FRANK STRANAHAN, ONE OF GOLF'S GREATEST AMATEURS, DIES AT 90

 

FRANK STRANAHAN ... Great American amateur golfer who turned pro late in his career.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES WEBSITE

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Frank Stranahan, one of golf’s greatest amateur players, and a fervent advocate of bodybuilding and healthy living well before fitness became the rage in the pro game, has died at West Palm Beach, Florida. He was 90, falling some 30 years short of his goal for longevity.

His death, after a brief illness, was announced by his son, Lance.

Stranahan seemed to have it all in his golfing prime. Arnold Palmer called him “muscles” for his impressive physique. He was Hollywood handsome and an heir to a family fortune.

He won more than 50 amateur tournaments in the 1940s and ’50s and six US PGA Tour events while devoting himself to muscle-building, something that athletes of his era shunned, fearing it would restrict their flexibility.

Stranahan was a two-time winner of the British Amateur when it was one of golf’s majors, and he was a runner-up once at the Masters and twice at the British Open. He was considered the world’s top amateur golfer in the period between Bobby Jones in the 1930s and Tiger Woods (like Stranahan, a weight-lifting devotee) in the 1990s.

His father, Robert A. Stranahan, and his uncle Frank D. Stranahan were co-founders of the Champion Spark Plug Company of Toledo, Ohio, whose technology supplied the United States’ emerging auto companies in the second decade of the 20th century. At his father’s behest, he was tutored as a teenager by Byron Nelson, one of the greatest golfers of his time and the club pro at the Inverness course in Toledo.

Stranahan embarked on what became a passion for fitness when he turned to another sport, hoping to play high school football.

“His coach told him he was too small — he was probably 140 pounds — and we have a lot of burly kids,” Lance Stranahan recalled in an interview. He said his father enrolled in the popular Charles Atlas fitness course, ate lots of steak, got to 170 pounds and made the team.

Frank Stranahan later developed a specialized weight-lifting regimen that would be suitable for a golf swing by making sure he did not overdevelop his chest muscles or biceps, though his son recalled that when his weight lifting became known, “he was told if he wanted to pursue golf, this was a major mistake — in golf, it was unheard-of.”

Stranahan persisted, taking weight-lifting gear to tournaments because there were few fitness centres for workouts on the road.

He relished telling of his favourite gag: he would ask bellhops to carry his luggage to his hotel room, then watch them stumble under the weight of his unseen barbells.

“We look at the athleticism of our players today and can say that Frank was truly before his time when it came to golf and fitness,” Tim Finchem, the US PGA Tour commissioner, said in a statement.

In a Twitter post, Gary Player, a nine-time winner of golf’s majors who was also devoted to fitness, called Stranahan “my fitness mentor, friend and inspiration.”

After retiring from competitive golf in 1964, Stranahan took up running. He competed in the New York and Boston marathons and took midnight jogs in Central Park while managing an investment firm during the day.

He celebrated his 78th birthday by dead-lifting 265 pounds; he shunned meat in favour of whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables; and he sometimes fasted for several days at a time, drinking distilled water, to purify his system. He worked out at a local gym until shortly before his death.

“I feel I’m going to live a lot longer than most people dream of living,” Stranahan told The Palm Beach Post in 1999. “I think it will be very easy for me to make 120.”

Frank Richard Stranahan was born on August 5, 1922, in Toledo, whose Inverness course became a prep school for his golfing career under Nelson’s tutelage.

“There were very small greens, and with the balls and clubs we played in those days, Inverness was a great test of golf,” Stranahan once told The Toledo Blade. “It rounded your game so that you could do almost anything.”

After serving as a pilot in the US Army Air Forces during World War II, Stranahan gained notice throughout the golf world as an amateur.

He tied Nelson for second at the 1947 Masters, two shots behind Jimmy Demaret. That summer, he finished in tie for second place, one shot behind Fred Daly, in the British Open, when his shot from 110 yards on the final hole stopped three inches short of the cup.

Stranahan won the 1948 and ’50 British Amateur and was beaten in the championship match (the final) of the 1950 United States Amateur, which, like the British event, was a major at the time. He also played on three victorious Walker Cup teams in the late 1940s.

Stranahan finished in a four-way tie for second in the 1953 British Open at Carnoustie, four shots behind Ben Hogan. He lost to Arnold Palmer, the eventual champion, in match play at the 1954 United States Amateur — the tournament he never could capture — and then turned pro. His most notable victory on the US PGA Tour came at the 1958 Los Angeles Open.

Stranahan worked for his family company for a time and had played golf at the University of Miami. After he retired from competitive play, he earned a master’s degree in business from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, then pursued a second career in finance.

His son is his only survivor. Stranahan’s wife, the former Ann Williams, who became an outstanding amateur golfer, died in 1975. Frank and Ann are pictured right.

Stranahan’s wealth may have kept the pressure off on the course, but it could also prove problematic, as he viewed it.

When he was barred from the 1948 Masters after officials at Augusta National maintained that he had misinterpreted the course’s rules for hitting balls during practice, he felt he did not get sufficient support from fellow players.

“I’m sure the players were jealous,” he told Sports Illustrated in 1998. “They had every right to be. My dad was bankrolling me, and I could play every week without worrying.”

But Nelson told the magazine that the tour players liked Stranahan: “The only comment I heard was, ‘If I had his father’s money, I’d play for fun, too.’ ”