During his 17-year NFL career, Ron Jaworski always liked Tuesdays. It was his day off and a chance to get away from the grind of preparation and the spotlight of being a starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1977-86. It also meant a day on the golf course with his teammates.
“I like people,” said the 72-year-old known as Jaws, who was a Pro Bowl selection in 1980 and UPI’s NFL Player of the Year. “I enjoyed my day off during the football season which was a Tuesday. That was the day to get away from the media and the fans and get out and play and hack the ball around and have fun playing golf.”
He cites fellow Eagles Randall Cunningham and Mike Quick as examples of teammates he introduced to the game.
“Mike is now a member at Pine Valley, and he tells people that he learned the game at Eagles’ Nest,” said Jaworski, who also played for the Rams, Dolphins, and Chiefs in his NFL career. “We would go out on Tuesday and hang out and talk football and talk golf and basically just get away and relax because no one is going to bug you on the golf course.”
Always outgoing and gregarious, Jaworski turned a curiosity into a reality in 1979 when he and Eagles teammate John Bunting leased a nine-hole facility called the Amity Club, now called the Abington Club, in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. The quarterback was cutting his teeth in the business and, in the process, befriending the resident professional Hugh Reilly.
It wasn’t long before Jaworski and his new partner, Reilly, leased Burn Brae Golf Club in Dresher, Pennsylvania, which they renamed Twining Valley Golf Club.
After learning golf operations at Twining Valley from Reilly, Jaworski reached into his own pocket in 1984 and bought Tall Pines in Mantua, New Jersey, which he renamed Eagles’ Nest, in tribute to his connections with the team he led to the 1981 Super Bowl.
“That’s when I learned the business, when you put your own money into it,” Jaworski said. “That’s when I zeroed in. That’s when I started looking really hard at the business of golf when I bought Eagles’ Nest.”
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