CityView Magazine

CityViewNC.com | 51 BY MARSHALL WAREN The greats once played in Fayetteville Once upon a time, nearly 66 years ago, there was a famous golf match in Fayetteville. And it involved Arnold Palmer. You may have heard of him. He was a senior at Wake Forest College which, at the time, was outside of Raleigh. His playing partner was the great amateur star Harvie Ward from Tarboro. Most everyone that knows golf knows what Arnold Palmer accomplished during his career (and what he did for lemonade and iced tea). However, very few people know of Harvie Ward. The match that day, May 21, 1950, was between the two best amateurs at the time and two local pros, brothers Fairley and Archie Clark. It was then that the largest crowd of spectators on record gathered that Highland Country Club and Fayetteville has ever seen for a golf game. Harvey Oliver and Harvie Ward B efore the Fayetteville match with Palmer as his partner, Ward had won the North-South Amateur in Pinehurst in 1948 and the NCAA national championship in 1949. He later won back to back US Amateur championships in 1955 and 1956. at record stood until 1982 when Jay Sigel won two straight national amateurs. Ward also won the Brit- ish Amateur and many other events. And if you can believe it, his unde- feated record in Walker Cup matches still stands today. He finished fourth at the Masters in 1957 and seventh in the 1955 US Open. Ken Venturi, in the book, e Match said: "When Jack Nicklaus was in his prime and Harvie was in his prime, I'll take Harvie." Ward was great friends with long- time Fayetteville resident Harvey Oliver. Oliver played on the UNC- Chapel Hill golf team with Ward for four years as the number two player behind Ward. Also, in December of 1949, Oliver and Ward played a sim- ilar match against the Clark broth- ers. ey tied that match. Arnold Palmer and Harvie Ward had a golfing relationship for many years. ey played against each other dozens of times before Palmer turned professional in 1954, surpass- ing Ward in fame when he won the 1958 Masters. And the great North Carolina golfer remained amateur until 1974, though he lost that ama- teur status for a year in 1957 due to circumstances surrounding his em- ployer, a then famous car dealer on the west coast. His life would take a turn for the worse as a results of those events and he never fully re- covered. To learn more on Harvie Ward, do yourself a favor and read that great golf book I mentioned ear- lier, e Match. It is about a famous game pitting the two best amateurs in the world in 1956, Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward against the two all-time famous professionals Ben Hogan and Bryon Nelson. It was feature

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