CHAPTER 5: THE GOLF SCENE
John
Hobart
Elena
Callas
Dave
Holmes
Mary Baecke
Fred Lukasik
Adam
White
Matt
Schlueter
Marc Vanderbeke
Patti Lee
Long before ol’ Billy Baroo failed the occasionally honorable Judge Elihu Smails with something more than pride on the line at fictional yet fabled Bushwood CC, golf and gambling were a solid pairing.
In fact, an article published in a 2005 edition of American Heritage magazine notes a mention in the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews minutes regarding an 1870 death-match wager between a Sir David Montcreiffe and one George Whyte-Melville.
There is no record of the outcome in those official minutes, but the article states: “There is a documented speech by Whyte-Melville 13 years later in which he mourns the death of Sir David Moncreiffe and ‘the causes that led to it.’”
Well, a bet is a bet.
Today, with a casino on virtually every corner and a place-your-wager app on nearly every mobile device, Judge Smails might be dismayed to learn gambling is legal everywhere, Bushwood included.
In that context, Short Hills Country Club has long been ahead of its time.
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On April 25, 1949, fledgling club manager Tom Campagna pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $200 following a raid of Short Hills led by East Moline mayor B.H. Ryan. A single “one-armed bandit” was confiscated, The Dispatch reported.
More such slot machines were in place when Bob “Steamer” Fulton joined the club several years later. “We had slot machines down where the men’s locker room is now,” Fulton said. “There was one older woman who played all day.”
Bandits of the two-armed variety could be found in abundance on the golf course.
“Once a month, Nick Chirikis and Bob Fry would play John Paul Jones and Phil Collins,” Jim Jannes remembered. “Shoot, they got on the first tee, it’s 50 bucks a hole, and by the time they come to 9, it was $300 to $400 a hole. They really had money games. It was nothing to come out here and somebody would say ‘You want to play for $100 a hole?’ ‘Sure, let’s go.’ It was just that way.”
Friendly wagering virtually was a requirement of membership in the middle of the 20th Century.
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“I was brought into the office and they said, ‘Mr. Holmes, you’re not gambling enough,’’’ a still-bemused Art Holmes remembered of an early encounter with management. “And I said, ‘Well, I’m not a gambler.’ They said, ‘That’s all right but we’d like to see you gamble a little bit more.’”
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As a youngster, Tom Bracke caddied in big-money matches involving what was known as The Gorilla Group.
“These guys liked to gamble, they liked to play for a decent amount of money,” Bracke said. “I never knew what they were playing for but it was a lot more than we play for today.”
Some years later, Bracke was a young insurance agent who joined his boss, Bob Bartlett, for lunch in what is now the Campagna Bar.
“They used to have a huge dice game in the upstairs bar,” Bracke said. “I was making $200 a week and I’m rolling dice with all these guys who could buy and sell me 10 times over, and so I lost the first time I ever did that. I had to buy lunch for 25 guys. And when you’re only making $200 a week, it was like, ‘Wow, this is going to motivate me.’”
This, too, was a piece of the Short Hills social scene.
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“They were here every day. That’s how they did it,” Bracke recalled. “They all had a martini and rolled dice at lunch, and then they went back to their desks. It was like ‘Mad Men.’ These were madmen. All wearing shirts and ties, dressed to the hilt and they would typically see each other later that day at some other place. The Brown Hat in the LeClaire Hotel. Mirandos at night. It was legendary.”
More than a few legendary and very late-night games of Gin Rummy or Craps also took place in the game room on the lower level of the clubhouse. Word is, there was quite a scramble out the back exit the time a pair of East Moline patrolmen wandered through an unlocked upstairs door, concerned about a possible break-in.
No discussion of friendly wagering at Short Hills would be complete without mention of Roger Vandeheede.
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In addition to an unofficial role as the director of indoor gaming, the man they call “Hitter” was a legend at the fine art of managing a handicap.
