| Bob Servis…Take it easel, Beasel |
Tees and Fairways by Gary Nuhn, Staff Sports Writer |
The Cup sat on a table out front of the pro shop at Miami Valley Golf Club all last week and there were many who stopped to admire it and read the names engraved on it. Defending Ohio Am champion Rocky Miller had been asked early in the week if he would be honored to have his name on that trophy twice and Rocky had the absolutely perfect answer. "I'll tell you what," he said, "I'm honored just to be on there once." Indeed. There are some impressive names on the Cup: Parker Campbell, Frank Stranahan, a guy named Arnold Palmer, John Cook. There is also an impressive name not engraved: Jack Nicklaus; he never did win the Am. And then there is one name that-stands by itself, if only from repetition. The name occupies five lines. Something like this: 1933 ROBERT SERVIS WHAT A MARVELOUS golfer he must have been this Robert Servis. "It seemed like my game just always peaked at that time of the summer," Bob Servis was saying in the Miami Valley dining room Friday after another Ohio Am had come and gone and another new name had won the honor of being on the Cup. He is 66 now, Bob Servis. When he was a kid, he spent his days at The Valley. Now he spends his nights. He is maitre d' in The Valley's dining room. It is typecasting. He is silver haired and distinguished. When he tires of maitre d'ing, perhaps he can substitute for Ed McMahon on The Tonight Show. His is a strange story; not strange to him, because he lived it and he knew his motives and his goals and his priorities. But it is strange to the rest of us. He excelled at golf; he had a natural talent for the game, an aptitude. He had the perfect temperament, too. Robert Wesley Servis was born calm. He began as one of a bunch of little buggers who dug holes in the front lawn of the old Patterson Estate and shoved tin cans and sticks down in them, in effect building their own course. It was early '20s and Servis was, oh, 8 or so. BY THE SEVENTH grade, he was so accomplished, Oakwood's high school coach recruited him for the varsity. In a match against Dayton Catholic, he beat the defending city high school champion, Eddie Hamant. It was a preview of his life. He was always better than he should have been, younger than he should have been. Elmer Lesher, who is a walking encyclopedia of Dayton golf, remembers the young Servis. "His mother would drop him off at Community in the morning and give me money to caddy for him," Lesher said. "Man, he had a swing so slow, when he brought a club back, you'd think it was gonna hang back there. You'd think, by God, maybe he went to sleep." Servis said his friends called his swing The Hesitation Hop. "I'd get it up there, wait for everything to come together and let it go," he said.
That was 1933. That was also the first year he won the Ohio Amateur; best in the state at age 18. Now it is time to throw in the first wrench. This story has been moving along too smoothly. At age 19 Bob Servis was City Am runner-up. At age 20, Bob Servis was both medalist and City Am champ. He never again entered that tournament. HE TOLD THE newspapers he wanted to concentrate on the Ohio Am, but couldn't he have played in both? Couldn't he have collected silver booty until his mantel overflowed and his garage overflowed, and his attic overflowed and he had to add on a room in the back to hold it all? Or was he like Diana Schwab 'today's women's multi-champion? Diana said she was embarrassed to keep winning that maybe 11 was time for her to back off for a while. "I read what Diana said," Servis said. "I think maybe I had thoughts along the same lines." Still, it is not quite the same: Schwab has 11 city titles of one description or another; Servis had 2. Self-denial at age 20 is not easy to explain or understand; self-exile even harder. But let the record show he did It. Bon Voyage at age 20. Today, a man like Bob Servis would walk out on the PGA Tour, win a million plus change, and endorse cameras, wrist watches and refrigerators. Back- then, if you said PGA, someone would think you were talking about some New Deal government program. SO, ANYWAY, the kid his friends called "Beasel" (as in, "Take it easel, Beasel") said he wanted to concentrate on the State Am. He concentrated fairly well in 1936 at age 21 - won it, In fact. And again in 1939 at age 24, and again In 1940 at age 25. The one in 1936 was the sweetest. It was a rematch of the 1934 finals between Servis and Maurice McCarthy Jr. of Cincinnati. In the first one, played at The Country Club in Cleveland, McCarthy had undressed the 19-year-old kid and held him aloft as a mere pup, 10-and-9. The rematch was at The Inverness Club in Toledo. They were tied after 36 ... 37 ... 38. On the 39th, a par-3, McCarthy hit bis tee shot to eight feet. Servis flubbed his and hit bis second terribly, too, 50 feet from the pin. He describes the putt as if he had it an hour ago, "It was all the way across the green," Bob Servis said, . "and the green had two undulations in it, so the ball was going to break right once and then left. I played it straight at the hole 'cause I figured it would take both breaks and they would cancel each other out. It went right in the middle of the cup." It is 45 years later, but it is still beautiful. "He was eight feet,'' Servis said, grinning, "but that putt looked 80 feet in a hurry." McCarthy missed and they went to the 40th. "He hit it everywhere on that hole," Servis said, "and I beat him, 1-up." ABOUT THE time he was winning State Am No. 4, Servis met a girl named Betty at a bowling alley. They married. There was a war. He got out of the service in '46. He won another State Am in '47. He was back on top of the game. It's wrench-time, again. Bob Servis didn't stop winning State Ams because he wasn't good enough. He stopped winning because he stopped playing in them; stopped, in fact, playing golf at all. He became engrossed in his father's restaurant business and his kids, Becky and Bob. Timewise, something had to give. Golf gave. He was the best and he quit. He could find no middle ground. No comprende. "I used to have a lot of people come into the restaurant and ask me, 'How could you quit?' " Servis said "It was hard to explain it to them. Even now I get that question." "My boy, Bob, was a baseball fanatic. I kinda switched to being a baseball fan. I don't know, I just kind of lost my desire. Sure, I loved golf; I still like it. "I remember a while ago, oh, back in the early '70s, I guess, a friend of mine named Ed Zwiesier was a really avid golfer and then he got into horses. He got so involved with his horses, he gave up golf completely. And then he came to me one day and said, 'You know, I'd always wondered how you could quit. Now I know. '" In the 34 years since 1947, Servis sometimes went entire summers without playing. Other summers, he would play two or three times. A couple of weeks ago, he went out at The Valley. "I started bogey, triple bogey, double bogey," he said. "And then I shot an. 80." |
It is a tall cup, maybe what, 2 ½ feet tall? The silver is chipping off it, it having been around since 1919 when the Governor of Ohio, James M. Cox, gave it to the Ohio Golf Association to honor its yearly champion, the man who won the Ohio Amateur 
At age 14, he qualified for the Men's City Am. At age 16, he was medalist. At age 18, he won It; more than won it, overwhelmed it. The final match was 9. and-8 over Ralph Routzahn. 