June 8, 1935: Moments after he’d shocked the golf world by emerging from obscurity to win the National Open at Oakmont, Sam Parks Jr. was cornered by a reporter from The Pittsburgh Press.
Parks had taken the tournament lead with a miraculous 60-foot chip shot witnessed by a gallery estimated at 10,000. Then he held off a curly-headed blond Californian named Jimmy Thompson in a gruelling homestretch to win with a score of 299.
But who cares about spectacular victories? Love — that’s what reporter Evelyn Burke wanted to discuss.
Parks was young and handsome, and now he was a star. The fact that he was a hometown kid made him even more appealing.
Do you have a girlfriend? Burke asked. Is marriage in your future?
“For heaven’s sake, don’t make me out a ladies man,” Parks pleaded, a note of panic in his voice. “I’ve been too busy all my life to bother with girls.”
The reporter took a moment to jot down that Parks was wearing a brown sweater and gray slacks. Reporters crowded around. Flash bulbs popped. Burke noted that Parks had a “natural deep tan” and his face was “a sort of new Dubonnet shade, a sort of red brown mixed with purple.”
Burke then persisted in her line of questioning. You can’t blame her. In the mid-1930s, the Depression continued to hang around the country’s neck. Reading about a local guy who defeated golf’s biggest stars made Pittsburghers feel proud.
The public is interested in you, Burke said. What type of girl do you like?
“I like ’em all,” replied Parks, obviously trying to be helpful and accommodating. “Blondes, brunettes and redheads, but honestly I haven’t any preference.”
Parks wasn’t accustomed to the spotlight. He was just a kid who’d grown up in Bellevue and happened to fall in love with golf. After school, he’d run to catch a streetcar to the Highland Country Club so he could practice. It paid off. Parks was unknown nationally, but local golfers knew him as a solid player and a dangerous competitor. At Pitt, he’d served as captain of the golf team.
And what about lady golfers? Burked asked.
Parks said he’d never played golf with a woman. “Not that I have any objections to them. It’s just that I don’t know many girls who do play golf. I’ve always been pretty busy, anyway.”
The National Open victory earned Parks $1,000. He’d play a few more years professionally, but would never again win another major tournament. Eventually he would marry, then divorce and marry again. He’d take a job with U.S. Steel, then retire to Florida, where he’d die at the age of 87 in 1997.
But in a cramped hallway in 1935 he was still a young 25 and he showed his white teeth and shook his head at Burke’s questions.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s not much to tell about me — only golf. I like to dance, too. But I don’t get to many parties because golf seems to take up so much of my time. And honestly, I’m not in love.”
Parks grinned and “his dark eyes squinted in a friendly fashion,” Burke wrote. “His black hair, parted in the middle and slicked back, made him look very boyish.”
