73. Alan White-Beeson Park Golf Pro

Winchester Daily News, December, 1965.
by Marlin Evans. 53 years ago.


Alan White, golf pro at the Beeson Golf Course in Winchester is leaving Christmas evening for California to play in seven or eight National Golf Tour Tournaments on the west coast and in the south.
  Alan is being sponsored by the Indiana PGA for winning the Indiana On The Tour Tournament, himself and eight local golfers. Usually to play on the national tour, it takes approximately $200 a week.
  It all started when Alan was ten years old, living here in Winchester, and was asked by some of his friends who were working as caddies at Beeson Club, to join them on the course. He did and has been interested in golf ever since that time. Alan remembers shooting thirteen on his first hole and 112 in his first round. However, not quite parring the course the first time out, Alan never gave up and by the time he was thirteen he was a fairly decent player. Working as a caddie, Alan watched several of the golfer's swings and style and tried to copy them.
  When fourteen, it was possible for juniors to play in the men's events, and Alan entered the Club Championship. This is the one tourney of which he can remember every little detail because it was his first. In the first round he played P.C. Winbigler and won with his best score he had achieved at that time, a 76. He lost his next match with Bill Hunter after starting football in high school.
  Alan worked as shop boy at the club house and played high school golf the next few years. He left an undefeated high school team in Winchester before moving to California just before his senior year. He got his first experience on west coast courses while playing on the high school team at Oxnard, California. It was the first year for golf at Oxnard and Alan played first man before graduating and entering Ventore Junior College. After his college freshman year, he returned to Winchester for the summer months and won the City Championship for his first tournament championship. Alan started dating Jeanne Wickersham during that summer before returning to California and college in the fall. The following April Jeanne moved to California and they were married in October of 1959.
  After graduation from college in '60, and refusing a golf scholarship at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Alan returned to Winchester to assist Gene Stiles at Beeson Course and to make golf his life's career. He turned pro at that time and started teaching as well as playing in several tournaments around the state. He still has the letter in which he received his first money for winning the Turkey Shoot Tournament in Liberty.
  A year later, he left Winchester and went to the Anderson Country Club because of lack of work at the Beeson Club. During his stay at Anderson, he attended a school in the winter months in which he feels he gained a great deal of knowledge about the game and management of a course. In November of 1962 Alan went to the Parkridge Country Club in Illinois near Chicago to become the teaching professional. A short time later, he learned Gene Stiles was leaving Winchester to take a job at an Indianapolis golf course, and he wrote Mayor Ralph West a letter concerning the opening. In January of '63 he returned to Winchester and has been here since that time.
  That year Alan won his first major tournament and took home $500 from the Monticello Open. He also finished eleventh in the Indiana Open that same year. He has played in several tournaments this last year including his fourth place in the Monticello Open, 1st at Crawfordsville, 2nd in the Indiana Open and was beaten in his first match this fall in the Indiana PGA.
  Probably the biggest thing so far in Alan's career is his acceptance into the National Professional Golfers Association in the fall of 1964. Alan said, "It is like a lawyer being accepted to the bar and I am very proud of it."