The Mysterious Montague – The best golfer you’ve never heard of.
John Montague appeared on the golf scene in Hollywood as if from nowhere. And despite shunning the limelight, he quickly became the most talked about man in town.
The mysterious Montague stood at 5 feet 10 inches (178cm) and weighed 220lbs. He could drive the ball over 300 yards with ease.
In a time at the tail end of the great depression John Montague lived a life of fast cars, tailored suits and movie star friends. It helped that he was easily the best golf player anyone had ever seen. Soon, stories about him began to emerge. Everyone wanted to meet him.
The Legend of the Mysterious Montague
John was famously tight lipped about his background. The only thing he wanted to do is play golf. And boy did he play well.
Actor Richard Arlen, who had starred in the academy award winning movie Wings (1927) met Montague for the first time in Palm Springs. There, at the O’Donnell Golf Club. Par there was 70. Montague shot rounds of 61 three times and then a round of 59. Arlen was fascinated by this barrel chested goliath of a man.
They became firm friends. Eventually, Arlen suggested he became a member at Lakeside Golf Club in Burbank. This course was and still is surrounded on all sides by movie studios.
Anyone who was anyone played their golf here and still do. From Howard Hughes, Douglas Fairbanks, Oliver Hardy and Humphrey Bogart, the list was endless.
It was here that the legend of the Mysterious Montague would cement itself.
The Legend Grows
On the course, nobody could beat Monty. He outdrove everyone, hit his approach shots close and putted like a demon.
Bing Crosby tried to take him in a match. Bing was a great golfer and sometimes played 36 holes a day. He lost. Sat in the bar afterwards, Bing decried his bad luck. Monty was not having it. He announced confidently to the room that he could beat Bing over one hole using a baseball bat, a rake and a spade. He wouldn’t even need a golf club.
Bing seized upon it and they were off back out to the course. On a par four hole Monty hit the ball 350 yards with the baseball bat. He then used the shovel to hit the ball within 10 feet of the hole and finished off by putting for a birdie using the rake like a pool cue. Bing could only par the hole.
Another story has Monty hitting a bird from a telephone wire 175 yards away using a three wood. Not only did he hit the exact bird he pointed at, he was so precise, he snapped its neck!
George Von Elm, one of the best players of the era called him “the greatest golfer I ever saw”. And this was a man who played with Bobby Jones regularly!
Feats of Strength
It wasn’t just on the course where Monty excelled. His feats of strength were legendary. Walking into a bar one night, he saw his friend Oliver Hardy. Grabbing the 300lb comic actor by the shirt with one hand, he lifted him up and sat him on the bar before asking “what’ll you have?”.
Another time a driver got annoyed with him, thinking he had been cut off by Monty. Monty got out of the car without saying a word, walked to the front of the gentleman’s car and lifted it off the ground. Once he had placed it back down he walked around to the side window.
“What did you say?” he asked. The gentleman wisely drove away, no fight left in him.
John Montague could out drink, out eat, out golf and out fight anyone it was said. His stories became more and more embellished with each retelling.
Curiously though, he never put himself in the spotlight. he was very content to be a legend within the local community and nothing more.
Grantland Rice and Recognition
Unfortunately for Monty, Lakeside Golf Club was unlike any other. Word would always get out from here. This time it would be in the form of Grantland Rice.
Rice was a journalist by trade. Which is underselling it. He was a sports business and the most famous journalist in the country. Rice richer than most of the stars he wrote about and had his column syndicated to over 100 newspaper.
Grantland had heard all the stories about John Montague and took them all with a pinch of salt. Until the day he played golf with him.
During a round with Monty, Oliver Hardy and others, Rice was mesmerised. Everything he saw John hit was perfect. On the last hole he only had to shoot par to claim the course record. Then a strange thing happened. John Montague, purposefully hit a ball into the woods before retiring for the day.
Rice asked him why. “I don’t want the notoriety” came the reply.
Grantland Rice left the course that day convinced he had just played a round with the greatest golfer of all time.
He had to write about him.
I have played several rounds with John Montague in California and I’ll take him as an even bet against any golfer you can name—over a championship course.
I played with him at Lakeside, Riviera and other hard courses around Los Angeles and he handled most of the long par-4 holes, from 430 to 450 yards, with a drive and a niblick [9-iron] over soft fairways. He has the grip of doom in his hands, which are like active steel. He has the ability to concentrate with a keen, alert mind.
