Old Sport Gallery Puts Golf History on Display 

By JIM PETTIT 

            PINEHURST – To hear Tom Stewart tell it, he owes his status in life to a misspent youth.

            Too bad we all can’t fritter our lives away to such a degree.

            Stewart lived much of his life in Northern Michigan and South Florida before moving to Pinehurst five years ago. He opened the Old Sport Gallery on Market Square in the village, an eclectic mixture of old and new, nostalgia and frivolity, history and humor.

            Like its owner, the shop offers a little something for everyone.

            Stewart is a former professional golfer and teacher. He has golfed in 35 countries, been paired with three U.S. presidents, performed volunteer work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, was a member of Arnold Palmer’s seven-man pro advisory group, helped build the first golf course in Moscow, gave former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev his first golf lesson, and counts celebrities from all walks of life as close personal friends.

            Not bad for a kid who hitchhiked to his first round of golf at the age of 8.

            “I grew up in Northern Michigan, near Petoskey and Harbor Springs, and there were six 100-year-old clubs nearby,’’ Stewart said. “I lived on a farm and my dad, who was a mailman, had been one of the best high school players in Michigan while growing up as a caddie. But then he went into the Navy and, after the war, literally went for 20 years and didn’t play golf. But he always told us about it and encouraged us to go caddie. After my two brothers and I had caddied for awhile, we raised enough money for our dad to go play golf. After not playing for 20 years, he went out and shot 74.’’

            Stewart was hooked on the game early. He learned to play with hickory-shafted clubs and hand-forged irons. The musty clubhouses at the courses where he caddied were filled with fading, dusty photographs of champions past, images that stirred a sense of curiosity, wonder and even pride.

            “Walter Hagen had lived there and was a golf professional at one of the old clubs, and (Gene) Sarazen had won a tour event in Northern Michigan so all of the guys were there because it was a strong summer magnet, a resort town,’’ Stewart said. “It was where the very wealthy from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit and everywhere in the Midwest came to for the summer. So we grew up with a lot of tradition in the game.’’

            As a young caddie, Stewart learned the meaning of details. He picked up the smallest piece of litter. He learned to remain perfectly still when a golfer was executing a shot. All proprieties were observed. After the round, he shined shoes, mowed greens and watered fairways.

            “Everything was according to the tradition that had been handed down, so that was a way of coming to the game that many of the kids playing the tour today have no appreciation of,’’ Stewart said.

            As an assistant at Walden Lake, (“More of a clerk, really, because I was nowhere near being a professional,’’ Stewart said), he met Tom Watson, whose family had a summer home nearby. The two played together regularly and shared a deep love of the game’s traditions.

            After attending Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Mich., on a basketball and golf scholarship, Stewart decided on golf as a career.

            “It didn’t take me long to figure out I wouldn’t be playing much basketball after college, so I gave it up after two years and concentrated on golf,’’ he said. “I was lucky enough to become captain in my freshman year and had a 71-point-something stroke average with about three course records. So that gave me some hope that it might be something worth pursuing.’’

            His first two jobs were at Michigan clubs that left him free in the winters when the courses were closed. Stewart annually would set out for warm, even exotic, places such as Asia, the South Pacific and South America.

            “I could hold my own for the most part,’’ he said. “I was probably never a threat to win, although I thought I was. But in the down time, I was always looking for old stuff, never really treating it as an asset but always fascinated by it.’’

            Stewart’s first love is books about golf, especially first editions that date back many decades. He accidentally fell into collecting when, doing some research at the library of St. Andrews, Scotland, he noticed the librarian preparing to dump a load of old books. The library needed room for new books and was discarding many old ones.

