[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2] [Senate] [Pages 1718-1720] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]CHAMPIONS OF GOLF--THE FORD FAMILY Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I want to share with my colleagues an article in Golf Journal about the Ford family from my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. Since 1927, the Ford family has won a number of golf tournaments including 10 Azalea Invitationals, 10 South Carolina or Carolina Amateur crowns, 20-some city titles and 50 club championships. I am proud to recognize this talented family, and I ask that this article be reprinted in the Record. The article follows: [[Page 1719]] [From Golf Journal, Jan.-Feb., 2003] Model Tee Fords (By Rich Skyzinski) The Fords of Charleston, S.C., much like the Kennedys of Massachusetts or the Baldwins of Hollywood, have a family tradition. For nearly a century, one generation after another has been reared by a philosophy handed down much like an old family recipe. The motto on the family crest ought to read, If you want to be good at something, play golf. Role models have never been lacking. If any Ford demonstrated a desire for golf, he or she didn't need to look far for inspiration or instruction. Good golf genes have blessed generations, dating most notably to the second of five men named Frank Cordes Ford. Now 98, Frank Sr. (actually the second FCF) was the most accomplished of the Fords, and he can prove it. He can still rattle off a lot of the stories, in rapid-fire fashion: the games with Bob Jones, Harry (Lighthorse) Cooper, Henry Picard and Craig Wood; how he won a dollar bill (signed and framed) from Horton Smith; the day he one-upped the great Ben Hogan by hitting a 4-wood to within eight inches of the hole after Hogan hit a 3-wood shot to eight feet from virtually the same fairway location. If ever a forebear set a standard for his progenies to shoot at, it's Granddaddy (Frank Sr.). He made sure any challenger was in it for the long haul. How else could you top his record of seven South Carolina Amateur crowns (and three runner-up finishes), four Azalea Invitational victories, 11 Charleston City titles and 18 Country Club of Charleston championships? ``The Ford family is known, certainly in the city and probably around the state, because of golf,'' says Bert Atkinson, 1991 U.S. Mid-Amateur runner-up and a C.C. of Charleston member. ``I think it's probably always been that way.'' If you are a Charleston golfer, at one time or another, a Ford has beaten you. Since 1927, family members have won 10 Azaleas, 10 South Carolina or Carolinas Ams, 20-some city titles and 50 club championships, give or take a few. An extra room would be needed for all the junior, mid-amateur and team trophies. How did this all start? Tommy Ford, one of Granddaddy's three sons, claims it was not planned. ``No family ever gets together and says, `Here is what we're going to do,''' says the 58-year-old. ``It comes to you; you deal with it. If you become good, you try to live up to it. When you play well, the headlines start to reinforce this idea that you're living up to your dad's records. And all of a sudden you are, not that you ever tried. But you're fulfilling a pattern that started 60 years ago.'' Granddaddy speaks from the other side of the equation. ``I think they saw the fun I got out of golf,'' he allows, ``and maybe some of them wanted to play because they thought it would be fun. Most of them worked pretty hard at it.'' It isn't ``a guy thing,'' either. Granddaddy's mother, Anne (Sissie) Ford, who moved to Charleston following her husband's death in 1918, won the C.C. of Charleston Women's championship in 1927. A year later, she lost in the final to her daughter, Anne Ford Melton. And family members also are quick to credit Granddaddy's wife, Betsy. She was a caring, nurturing mentor who made the game what it should be for kids: fun. She also was an accomplished player, collecting a half-dozen club championships and two city titles. Betsy, who died in 1998, and her husband played different roles in advancing the family tradition. She had a deep love for the game and passed it down to scores of youngsters. She helped her three sons and any grandchildren or great- grandchildren who wanted to play the game and was involved in many club and city youth programs. Once a youngster became proficient enough to break 80, Granddaddy would begin to share his passion and try to light their competitive fires. ``I don't remember any pressure or push, other than the brilliance of a mother, who believed that we should know a little about the game at the age we were,'' Tommy says. ``There was a nudge towards lessons during the summer, but it was also, `Go hunting. Do whatever you want to do' from her.'' Sarah (Mahony) Ford Rijswijk, Frank Jr.'s widow, adds, ``She said, `If you marry into the Ford family, dear, you'd better play golf.' . . . I thought they were a little nuts because I played tennis. But I took up golf and Betsy was the one who led me into the game. She was the most wonderful teacher. She had a beautiful swing, classic, and was one of the few people I know who was really interested in your game, everybody's game. She really helped everybody. She was the consummate golfer.'' Betsy's favorite classroom was the par-3 11th hole at the Country Club of Charleston. The hole is a classic Seth Raynor design with the green elevated some 10 or 12 feet and sharp drop-offs on each side. Betsy, a.k.a. Granny, would take a youngster to the bottom of the slope in front of the green and show them how to chip with a 7-iron. They would practice that shot over and over until the youngster could bump a shot into the hillside with an artisan's touch. It's been more than 40 years since Frank III was tutored there by his grandmother but, he says, ``I remember that to this day. She taught me to chip, and I've never chipped with a wedge or a sand wedge like so many guys do. I'm going to grab my 7-iron because that's what she taught me.'' Even if a youngster had only a passing interest in the game, Betsy made her mark. Billy Ford, her middle son, recalls going out for a round with his son, Billy Jr., whom he thought was a novice, but evoked a double take with his confident practice swing on the first tee. ``Where'd