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Birth of the tee : The story behind the man who gave the ball the perfect setup - George Franklin Grant, inventor - Brief Article

Golf Digest, Oct, 2000 by PETE McDANIEL

Most African-American golf pioneers were cut from the same piece of cloth as John Shippen, who shared the first-round lead in the second U.S. Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y. They rose from the caddie ranks as rough-around-the-edges golfers with more skill and patience on the course than off it. Diplomacy often yielded to confrontation, and progress no doubt suffered as the result.

Some African-Americans, though, took a quieter, less-traveled route to the first tee box. Dr. George Franklin Grant, a successful Boston dentist, was one of them.

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Grant was born in 1846 in Oswego, N.Y. Unlike many modern-day heroes, his contribution to the game was through ingenuity and resourcefulness rather than playing ability. Grant received a patent for the golf tee in 1899. His was the blueprint for today's wooden and plastic tees. He owned the first patent, but it took almost a century to receive recognition for his invention.

By all accounts, Dr. Grant was not the most skilled golfer, but he enjoyed the recreational aspects of the game. He was a gentleman and a scholar, having graduated in Harvard University's second class in dentistry in 1870. A leading authority on the cleft palate, Dr. Grant developed a thriving dental practice. And like many dentists today, he spent much of his down time playing golf.

Grant found the method of teeing up a ball--pinching damp sand into a launching pad--both inconsistent and tedious. How could a player determine the preferred height of sand each time? Besides, the constant bending over at every tee box to form the little mounds was both physically taxing and, on rainy and inclement days, messy. Appearance, after all, was just as important as a well-struck drive to a gentleman golfer.

So, tired of the inconvenience, Dr. Grant used his skills to improve the game. In 1899, the U.S. Patent Office granted patent 638,920 to George F. Grant of Boston. Grant's tee was described as "a rigid base portion and an attached flexible head, the base being preferably made of wood and tapering to a point at its lower end to be readily inserted in the ground . . . [the tee had a rubber head with annular seat] on which the ball rests as in a cup . . . when the ball is struck, the head will yield in the direction of the travel of the ball, offering no obstruction to its flight."

But Dr. Grant was more innovator than businessman, more philanthropist than Fuller Brush salesman. He never marketed his invention. He gave some of the tees--manufactured in a small shop in the Boston suburb of Arlington Heights--to friends and playing partners, but the majority of them were squirreled away at his residence. Recalled his daughter, Frances, "He loved challenges, but once he overcame them, he lost interest and moved on to something else." When Dr. Grant died in 1910 at his vacation home in New Hampshire, his invention apparently died with him.

Ten years later, the messy, wet sand tee was still in vogue when Dr. William Lowell, a Maplewood, N.J., dentist, made the late-in-life discovery that golf possessed certain therapeutic advantages. Like Dr. Grant, however, the meticulous doctor found no pleasure in soiling his fancy haberdashery during a leisurely round of golf. Dr. Lowell's initial attempt at the golf tee was made of gutta-percha, a material used to make false teeth and golf balls in the 19th century. However, the rubbery material was brittle and broke too easily. Dr. Lowell found white birch to be more durable and manufactured 5,000 tees from it. His first products were colored green, but he soon changed to red dye, and derived the trade name "Reddy Tees" from their color.

An enthusiastic entrepreneur, Dr. Lowell sought to turn red into green. In 1922, he persuaded the great Walter Hagen and one of his fellow professionals, Joe Kirkwood (reportedly with a $1,500 incentive), to use his tees during their barnstorming exhibitions. Hagen described the pandemonium created when they used the tees and left them on the tee box at an exhibition at the Shennecossett Club in Groton, Conn.: "Kids scrambled on the course, grabbing them as souvenirs. They became so popular that the club found it necessary to rope off the tees and fairways to control the gallery." It might have been the first time in U.S. golf history that gallery ropes were used.

The Reddy Tee was not patented until May 13, 1925, but three years earlier Dr. Lowell cut a deal with the A.G. Spalding Company, which initially bought 24 dozen. By 1925, profits soared in excess of $100,000. The following year, however, a flood of brands hit the marketplace, and Dr. Lowell spent much of his remaining years and fortune fighting a losing battle over patent infringement. He died in 1954 at the age of 91. Ironically, it was not until 1991 that the USGA recognized Dr. Grant as the original inventor of the wooden tee. Like a golfer oblivious to time, validation can take an eternity.

Birth of the tee : The story behind the man who gave the ball the perfect setup - George Franklin Grant, inventor - Brief Article

Golf Digest, Oct, 2000 by PETE McDANIEL

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