Harry Cooper’s legacy in golf has lasted long after his playing days
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Tom Patri remembers when he and Head Professional Tom Kennedy were first hired at Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y. Patri, director of instruction, was just settling into his new office in February 1991 when out of the dead of winter, an elderly gentleman dressed in coat and tie and wearing a fedora, stepped into Patri’s office. “I was wondering,” Patri remembers the man asking, “if I still have a job here.” Patri quickly learned the man’s identity. It was Harry Cooper, winner of 31 professional tournaments in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. In 1937, the World Golf Hall of Fame member won nine tournaments and was the first winner of The PGA’s Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring aver­age. Cooper had been quietly teaching golf at Westchester since the early ’80s since leaving his longtime head professional job at Metropo­lis Country Club in White Plains, N.Y. “Mr. Cooper,” Patri remembers responding. ”I’m not in the business of firing legends.”

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Cooper, a World
Golf Hall of Fame inductee, has been
a PGA Professional longer than any other living member (75-plus years).
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Harry “Lighthorse” Cooper has been a PGA member for more than 75 years, longer than any other living PGA Professional. He was born Aug. 6, 1904, in Leatherhead, Eng­land. Two years later, he emigrated to the United States with his family. The son of a golf profession­al, Cooper earned his nickname from a writer at the 1926 Los Angeles Open, who observed Cooper’s rapid pace of play as he was paired with George Von Elm in the final group. Cooper went on to win the first of two L.A. Opens that year. And though he never won a major by today’s standards, Cooper did win the Western Open (1934) and the Canadian Open twice (1932, ’37). Like other players of his era, however, Cooper had to supplement his income. In 1932, he left St. Andrews Golf Club in Toronto prior to the end of the final round not knowing if he won the Canadi­an Open, possibly forgoing a playoff. He had to catch a train to Chicago for an exhibition. Along the way, as the train made a coal stop, he snuck into a telegraph office to check the results of the tournament. When the telegraph operator informed him that a fellow by the name of Harry Cooper won, Cooper simply thanked the man and got back on the train. “We enjoyed the camaraderie between tour­naments,” says two-time PGA Champion Paul Runyan who, along with Horton Smith, was one of Cooper’s best friends on tour. “He made more eagles on short par 5s than Byron Nelson and Sam Snead combined. He was a very straight hitter,” says Runyan. Runyan and Nelson both agree that Cooper’s only negative as a player was that he got down on himself too easily. “Off the course, he was one of the nicest peo­ple you would ever meet,” says Nelson, also a two-time PGA Champion.

Despite his great success as a player, that is not where Cooper feels he has made his great­est impact on golf. “I believe I contributed more to the game as teacher,” says Cooper, who is retired now and lives with his wife Emma in Hartsdale, N.Y. “It’s a great honor to be a PGA member.” “He was extremely good, very practical,” says Runyan of Cooper’s teaching ability. “He got very good results.” “As a teacher, he was a big believer in fun­damentals – ball position, posture, alignment and good grip,” says Patri. “It made an impact with me that these things had to be in place.”
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