PART 2 OF THE TRAGIC STORY OF MARION MILEY WHO BLOOMED ON FLORIDA'S ORANGE BLOSSOM TOUR WHEN IT WAS A MAJOR WOMEN'S AMATEUR CIRCUIT ... ONLY TO BE MURDERED IN HER PRIME.
FROM THE USGA WEBSITE ARCHIVES
By RHONDA GLENN
rglenn@usga.org.
You could find Marion Miley in the middle of golf’s social whirl. She had hundreds of friends and, thanks to a stint working in the clothing section of a department store, dressed beautifully, wearing crisp blouses and skirts hemmed at mid-calf on the golf course.
She played in more than 100 charity exhibitions, gave speeches and was wined and dined by entertainers, baseball players, horsemen and politicians.
Life as a female sports star was seductive, but it also provided a good business opportunity and the whip-smart Miley, pictured right from USGA archives, took advantage of her new-found celebrity. Standard Oil of Kentucky hired her to follow the highways to inspect their service stations.
While it was a legitimate job, her fame as a golfer was a decided asset to the company and her route – where all her expenses were paid – coincided with the amateur golf trail!
Miley routinely won the Kentucky Women’s Amateur, captured big summer events at the Trans and Western championships, and was a steady winner in Florida. This was no fluke; she had the game to back up her fame. She was a long hitter, first with hickory-shafted clubs and then with the new steel shafts, and she could outdrive Patty Berg by 15 yards or more.
At the Augusta Invitational, Miley startled Babe Didrikson (later Babe Zaharias), her closest rival, by winning the driving contest. Streaky putting seemed to be Miley’s only nemesis.
In 1940, Allan Trout, correspondent for The Courier-Journal’s Frankfort bureau, visited Marion at Lexington Country Club for an interview. The two sipped lemonade as they sat in lawn chairs and Trout asked Kentucky’s esteemed daughter about her future.
The high-spirited young woman flashed an impish smile. “To become the best woman golfer in the world. Then to challenge the men,” she said.
By the time the 1941 season rolled around, Miley’s collection of wins included two Trans championships, two Women’s Southern titles, two Women’s Western Amateur wins, two Western Derby crowns, the Mexican Women’s Open and a bushel of Florida titles, as well as the Augusta Invitational.
The year 1941 would not be as good as her earlier years. She did tie for first with Jean Bauer in a new invitational in the Bahamas, where she met the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, but recurring tendinitis in her left thumb hampered her swing. The ailment had plagued her for a couple of years and professional Tommy Armour had suggested swing changes. So far, the results were disappointing.
World events would soon intervene in the pleasant little world of US women’s amateur golf. War raged in Europe, the Nazis were bombing Britain and 1941 was the last season before most golf tournaments would be suspended for the duration of the war.
On Florida's Orange Blossom Tour on January 30, Marion beat Louise Suggs, 17, in the quarter-final of the Miami Biltmore tournament. The teenager was impressed and nearly 50 years later in an interview with the USGA, Louise singled out Miley as one of the role models she had most admired.
By September, Miley’s swing changes were completed, her thumb rarely ached and she drove to The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, for the U.S. Women’s Amateur with hope in her heart. Twice, she had come so close, only to lose in the semifinals.
Miley’s good business sense had prompted a little deal with the Lexington Leader newspaper to write a column from the championship, and she was also bolstered by the fact that both of her parents would be watching her play. She cruised through the first two rounds, ending both matches on the 14th green, but publishing heiress Sylva Federman Leichner beat her on the 20th hole in the third round. Marion returned to Lexington to lick her wounds.
For the next few days she barely picked up a club and spent her time going over her new contract with the oil company and helping her mother prepare for a dance to be held at the club on Saturday, September 27.
By the night of the dance, she was exhausted and she spent the evening at the home of a friend, and then returned early to the apartment to sleep. Just before dawn, she was awakened by the crash of the door being kicked in and raucous shouts, including the frightened voice of Elsie.