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Few Saturday games go down today without someone invoking Hitter’s memorable mantra: “Why make a par when a bogey will win the hole?”
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Still remembered across the Quad Cities for his tireless work as Jim King’s sidekick on the annual Labor Day telethon for Jerry Lewis’ kids, Hitter is now retired from the game, but he remains a loyal member and a beloved character in Short Hills’ lore.
“Roger was one of my best old guy friends,” said Marc Vanderbeke. “Grew up in the same neighborhood. That dude is one of the most generous guys there is when you get to know him. He always helped out.
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“He was a great Gin player. Golf? Not so good. But he would play that handicap. When he needed to hit a shot, he did it.”
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Many of today's top players helped Short Hills dominate the Velie Cup from Competition from 2011-2018.
Speaking of Legends
Dice, cards, and Craps tables notwithstanding, the name of the game at the club on the East Moline hilltop always has been (and always will be) golf.
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And while more than a few legendary players have stepped to the Short Hills tee over the last century, the safest bet in club history is precisely who is the best ever to have called Short Hills home.
That was Jim Jamieson.
Sure. John Hobart won a pair of Illinois Amateur titles, including at his home club in 1950. He also captained the 1938 University of Illinois golf team and was a seven-time Short Hills club champion.
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Bracke and Elena Callas were teen-aged club champions and went on to outstanding Division I college careers. Callas briefly chased the LPGA Tour, was named LPGA Central Region Teacher of the Year in 2011 and continues to enjoy a long career in golf instruction today in Colorado.
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Dave Holmes, Ben Weir, and David Lawrence all played D-I college golf with games honed on the hilltop. Holmes is a seven-time club champion and frequent winner on the QC Amateur Tour. Weir competed on mini-tours and became a teacher of promising young pros after rooming with Arizona State teammate Phil Mickelson in the early 1980s. And Lawrence went on to win more than 30 mini-tour events over a nine-year pro career before becoming women’s golf coach at St. Ambrose University in the summer of 2021.
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Holmes' childhood Short Hills chum Joe Irwin took his game to St. Ambrose, then returned to the hilltop and won eight club championships over a 14-year span.
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Mary Baecke and Kathy Phares each won a women's club championship and played collegiately at Iowa and Notre Dame, respectively.
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Fred Lukasik played at the University of Illinois and has enjoyed a distinguished senior amateur career. That includes playing his way into a U.S. Senior Open and also competing in three U.S. Senior Amateurs and six British Senior Ams. He twice won Chicago District Golf Association Senior Player of the Year honors.
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Ken Roman won club championships across multiple decades. “Kenny was amazing,” Bracke attested. “He was a grinder. He never missed the middle of the fairway, and he could chip and putt like crazy.”
Adam White is a former NAIA All-American and an eight-time club champion of recent vintage. And, now, fellow former decorated small college golfers like Ben Peters, Ben Hanson, Jamie Hallstrom, course-record-holder Matt Schlueter, and many, many accomplished others make the Blue Tee game at Short Hills the best in the Quads.
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Steamer Fulton won a club championship, stopped counting the times he shot his age after No. 400, and, like most of the aforementioned players, was a stalwart on winning Velie Cup crews of yore.
And Marc Vanderbeke is a seven-time club champ and captained nine of Short Hills' 32 Velie Cup-winning crews.
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Then there is Patti Lee, who has won 40 of the 47 women’s club championships she has entered to date, collected another 28 Quad City Amateur titles, and definitely merits inclusion on any Mount Rushmore of Short Hills Country Club greats.
Lee played in countless state and national amateur events, and lost in a playoff at Doral’s famed Blue Monster in a battle of club champions from across the nation in the mid-1980s.
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Lee has frequently held her own playing from the Reds in the men’s Blue Tee games, and she loves to share the story of the time a visitor to the Lee home saw a gaggle of golfing trophies perched on the piano. “Your daddy must be a good golfer,” the man said to her then young son Clay.
