REUNION’S ROOTS: How the Senior Players Pro-Am Began

The answer to why the Senior PGA Tour comes to Dallas June 5-8 for the Senior Players ReUnion Pro-Am at Bent Tree Country Club can be traced directly to Denton.

No, not the city up Interstate-35. Denton as in Joe Denton, the Oak Cliff banker, civic leader and golf fan.

Denton, the chairman of RepublicBank Oak Cliff, was the guiding hand behind the ReUnion Pro-Am’s predecessor, the Methodist Hospital of Dallas Invitational Pro-Am. Denton, along with a cast of thousands of volunteers, helped nurture and sustain the charitable tournament, which began at the Oak Cliff C.C. in 1977 and enjoyed a seven-year run before being reincarnated as the ReUnion Pro-Am in 1985.

Such recognizable names as Don January, Miller Barber, Bruce Crampton, Charles Coody, Tom Landry, Pete Sesso and Lester Melnick are part of the tournament’s success story.

Briefly, Joe Denton conceived the Methodist Hospital Pro-Am as a one-day fundraiser to be played in Dallas on the Monday after the Byron Nelson Classic. Many of the PGA leading lights would be invited to stay over in Dallas an extra day before driving west to Fort Worth and the Colonial NTT

Not only did Denton corral some of the PGA Tour’s top names – including Lee Tre-vino, Gary Player, Tom Watson, and January, Barber and Crampton-but he received the brand of approval from another group of gallery favorites, Tom Landry and his Dallas Cowboys.

Landry played in the tournament annually and became a staunch supporter of Methodist Hospital cause. Cowboys coaches like Gene Stallings and Ermal Allen and players like Jethro Pugh and Ron Widby were also known to tee it up each year at Joe Denton’s tournament.

People affiliated with the PGA like to say that the biggest winner on tour is charity. Such was the case with the Methodist Hospital Pro-Am. It was the first of the charitable events to be regularly scheduled for the Monday following a PGA tour event The practice has since become commonplace.

Proceeds from the Methodist Hospital Pro-Am were donated to the operation of three hospitals within the city- of Dallas-Methodist Central, Charlton Methodist and Southeastern Methodist. The hospitals offer diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitative services, and provide medical services to more than a half million residents of Dallas County.

The tournament’s success brought untold pleasure to Joe Denton, a member of the Methodist Hospital board. Bitten hard by a golfing bug as a boy growing up in Milford, Texas, Denton became a low-handicap amateur player and a serious golf enthusiast when he grew up.

Denton played in golf tournaments throughout the United States and on one occasion in the early 1960s he traveled to Las Vegas to play in an event sponsored by The Sahara Hotel.

Before going out for a pre-tournament practice round, Denton bumped into Bruce Crampton, who was then emerging as one of the biggest players on the PGA tour. The gregarious banker from Dallas invited the Australian star from Sydney to join him for a round.

Crampton accepted, and on that day struck up a friendship that endured both on the golf course and off. The game was the first of many Crampton and Denton would play together. They teamed as an entry for six years at the popular Bing Crosby Pro-Am at Pebble Beach.

Joe Denton helped the Crampton family set up their home base in Dallas in 1967, overseeing the construction of a duplex the Cramptons would call home. Denton also became friends with many of Bruce Crampton’s colleagues on tour, players like Frank Beard, Charles Coody. Bob Charles and countless others.

During his trips with Crampton to Crosby Pro-Am, Denton observed how popular the format was with both the PGA players and their partners. He would adopt die format for the ReUnion Pro-Am in Dallas, making it a unique event on the Senior PGA Tour event.

But that was two decades later.

By the mid-1970s, Denton had been named to the board of directors of Methodist Hospitals of Dallas. In pursuing ideas for raising charitable funds for the hospitals, Denton broached the subject of a golf tournament with his friends Crampton and Charles Coody.

When they responded that many PGA play* ers would be receptive to the idea, Denton asked Coody and Crampton to solicit the participation of their fellow pros. More than 20 pros took part in the first tournament in 1977, an event that also included Denton’s many friends in the world of sports, the Dallas Cowboys connection among them.

Denton had another ace-in-the-hole for the tournament. An ace named Pete Sesso, who was a longtime PGA tournament official and who knew the ins and outs of running a major golf event.

With his contacts and his expertise, Sesso helped place the tournament on the fast track. It continued to develop during its seven-year existence and by 1984, the last year it was played at the Oak Cliff CC, the Methodist Hospitals received more than $300,000 in charitable funds.

In the meantime, Don January and Miller Barber, two PGA stars who had been active supporters of the Methodist Hospital Pro-Am since its inception and who played in the event every year without fail, had approached Joe Denton and his tournament committee about tying in with the Senior PGA Tour.

The tour, an outgrowth of the Legends of Golf Tournament first conducted in 1978, was a growing phenomenon with the sporting public.

Golfers like January and Barber themselves were demonstrating how skillful seniors players remained after they turned 50 years of age. The sport’s mast magnetic personality ever, Arnold Palmer, had joined the seniors ranks and had brought his ever faithful Army with him.

New players were coming on stream with the Senior Tour every season and unlike the untested – and unknown – new names on the PGA Tour, the senior tour “rookies’” were household names like Lee Elder and Doug Sanders and Chi-Chi Rodriguez.

The idea of hosting a Senior PGA Tour event seemed a natural for a golfing hub like Dallas, which has a rich tradition for championship golf dating back to the 1927 PGA championship at Cedar Crest C.C.

Denton, Sesso and the other members of the Methodist Pro-Am braintrust agreed to the plan. They immediately lined up the energetic, high-profile businessman Lester Melnick to be the first general chairman.

Fifty-four of the seniors competed with their amateur partners in the inaugural event last year. Peter Thomson, the leading money winner on the Senior Tour in “85, made ReUnion Pro-Am one of his nine wins on tour by posting a victory.

The field in 1986 will again be 54 strong, with a capital S. In addition to defending champion Thomson and the tournament’s honorary trichairman -January, Barber and Crampton-Dallas galleries will be thrilled to see debut appearances by Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and the ’86 tour’s rookie sensation, Dale Douglass.

The history of the ReUnion Pro-Am is yet to be written. But thanks to Joe Denton and his friends, the formative first chapters are alreadv in the book.