Marion grabbed a golf club and dashed into the living room to defend her mother. Later, Elsa recalled that her daughter had fought the armed intruders fiercely.
During the battle one of the men fired his pistol and bullets ploughed into Marion’s head and back. She collapsed to the floor, dead. One man shot her mother three times, ransacked the apartment and left with a sack containing about $140. It was only a fraction of what they thought would be rich proceeds from the dance, but most club members had signed chits for their expenses that night.
After the gunmen ran away with the money, Elsa Miley, in a superhuman effort, crawled down the stairs and up the long driveway to the house of a neighbour, who called the police. Before she slipped into a final coma, Elsa told police what had happened.
Marion’s father now held a golf club job in Cincinnati and he hurried to Lexington after being told of “an accident” at the club.
Elsa Miley lived for three more days. She died in a Lexington hospital on October 1, 1941
“Seven hours before she (Elsa) died, a priest stood before the gray metal coffin of Marion Miley and asked God’s mercy on her soul and retribution for her slayers,” said a story by The Associated Press.
“Earlier more than 1,000 had streamed through the funeral home when Marion Miley’s body had lain in state for two days, clad in a tailored suit of gray tweed that had been her favourite.”
Patty Berg and Helen Dettweiler were among the mourners. Bing Crosby contributed $5,000 to a reward fund for the capture of the killers and other entertainers Marion had charmed also chipped in.
Three men were arrested and charged in the murders: Raymond Baxter, a drug addict and greenkeeper at Lexington Country Club; Robert H. Anderson, proprietor of a Louisville nightclub; and, the gunman, Tom Penney, who had served time in prison for armed robbery and for shooting two men.
The men were tried and convicted. Two years later they died in the electric chair. Some believed that Anderson, the nightclub owner, was innocent, but Kentucky’s governor declined to stop his execution.
World War II raged on and Marion Miley was nearly forgotten by all but her closest friends. Dettweiler and Berg were now professional golfers, but they enlisted in the war effort – Dettweiler to fly bombers to Europe for the WASPs, Berg as a lieutenant in a recruiting office for the U.S. Marines.
In 1946, they joined Hicks, Hemphill and a handful of others on the first women’s professional tour, the Women’s Professional Golf Association (of the United States).
Babe Didrickson, now Babe Zaharias after her marriage to George, won the 1947 British women's open amateur championship at Gullane (pictured right with trophy) and Louise Suggs captured the British title a year later (beating Jean Donald in the final) before they turned pro.
Women’s amateur competition had resumed in America after the war, but things would never be the same again. The sun was setting on the golden days of female amateur golf. The spotlight would shift forever to the lady tour pro.
The Women’s Western Golf Association soon discontinued the Western Derby. The Florida circuit blossomed for another 25 years, until many fine women amateurs deserted to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association.
By the mid-1960s the Orange Blossom Tour circuit was reduced to seven tournaments; today there are only four, of which one is match-play and another a foursomes stroke-play.
The players still have a fine time, but they’re a changing cast, made up of older amateurs and youngsters headed for the pro ranks.
Marion Miley wasn’t alone in enjoying the broadening experiences provided by amateur golf in the earlier years of the 20th century. Through the decades, dozens of players enjoyed banner headlines and hospitality at the finest clubs. They too made friends with sports stars, political figures and entertainers of their day. Bing Crosby became fast friends with a few of them, taking them to dinner and to play golf.
Today, Miley’s name surfaces when Lexington Country Club conducts the Marion Miley Invitational and the Women’s Western Golf Association presents the Miley bracelet to the low qualifier in its women’s amateur and junior championships, but few modern competitors know who Marion Miley was.
Marion Miley is buried near her mother and father in a Catholic cemetery in Lexington. Nearly 70 years after her death, she is a ghostly presence wafting through the annals of the game.
If she is remembered at all, it’s because she is the only fine player in the insular world of golf to be murdered in her prime. Surely she is worth remembering, for her life as well as her tragic death.
*Rhonda Glenn, the author of the above article, is a manager of communications for the USGA.
Labels: Amateur Ladies