Laughing, she recalled, “Clay looked at me, and looked back at him and said, ‘You better look again, buddy. They’re wearing skirts on those trophies.’”
With no disrespect to all of those big hitters, however, Jamieson is the undisputed heavyweight champion of Short Hills golf.
He topped the savvy and experienced Ken Roman for a club championship at age 13, and was merely scratching the surface of a game strong enough to win the 1972 Western Open against a great field of PGA TOUR pros near Chicago.
The Moline-bred golfer helped Oklahoma State to an NCAA title in 1963, won the 1967 Illinois Amateur on his home course, and reached the TOUR in 1969, after serving a stint in Vietnam.
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In his day, Jamieson could pound the persimmon as far as Jack Nicklaus, who raced past the Moliner for the 1973 Masters title with a closing 66 and was forever complimentary of Jamieson’s game.
Jamieson’s TOUR career was shortened when he fell in Phoenix in 1977 and broke his hand, but he was a major talent when he played. He posted nine top 10 finishes in his 180 career starts, and four of those were in major championships.
In his breakthrough year of 1972, Jamieson tied for fifth at the Masters, teamed with Tom Weiskopf to share fourth at the World Cup in Australia, and shared second behind Gary Player at the PGA Championship near Detroit.
“Gary Player made the shot of his life on 16 at Oakland Hills over the willow trees to make birdie, and Jimmy was right there with two holes to go,” recalled Bracke, who later played often with Jamieson during his college years in Florida.
“Jimmy could hit it,” Bracke said. “He just melted the ball, and, probably because he went to Oklahoma State, he was a great wind player. There could be a 100 miles-per-hour wind and Jimmy could hit it right through it. The guy hit just a bullet type of shot. Great ball striker. Absolutely the best I’ve ever seen.”
Although Jamieson ultimately grew his game through the mentorship of QC golf icon Bob Fry, he had built an early understanding of the golf swing at Short Hills under the watchful and demanding eye of his father, Floyd.
Fulton remembered making the turn playing on his own one evening in the late 50s when he saw a 13-year-old Jamieson digging it out out of the dirt on the Short Hills range.
“I said, ‘Jimmy, I’ve been hitting the ball straight, but I’m drawing the ball just a little bit all the time,’” Steamer recalled of a quick conversation. “And here he is, 13 years old. He said, ‘Mr. Fulton, what you want to do is go in and have them build up your grip. Just have them put one more wrap on the deal. You’re letting your left hand come over the top and you’re pulling that ball just a hair.’ Now, here he is 13 years old. So, of course, I went into the pro shop, got that grip wrapped, and, boy, I hit the ball pure.”
Like so many pros then and now, Jamieson owed his start on TOUR to a bevy of financial sponsors back at his home club. That included Tom Campagna, Kirk Thorpe, Paul Wessel, Paul Johnson, Roy Johnson, Phil Collins, Chuck Collins, Dr. Harold Perlmutter, Bill Coopman, Dan Ligino, Bob Tilley, Howard Harrington, Gene Duke, Bob Maloney, C. Dale Pearson, and Ken Hoeflin.
The standout player was feted at a large gathering at Short Hills on July 13, 1972, and vowed that night to pay the support forward.
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“I hope that 29 years from now, I have been able to do something for some other people just as you people have done for me,” Jamieson said.
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He did. Near the end of a long and illustrious teaching career that included stints at famous clubs such as Innisbrook in Florida, Tamaron in Colorado, and working alongside Sam Snead at The Greenbriar in West Virginia, Jamieson gave what may have been his last interview in the fall of 2017, discussing his foundational role in helping the John Deere Classic take flight.
As a delightful phone conversation came to a close, he wondered if his QC interviewer might put him in touch with the golf coach at St. Ambrose to discuss possible scholarships for some young West Virginian golfers he was instructing.
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Jamieson died a year later, having helped 100 or more young people launch productive lives through college scholarships earned playing the game Jamieson began to perfect as a youngster himself at the club on the East Moline hilltop.
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