While researching a book a on the ’91 Ryder Cup, I paused today to consider the greatest RC team of all time—the 1981 US squad. And I paused a while longer to recall the captain of that team, Dave Marr.
Marr was part of a continuum of Texans who led our side in the biennial match. They alternated in personality types: sandwiched between certifiable hardasses named Ben Hogan, Lloyd Mangrum, and Jack Burke, Jr. (Dave’s cousin) were two sweethearts, Byron Nelson and Mr. Marr. He performed the ceremonial aspects of his job without flaw in ‘81, and he kept his 10,000 horse power team awake and aware. “Those guys want to beat you,” Marr told them. It was enough. Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Larry Nelson, and the rest of Marr’s All-Stars delivered a righteous whipping to Team Europe. It was the last year of American dominance in the Ryder Cup.
David Francis Marr was the most graceful man I ever met. The 1965 PGA champ’s swing was so smooth it hardly disturbed the air, and his easy-on-the-ears conversational and observational abilities led to a 21-year career calling golf for ABC, and then a new gig with the BBC, literally within hours after he lost his job in a regime change. The Brits were delighted when the Houston in his voice came out in words like “time,” which he pronounced like Watson’s first name. Once the ABC microphone caught a pro from Tulsa or Muskogee telling his caddy the shot he wanted to hit, “a big ol’ sow over that bunker.” Marr was ready. “For those of you who don’t speak Oklahoman,” he said, “Smith is planning to play a slice.” And you should have seen the performance art of him lighting a cigarette, and exhaling a cloud while extinguishing the match by shaking it twice.
Touring pros still apprenticed as club pros back then. Marr started at the top, at Winged Foot in New York in the summer and Seminole in Florida in the winter. Thus Dave knew his way around the cafes and cabarets in Manhattan; it was Dan Jenkins, I think, who gave him his nickname, “the pro from 52nd Street.”
On my first day with a contract to write my first book, I tried to appear casual when I approached Marr in the press room at the Nelson. “Um, the book’s called Texas Golf Legends, and we, that is I, would like you to be in it,” I stammered. “Sure!” Dave said, and since he was a journalist himself—broadcast division—he understood what kind of thing I needed. A friend of his came by during our half-hour talk. “You ever think about moving to a town that has a pro football team?” Marr asked as they shook hands, and the two old pals laughed. The Cowboys were horrible back then.
A few years and a couple of chance meetings later, Dave told me he’d be glad to help with a new project. After a few pleasant and for me very useful phone conversations, I heard from someone that Marr was being treated for stomach cancer. “They try to stop just short of killing you,” he said of chemotherapy. And he said he enjoyed our brief talks, so we spoke a couple of more times.
He died in October of ’97, a couple of months after Hogan passed away. I dedicated that book, The Masters, to Marr. It was a small gesture, but as Dave taught me, life is made of small gestures.
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