This article originally appeared in the July issue of NCGA Golf Magazine
Monterey Native Olin Dutra Left a Legacy as Both a Player and Instructor
By Al Barkow
Adequate recognition for real achievement can sometimes be curiously slight, or altogether lacking. How and why do the worthy works of some people slip through the popularity cracks? Bad timing? Not a very electric personality? Maybe geography has something to do with it. Some of the above seems to have been the case in respect to Olin Dutra, who has been seriously underappreciated by the golf world. Here is a man who won two major championships — the U.S. Open and the PGA— finished a close third in the famous 1935 Sarazen double-eagle Masters, and made a terrific run from the bottom of the pack to nearly tie for the 1933 British Open. He also won some 10 tournaments on the pro tour of the 1920s and ‘30s, many of them the most prestigious of the day. And, to amplify the record with some non-competitive datum, Dutra was the first golfer from west of the Rockies to win a national championship, not to say the first anywhere of Iberian heritage. More significantly, through his teaching, his influence on the game stretched directly to at least one top-drawer modern-day Tour player, and then well beyond. For all that, mention Dutra’s name to even deep-knowledge golf history buffs and you draw mostly blank stares; and a who?
Olin Dutra was born in Monterey in 1901, the son of a Portugese father of working-class background and a Spanish mother with some distant royal lineage. Olin’s first language was Spanish, a facility he retained throughout his life while also becoming what a grandson described as a lyrically precise speaker of English. His father worked on the ground crew at Monterey’s public golf course, Del Monte, and Olin and his older brother, Mortie, got into the game helping their dad at his job, and caddying.
Both the brothers showed gifts for playing the game early on. Mortie, by many accounts, was the more talented, but he couldn’t bring it to the house, as the saying goes; he couldn’t win. His brother could, and did. Olin was physically impressive. He stood 6’2” tall, weighed around 230 pounds, had huge hands, dressed well, could tell a story, and liked to be recognized; he always managed to sit himself next to the most celebrated personalities in photographs, as in the group photo of the 1935 Masters players where he is beside Bobby Jones. But on the whole, he had a quiet manner, which may be one reason he has been overlooked in the annals of American golf.
At age of 13 Olin took a steady job as a clerk in a local hardware store and stayed on for seven years; he seemed content with his lot. But Mortie, already a golf professional, convinced his brother he had a better future in golf. Olin turned pro in 1924, and in 1932 established himself as a premier tournament player when he won the PGA Championship, at Keller GC, in St. Paul. Dutra didn’t have the sternest competition on his way to this title, then played at match-play. All the highest-ranked players were eliminated by others. Still, he won the qualifying medal, and for the total of 196 holes he was 19-under par. No such scoring had ever been recorded in the championship, and it would have beaten anybody - everybody.
That same year, Dutra won the Metropolitan Open, a highly regarded event at the time, played in the New York metropolitan area. The fields at that time had a virtual or eventual list of Hall-of-Famers. Winners include Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Tommy Armour, and Paul Runyan. It was the first important professional tournament Byron Nelson won, when he was an assistant pro in New Jersey.
Also in ’32 Dutra won two California tour events, finished second to Walter Hagen in the Western Open (a “major” in its day), was second in the Los Angeles, Pennsylvania and Northwest Opens, got a 4th in the Canadian Open, and was medalist in the U.S. Open, where he eventually finished seventh. As a member of the 1933 U.S. Ryder Cup team his travel expenses were paid to the UK, and, as did all the American players at that time, he stayed on to compete in the British Open. Dutra made the 36-hole cut at St. Andrews by a shot on two 76s, and was 13 strokes off the lead. He then indicated a propensity for the comeback that would become a hallmark of his competitive spirit. In a powerful wind he low-balled a brilliant third-round 70 that brought him within three of the lead. He just missed a 25-foot putt on the last hole that would have brought him into a tie for the title. In the end his 72, low round for the final 18, was not quite enough. He finished two shots back of Craig Wood and Denny Shute, who won the playoff.
Dutra’s play in 1934 was even more arresting, and made history both statistically and anecdotally. He played in the second Masters tournament, and with three 70s in a row was one shot behind the leader, Craig Wood. He recounted years later that he was too conservative on the front nine, playing to the fronts of the greens rather than to the pins. He hit every fairway, but three-putted a number of times to go out in 42. Miguel Quesada, who got his start in professional golf through Dutra, remembered something his mentor always said: “Manny, nobody ever changed history. Just hit the next one better.”
On the back-nine at Augusta National he did just that, by a lot. He birdied the tenth, missed two birdie chances from inside 15 feet on eleven and twelve, birdied thirteen, and at fifteen, where an hour or so later Gene Sarazen would hole out his 4-wood second shot for the mother of all double-eagles, Dutra hit a 2-iron second to within eight feet. His eagle attempt just missed, but three birdies out of the first six holes put him back in the hunt. No more birds were to come, but he came back in 32 to finish two shots behind Wood and Sarazen.
