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GERRY FEHR

GERRY FEHR
Member of the Yale Golf Team, 1951-1955, Class of 1955 
Interviewed on December 5, 2005 [conducted by telephone by John Godley]

Interview (14 mins)

Fehr began playing golf in 1944 at age 11 at the Seattle Olympic Golf Club, where he was a caddy. He won the high school city championship and later the state junior championship in 1949 and 1950. Recruited by the local alumni group he chose Yale over Stanford and came here on an academic scholarship. He found the golf course a “great challenge”. He arrived with a “scratch” handicap, but could do no better than shoot 75 in his freshman year. He learned to play a high fade [instead of a low draw] and by his senior year shot 66. He had 3 different coaches: Joe Sullivan as a freshman and sophomore, “Widdy” Neale as a junior, and Al Wilson as a senior. The varsity team won the Eastern Intercollegiate championship all three years and he took the individual championship two of those years.

Since graduation he has been in the life insurance business back in Seattle. He is a member of the Sands Point C.C. in Seattle, where he has been club champion 19 times. He won the Washington State Open in 1961 and the state senior amateur in 1990. He has played in the USGA amateur, senior amateur and senior open. He has been involved in the Washington Junior Golf Association [WJGA] since 1982. In 1984 he caddied for his son Rick in the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, where Rick was the low amateur, as he had been in the Masters Tournament earlier that year. Since 1993 Gerry has been the Executive Director of the WJGA. Presently there are more than 1,000 juniors in the program. Two members of the current women’s team, Lauren Ressler and Eillie Brophy, have come from the program.

In 1958, he was still thinking of the team.