying Vinny Giles and Butch Harmon.
What Jack and Arnie and Gary were to the television game, Crump was to golf in the real world.
He was, quite simply, one of the best money players the game has ever seen.
That’s not me talking.
That’s what the legendary gambler Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston said of Crump, who lived most of his life in Charlotte N.C., but was willing to take his game on the road. He traveled for a time with Titanic Thompson, the Babe Ruth of wagering, and whether he found the game or the game found him, Crump loved the action.
Crump was so good and so confident, particularly in his ability to drive the ball long distances, that he took the bet when Amarillo Slim challenged him to knock a golf ball over the Las Vegas Hilton. Crump was convinced he could do it but he lost, clearing only the first eight floors of the building.
“It’s higher than it looks,” Crump confided to an acquaintance later.
Crump won matches when he had to hit every shot but putts with his ball inside a paper cup. He played a match using a jai alai cesta to throw the ball. He played from clubhouse rooftops and once offered to play in nothing but a bathing suit on a wicked cold day to win back money he had lost.
In spite of its polished image, golf has always attracted gamblers. Whether it’s the Saturday morning dogfight at your club, a $5 Nassau with your buddies or a skins game to decide who buys the beer, golf seduces players into putting something on the line.
It’s part of the game’s attraction. Maybe not for everyone but for many of us.
Crump was working as a machinist in 1958 when he took a few days off to play golf for money. In his book, Drive For Show, Putt For Dough, Crump wrote that he won $31,000 and his career path took a permanent detour.
He was a nice man, pleasant to be around, not the type to crow about what he won or how he won. And if Crump thought he could beat you, he’d play you regardless of the rules.
“I thought I could beat anybody. I wasn’t scared of nothing or nobody,” Crump told me years ago.
Was there a secret to winning?
“I was never afraid to lose,” Crump said. “I never worried about the money.”
He played Jim Dent – and spotted Dent 1 up on each side. They broke slick. Crump shot 58 three times, he said, and he always wanted to play Jack Nicklaus for $1 million – of their own money.
“He had more nerve than Jesse James,” said Ronnie Hooper, who played with and against Crump for years. “He was a legend in his circles.”
It sounds almost glamorous now and there was a Runyonesque charm to how Crump and others played golf. They played for big money, even by today’s standards, but Crump played much of his golf at a scruffy place called Eastwood Golf Course in Charlotte. It was as glamorous as a trailer park but it was home.
Two greens backed up to a Gulf station by a busy road. A Harley-Davidson motorcycle stayed parked in the women’s locker room, most likely to keep it out of sight of whomever was looking for it. There was no rule against wearing denim on the course and there were Vaseline spots on the sides of the carts because it was easier to let everyone grease their clubfaces than try to police it in the games.
Eastwood is long gone and now Crump is gone.
About a decade ago, Crump was living a different life, playing checkers at an auto salvage shop, restoring some old cars and occasionally playing a few holes with his daughter. A reporter asked if he regretted never playing the PGA Tour.
“It just wasn’t for me,” Crump said. “I’ve always played shooting at the flag. I was a match player. It’s a mindset. Lots of times in medal play, you have to shoot for the middle of the green. It felt like a Sunday round of golf.”
They will bury Leon James Crump today in Kannapolis, N.C., and a piece of the game’s colorful past will lie with him. The family has asked that people attending the funeral wear their favorite golf shirt because that’s what Leon would have wanted.
And have enough cash on hand to cover your losses. Just in case.
E-Mail ron