you learn that?'' his father asked. ``Granny,'' he replied proudly. ``Granny taught me.'' Betsy rarely commented on any of the youngsters' successes, but they could sense her pride when they did well. ``She could instill desire, which I think is a hard thing to do,'' says Sarah. ``I won my first club championship and I beat her, and I think she was happier about it than I was.'' Granddaddy himself was introduced to the game at age 15, by his mother and an uncle who lived in Canada. But he learned swing basics from a group of African-American caddies in Summerville, S.C. ``They used to say, `This is how you hold the club. This is the way you stand,''' he recalls. He developed a tendency to sway during his backswing instead of pivoting, but there was little anyone could do to change this; after all, the swing worked for him. There was a time when the club's head professional was Henry Picard, later a Masters and PGA Championship winner. Picard had what was considered one of the finest swings in the game, but not even he could convince Granddaddy. ``He said, `I'm going to get you out of this swaying,''' he remembers. ``I said, `Now Henry, listen. Don't try to give me any lessons because you can do whatever you want, but I'm not going to change my swing.' ``He said, `Okay,' and never again told me how to do it.'' Granddaddy carried that insistence with him to the cement and concrete business. Tommy tells a story of his dad trying to sell a prospective customer cement at 20 cents a bag, only to be told, ``I don't need any cement.'' Ford lowered the price to 15 cents a bag and, receiving the same reply, went to 10 cents and then to a nickel. ``The customer finally said he couldn't afford not to buy it at that price and Dad got a customer for life,'' Tommy concludes. ``He was the same way in golf as in business. He wanted to make every sale, and he wanted to win every time he stepped onto the golf course.'' Granddaddy confined most of his playing to a local and regional level because he had a business to run. He qualified for the only U.S. Amateur he entered, in 1934 at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., losing in the third round. He played until he was 90, then gave away his clubs one day after he shot 45 for nine holes. Atkinson, who played with him that day, remembers the exchange afterward. ``I said, `That's pretty good playing, Mr. Ford.''' Atkinson says. ``He put his arm around me and said, `Yeah, but if I was 30 years younger I would have beaten you guys butt good.''' None of Granddaddy's three sons were as passionate about the game as their father. Tommy blossomed into an accomplished player later in life, with seven club championships and a handful of senior titles. Billy was a good junior player and captain of the University of North Carolina golf team in 1953, but hasn't competed much since. Frank Jr., who died at age 44 in a 1974 Eastern Airlines plane crash, played little competitive golf. If the old man's competitive fires were passed down, most of them found their way to Frank III, who has qualified for nearly a dozen U.S. Amateurs and four U.S. Mid-Amateurs, and his son, Cordes (Frank Cordes Ford IV), a 26-year-old law student at the University of South Carolina with his own collection of trophies. In 1996, Cordes completed a rare double when he won the Carolinas Amateur a week after Frank III took the state am. ``They're the two that have the desire to go out there,'' says Sarah, ``They want to win.'' By contrast, Billy says, ``I'm not trying to win anything anymore, just have a nice golf day.'' Which isn't to say the patriarch's presence has not been felt. Billy once was about to close out a match at Biltmore Forest Country Club in Asheville, N.C., when Granddaddy came up to him, put his arm around the teenager and said, ``Son, this is where I won my war bond.'' ``Everything's fine. I've got 20 feet for birdie, but I got it back to here,'' says Billy, imitating a putting stroke, ``and just locked; couldn't move it. It exploded in my hand, went past the hole about 15 feet. I three-putted that, snap- hooked it on 16, hit a limb coming out of the woods on 17. Before I knew it, I went from 5 up with five to play to 1 up with one to play. It's funny now, but I was in tears then.'' Because of the family's countless successes, there's an assumption throughout the Carolinas that Fords should be accomplished players simply because of their last name. ``I felt like I was supposed to play better than whatever I did,'' says Billy. ``There was certain pressure on me, sure.'' [[Page 1720]] Tommy, who's a decade younger than his brother, adds: ``Your identity is golf, because you grew up seeing golf and that's what you gravitated to. But I maintain you do the best you can for your own expectations, not necessarily for this family tradition thing. I never wanted to win tournaments to extend my father's streak.'' Tommy is said to have the best swing in the family. People in Charleston often call him ``sweet-swingin' Tommy Ford.'' ``The `sweet-swingin' does not always live up to people's expectations,'' he says. ``They know I'm Frank Ford's son so they think I am good. They remember what you've accomplished. You carry that expectation with you more so because of Daddy, Billy, Frank--the trickle-down effect of the background of winning. People view us as winners because that's what they remember Daddy doing, Frank doing, Billy doing. They expect us to be hard to beat. That's a little bit difficult sometimes.'' Frank III's sister, Anne Ford Strickland, lived near Winston-Salem, N.C., for years and says the difference in the pressure she felt was palpable. ``I never felt anything up there,'' she insists. ``Part of it may have been because I had my married name. people didn't know me by Ford.'' The Fords have never called attention to their exploits. Sometimes, even family members are unaware of them. Anne played in a C.C. of Charleston girls' program with Beth Daniel, who went on to become an LPGA Hall of Famer and a favorite of Anne's son David. Looking through Anne's scrapbooks, David came upon a newspaper clipping about his mom's victory over Daniel in a junior club championship in the mid-1960s. ``You beat Beth Daniel?'' he asked, eyes widening. What do you expect? She is a Ford. ____________________