He would be murder in an amateur championship—here or in Great Britain—and a distinct threat in any open.
Grantland Rice, Column from January 18th, 1935
This was the recognition that John Montague dreaded.
Further Recognition and Court Case
More articles soon followed. Prominent journalists of the time flooded the papers with stories of Montague’s feats. Everyone wanted to know who the Mysterious Montague was.
Time magazine sent a reporter and a photographer to interview him. Monty rebuffed them both. The reporter had to make his story from facts already know about him, while the photographer only got a picture by hiding behind a tree to take it.
Offers flooded in to Monty. $50,000 to play Bobby Jones. An offer to compete in the British Open. All were rebuffed.
In June 1937, the American Golfer ran this headline:
An Appeal to Mr Montague
Today, the mystery surrounding him has reached such proportions as to become a menace to the reputations of those whose business is golf.
We ask Mr. Montague to give the golfers of this country, a large percentage of which we represent, a fair opportunity to judge the true merits of his game. Such judgment can only be made by his appearance in competition.
It seemed the Mysterious Montague was destined for fame, like it or not.
July the 9th, 1937 – End of the Line
John Cosart was the New York State police inspector. After seeing pictures of John Montague, he had become convinced that this man was none other than LaVerne Moore. A wanted criminal from New York. In August 1930, Hana’s restaurant had been violently robbed by four men wearing masks and brandishing revolvers. Elizabeth Hana had been forced to empty the safe while her father, Matt Cobb was knocked unconscious. The robbers escaped with $750 (just over $11,000 in todays money).
Unluckily for the robbers, the police were nearby looking for bootleggers running alcohol, so when a car shot by, they gave chase. Two of the robbers were in a Ford and in a desperate bid to escape, they switched off their headlights. The driver died when they inevitably crashed. The passenger was arrested.
The two other robbers escaped but were pulled over by state police a little while later. The passenger identified himself as Lawrence Ryan and managed to talk his way out of the situation. A few days later the driver turned himself in. In the car were a set of golf clubs, a drivers license and a draft notice. The police were sure that Lawrance Ryan was actually LaVerne Moore (a.k.a. John Montague).
Arrest and Acquittal
The Mysterious Montague was arrested. His Hollywood friends including Oliver Hardy and Bing Crosby, paid for his defence. Montague fought his extradition from California to New York, but in time he had to go back and face the music.
The trial was a sensation. His two surviving accomplices had already been tried, convicted and jailed.
In court one of them claimed Monty was the fourth robber, the other that he wasn’t. Monty’s mother claimed him to have been home that night asleep. She also claimed she saw nothing wrong with how the day after he had suddenly packed up and left, headed west to seek his fortune playing golf.
His fame and notoriety brought back a verdict that shocked the judge. Monty was acquitted and carried from the courtroom on the shoulders of his supporters.
Free, Famous and Supremely Talented
At 34 Monty was finally free to be the best golfer in the world. Unfortunately for him, it was not to be. During his legal troubles and trial, he had put on a lot of weight and hadn’t played golf in nearly two years.
A month after the trial he played an exhibition match with none other than Babe Ruth. It attracted such a large crowd that the event had to be cancelled after just nine holes.
It would prove to be the highlight of Monty’s career. After legally changing his name to John Montague, he got Wilson Sporting Goods as a sponsor for a tour abroad. They dropped him when he returned to the USA.
In 1940 he qualified for the U.S. Open but after his first two rounds he had missed the cut, shooting an 80 and an 82.
John never went onto the Pro Tour and made most of his money playing trick shots and exhibitions for crowds but the further away from the court case, the less people wanted to know him.
He married Esther Plunkett, a wealthy socialite and they lived happily for a time, until she died suddenly in 1947.
As his fame ebbed, he disappeared from the celebrity scene, living the last few years in a residence motel in California. There he died, aged 68, in 1972.
Grantland Rice, 3 months before his own death in 1954 had this to say about the Mysterious Montague:
A great many will tell you that Montague, originally a Syracuse boy, was overplayed. That isn’t true.
What’s the truth? Who can tell. But it’s one hell of a story.
Sources:
Montague the Magnificent (smithsonianmag.com)
John Montague, Fugitive Golfer (forgottennewsmakers.com)
John Montague (wikipedia.com)
The strange case of John Montague (chicagotribune.com)
The Mysterious Montague (goodreads.com)
Image Header (pixabay.com)