As a U.S. Open comeback artist Dutra preempted Arnold Palmer by 26 years. In June, 1934, at the Merion Cricket (now Golf) Club, Dutra opened with rounds of 76-74 and was eight shots off the pace held by Bobby Cruickshank. But in round three Dutra got it rolling, and put his experience with Monterey coast golf to good use. In strong winds he had a 71 that got to within three of the leader, Sarazen. The “massively constructed Californian,” as the Times golf writer, William Richardson, described Dutra, maintained his pace in the final round even as the winds grew stronger, closing with a 72 that brought him victory. He set a record by coming from eight shots off the lead after 36 holes to win. The next one to do that was Palmer in his celebrated 1960 U.S. Open victory.
But wait, there is much more to this story. On his trip to Merion Dutra came down with food poisoning. He lost 15 lbs, and was in bed for three days prior to the start of the championship. He was thinking of withdrawing, but found enough strength to play the first two rounds. That, and the fact that the cost of the trip from one side of the country to the next, struck him as a great waste if he didn’t play. Then, he had to fight dysentery going into the two-round final day, and popped sugar pills periodically during the round to keep his energy up. Tommy Armour, the great golfer and teacher, also did some journalism, and in his summation of the ’34 Open, wrote: “The word had passed down that Dutra was dopey and on the ropes as he was going to the 16th green [in the final round], but the germs that were in him didn’t reach his heart. He…staggered off the last green to become a popular and able champion.”
There is no record of it, but Dutra’s win in this fashion at Merion may have stimulated the now well-known adage, Beware the athlete who comes off a sick bed!
At the end of the year Dutra finished his best season of national competition with a victory in the Miami Biltmore Open, a highly regarded tour event with the biggest purse on the circuit.
At this point in his life Dutra’s homing instincts took over. He was 33, had two young children, and the time it took and the cost of travel east of the Rockies, where most of the significant tournaments were played, was prohibitive. What’s more, the country was in the throes of the Great Depression. As successful as he might be as a tournament player, the purses were so slim it simply didn’t make sense for him to pursue tournament golf. Having proven himself against the best in the game, he sharply cut back his competitive activity. He did play in a few subsequent U.S. Opens, and made the occasional appearance on the pro tour, where he showed that not much rust had gathered on his game: he won the True Temper Open (1937), the first tournament sponsored by a golf equipment company, and the California Open (1940).
The second phase of Dutra’s career was in ways even more productive. During World War II he was chairman of a rehabilitation program that built golf courses for VA hospitals in Southern California. In an exhibition he played at the Los Angeles Country Club with Babe Zaharias, $1.5 million in US war bonds were sold. From 1924 through 1969 Dutra was behind the development of five new golf courses in Southern California.
But teaching golf was his real love. And he was very good at it. Herbert Warren Wind, in his Story of American Golf, reported that in 1935 “Olin Dutra helped Ralph Guldhal change from a palm grip to finger control.” Guldhal went on to win four Western Opens (three in succession), two straight U.S. Opens, and a Masters. The grip change must have helped a little, at least.
Dutra’s success in the national championships, and his gentlemanly manner brought him head professional positions at fine private clubs in the Los Angeles area; the most notable was Wilshire CC. But wherever he was situated many of his students would travel to him for lessons, or send him movies of their swing from which Dutra gave instruction.
“The grip was one of the three fundamentals in his system,” remembered his grandson, Howard. “Grip, Hit Down on the Ball, Swing Inside to Out.” Dutra himself had a beautiful grip, said his disciple Quesada. “If you saw his hands on a golf club you’d say, God that’s gorgeous.” Jackie Burke remembers Dutra’s swing as “classic, with fine timing.”
It’s fascinating to consider that although Dutra died in 1982 and had been out of golf for almost a decade before that owing to the development of diabetes, his teaching reached what might be called “modern” times. Loren Roberts, who became a star on both the PGA and Senior PGA Tours and was called “Boss of the Moss” for his excellent putting, got much of that expertise from Dutra. Roberts connected with Dutra when he was a student at California Polytechnic University, in San Luis Obispo. “It was in 1972,” Roberts recalled. “My dad bought six lessons from him when he was teaching at the San Luis Bay club, which is now Avila Beach. His key concept in putting was that the putter blade be hooded slightly in the backstroke. It doesn’t shut [aim to the left], it kind of tips down.” Billy Casper and Bob Rosburg, both superb putters, used the same technique. As do almost every player on today’s tournament circuit.
But Dutra’s teaching, in Roberts’ case, went beyond putting. “Olin’s favorite shot,” recalled Quesada, “was a knock-down 8-iron. He shared that with Loren and when Loren was having trouble on the tour his teacher, Jimmy Swaggert, who knew of Olin’s teaching, would tell Loren to go to that swing, even with the driver. It would straighten him out.
“Olin was a very warm man, and oh he loved baseball. He once described the time he saw Sandy Koufax, who he taught golf, strike out the side on nine pitches with one of the batters Stan Musial. Olin gave it a very dramatic reading. It was exciting to hear him give it.
“He realized he didn’t get as much recognition as he should have, but he didn’t talk about it much. He got so much joy out of golf it didn’t make any difference to him.”