“I gave her a 100-pound donation for the library and she sent me 240 old books, which today are arguably worth $80,000 ... books from the 1800s and early 1900s,’’ he said. “That was the good news. The bad news was that I was spoiled because I’d never paid a lot for any of the stuff that I bought. I used to go to a book store in Cincinnati, Acres of Books, that was six stories tall. The guy who ran it knew I was interested in golf books and would put them aside for me. I had bought two copies of Alister Mackenzie’s book on architecture for $15. He came back and said he had another one, a really good one, but he wanted $18 for. I wouldn’t pay it because I’d bought the others for $15. Today, it’s an $1,800 book. These things eventually became props at some of the golf clubs I ran. They were just lying around, and I never really treated them as an asset because I didn’t have a lot of money invested in them.’’

            The light began to dawn when Stewart read about a golf book that sold for $8,000. “I had one,’’ he said. “Then I saw something a golf club that sold for $5,000. I had one. So, all of a sudden, I started to take better care of them.’’

            Stewart married late in life at 48. When he and his wife, Ilana, a former Russian figure skater, moved to Pinehurst in 1997, all of his mementos and golf acquisitions came, too.

            “I didn’t know what we were going to do here, but my wife and I decided to try and do something with the stuff,’’ Stewart said.

            The Old Sport Gallery was born and almost immediately became a must-see stop in any trip to Pinehurst.

            “It’s kind of a museum/gallery and she makes me sell some of the stuff so I can buy two or three more,’’ he said, smiling.

            It’s not all golf. There are autographed footballs and other sports memorabilia, including a framed photo of Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, autographed by each man. The store also features a large selection of hand-painted Russian art boxes and jewelry, which his wife selects on her frequent trips overseas as a flight attendant.

            “Literally there are thousands of items in here,’’ Stewart said of the six-room building, “I probably have as large a golf art collection as anyone in the world. I have prints from $10 to Richard Chorley paintings for $65,000. I have a lot of the odd stuff, too. I have a ticket to the 1923 PGA Championship at Pelham, Mass., which is signed by John Wanamaker whose name is on the trophy. Now, I have a book that says the first ticket given out at any event was the 1927 U.S. Open and, by the way, is worth $10,000. I called the guy up and told him about my ticket and he said it was impossible. I sent him a copy of it and, sure enough, it was signed by Wanamaker and even had the envelope where it had been sent to one of the competitors. Again, it was one of those things I’m sure I never paid more than $1 for, but it turns out to be the first ticket ever given out at a tournament and has great value. I don’t know if I’ll ever sell it or pass it along to my son.’’

            Stewart once had a signature of Old Tom Morris that he paid a significant amount for. “People kept asking if it was real and I got tired of that, so my wife said just put a price on it. So I put a price tag of $5,000 on it, knowing that no one would be interested. Guys would walk in and say, “That’s not worth $5,000’ and my wife would say, “It is to my husband.’ Well, one day a guy walked in and bought it. Didn’t even ask a question. So now I don’t have a picture or signature of Old Tom Morris. But those are the kind of stories that happen. And you never know who is going to walk in here.’’

            His displays include more than 400 comic books with golf themes, a roll of golf grip wrapping twine from the early 1900s, old trophies, a set of clubs back-weighted in pure ivory, shafted in bamboo-sheathed steel with mother-of-pearl inserts in the club faces. “These clubs cost $1,000 apiece when they were made in the 1931 or 1932,’’ he said. “I have them and they’re like new.’’

            In the collectibles business, forgeries can be a major problem. Stewart restricts his offerings to items he personally gets from the source or from someone close to the source, such as a caddie. “If I sell an autograph of Ben Hogan, people who buy it can sell it back to me at whatever they paid within three years if it’s in the same condition,’’ Stewart said. “I don’t buy or trade anything that I don’t know exactly where it’s coming from.’’

The integrity of his shop is paramount.

“I think that is critical,’ he said. “Probably more than half the stuff on e-Bay has no pedigree.’’

            It’s worth a trip to Pinehurst just to shake Tom Stewart’s hand and listen to a story or two. Or you can buy the two books he authored and load up on the legend and lore of the game.

            “I’m a lucky man,’’ he said. “We make a very good living here, but it’s not all about money. I enjoy being here. My life revolves around golf just as it did when I was a professional, except now I can set my own hours. I’ve been able to follow my bliss.’’

            Thank God for that misspent youth.