This article originally appeared in the March issue of NCGA Golf Magazine
Cinnabar Hills in San Jose is Home to the Lee Brandenburg Historical Golf Museum
By Nick Lozito
Several letters from golf-loving President Dwight D. Eisenhower to Augusta National Golf Club are among the prized historical curios at Cinnabar Hills Golf Club in San Jose. And like much of Lee Brandenburg’s collection, the letters come with a story.
Before Brandenburg made his fortune developing mobile home communities, he was stationed at Camp Gordon in Georgia as a second lieutenant. The 22-year-old caught wind president-elect Eisenhower would be playing a round of golf at nearby Augusta. Brandenburg drove to Magnolia Lane in hopes of catching a glimpse of the U.S. general who eight years earlier helped liberate Europe by commanding allied forces in Normandy.
Instead, Brandenburg found police, highway patrol and secret service at the Augusta gates. He drove down a secluded path, parked under a tree and walked onto the fairway. Eisenhower was playing with Ed Dudley, Augusta’s first head pro.
“When the secret service man came up on my side,” Brandenburg said in a 2016 interview with friend and museum curator John Schiro, “he said, ‘What the hell are you doing on this golf course? It’s closed, even to members. … Wait until the general putts out and get the hell out of here.”
Eisenhower was facing me, picking his ball out of the hole and couldn't resist coming to see a second lieutenant in uniform. I said, ‘Congratulations general.’ We talked for a few minutes and he took off with his game of golf. I was a happy camper.”
Eisenhower’s letters, which Brandenburg bought years later, detailed the 34th president’s many retreats to the exclusive course[1] . They are among many items from the early years of Augusta on display at Cinnabar Hills, the San Jose public golf course Brandenburg and his business partners built in 1998.
“Lee would pick up as many things as he could,” Schiro said of his late friend. “He'd see something and say, ‘There's gotta be a place somewhere for this.’ So he just bought it. I don't even know what he paid for it. And this is what the museum's about – little, incidental things, as well as big things.”
Brandenburg was a founding member of Spyglass Hill in 1966 and became a regular participant in the PGA Tour pro-ams held at Pebble Beach (the Crosby Clambake), where he owned a home on the course, and Palm Springs (the Bob Hope). He befriended Tour players and other stewards of the game. His great wealth gained him access to golf history, and he often took home a piece.
“He saw a trespassing sign,” Schiro explained, “and it meant nothing to him. And that's why he was so successful.
“I said, ‘You come up with 50 ideas a month, and 48 were (expletive).’ But two of them were really good. You didn't have to pick his brain. He constantly gave you ideas.”
Schiro, a San Jose State graduate, was a sales representative for Pickering Sportswear when he first befriended Brandenburg in the late 1960s. “He was a very eccentric individual,” Schiro recalls, “and he loved colors. We had a lot of colors, so he started buying a whole lot of stuff.”
Schiro spent 45 years in the golf business, including as a sales manager for Waterford Crystal, which produces many of the game’s iconic trophies. Shortly after Schiro retired in 2015, Brandenburg asked him to curate the golf history museum.
Schiro was hesitant at first. When Cinnabar Hills opened, Brandenburg’s collection filled about two walls in the clubhouse. As he purchased more items, the museum became cluttered. “Everything he bought he just threw in there. There was too much stuff.”
Brandenburg did some convincing.
“He said, ‘No, no, you know about golf. You grew up in golf. I need someone to be curator. I want you to be curator. He actually did send me a check. The next day, I sent it right back to him.”
Brandenburg died in 2017 at age 87.
“Because of my relationship with Lee and the family, I do this,” Schiro explains from the Cinnabar Hills restaurant. “And my knowledge of golf. There'll be a day that I have to pass it on to somebody.”
The museum now fills two large rooms in the clubhouse with artifacts including Walter Hagan’s Ryder Cup jacket from his four tournaments as playing captain (1927-33); letters from Bobby Jones; a clock from the original Masters; golf clubs used by Chip Beck and Al Geiberger during their historic rounds of 59 on the PGA Tour; and a contract between Ben Hogan and Twentieth Century Fox for a film on Jones’ life, “Follow The Sun.” The restaurant has a collection of golf-themed Jim Beam decanters given to amateur participants of the Crosby tournament.
Perhaps the most cavalier display at the Cinnabar Hills museum are full-sized replica trophies of all four men’s professional major championships plus the U.S. Amateur and Ryder Cup. Brandenburg commissioned a silversmith in England to create the replicas in 2002 and hosted a media day at Cinnabar Hills to unveil the hardware. He flew in luminaries and friends Tony Jacklin, Bob Goalby, Doug Sanders, Billy Casper and Bob Rosburg, who together won all four majors and Ryder Cups.
The Lee Brandenburg Historical Museum is free to the public. For information about future tours, contact curator John Schiro at shyrow@rocketmail.com.
