Frank Donovan "Sandy" Tatum Jr. (July 7, 1920 – June 22, 2017) was an attorney, a golf administrator, a golf course architect, a golf promoter, and an amateur

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

er.

Golf career

NCAA champion

Tatum attended

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, where he was a member of Stanford's golf team, which won back-to-back

NCAA Men's Golf Championship The NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championship, played in late May or early June, is the top annual competition in U.S. men's collegiate golf. The teams that win their respective Division I conference championships are given automatic spots in th ...

s in 1941 and 1942. In 1942, Tatum won the individual title. He is a member of the

Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame The Stanford Cardinal are the athletic teams that represent Stanford University. As of June, 2022, Stanford's program has won 131 NCAA team championships. Stanford has won at least one NCAA team championship each academic year for 46 consecutive ...

. Tatum remained an active golfer into his 90s.

Heads USGA

From 1978 to 1980, Tatum served as president of the

United States Golf Association The United States Golf Association (USGA) is the United States national association of golf courses, clubs and facilities and the governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. Together with The R&A, the USGA produces and interprets the rules ...

, and he served on the USGA executive committee from 1972 to 1980. Tatum played an important role in persuading the USGA to bring the U.S. Open to the

Olympic Club The Olympic Club is an sports club, athletic club and private social club in San Francisco, San Francisco, California. First named the "San Francisco Olympic Club", it is the oldest sports club, athletic club in the United States. Established o ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in 1955; the championship has since returned there four times: in 1966, 1987, 1998, and 2012. He also was instrumental in the USGA's decision to take the Open to

Pebble Beach Golf Links Pebble Beach Golf Links is a public golf course on the west coast of the United States, located in Pebble Beach, California. Regarded by ''Travel and Leisure'' blog as one of the most beautiful courses in the world, it hugs the rugged coastlin ...

, south of the Bay Area, for the first time in 1972; the championship has since returned there five times: in 1982, 1992, 2000, 2010, and 2019.

Activist, golf course architect, promoter

In the early 2000s, Tatum led a successful campaign for renovation of the

Harding Park Golf Club TPC Harding Park, formerly Harding Park Golf Club and commonly known as Harding Park, is a municipal golf course on the West Coast of the United States, located in western San Francisco, California. It is owned by the city and county of It is ...

, which had previously hosted many PGA Tour events in the 1950s and 1960s, but which had fallen into disrepair. It took several years, but the Harding Park course was restored to prominence, and has since held several high-profile golf events. Tatum was involved in the design and development of

The Links at Spanish Bay ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

golf course in

Pebble Beach, California Pebble Beach is an unincorporated community on the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey County, California. The small coastal residential community of mostly single-family homes is also notable as a resort destination, and the home of the golf course ...

. He co-designed The Preserve Golf Club in

Carmel, California Carmel-by-the-Sea (), often simply called Carmel, is a city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and municipal corporation, incorporated on October 31, 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel is known for its n ...

and Lockeford Springs Golf Course in

Lodi, California Lodi ( ) is a city located in San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County, California, in the center portion of California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. The population was 62,134 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 cen ...

, as well as Mount Shasta Resort in

Mount Shasta, California Mount Shasta (also known as Mount Shasta City) is a city in Siskiyou County, California, at about above sea level on the flanks of Mount Shasta, a prominent northern California landmark. The city is less than southwest of the summit of its na ...

. He was involved with The First Tee of San Francisco chapter out of Harding Park, and went on to host "Sandy's Circle" through the Northern California Golf Association to help fund the Youth on Course subsidized round program in 2007. Tatum was inducted into the

Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame The Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame honors sports figures who have made a significant impact in the San Francisco Bay Area. The organization is a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit that was created by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce in 1979. It is loca ...

in April 2011.

Law career

Following his graduation from Stanford, Tatum attended

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

as a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

, and received his BCL in 1949. He returned to Stanford, where he earned a JD in 1950, and was admitted to the

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in California in 1950. He was an attorney with

Cooley Godward Kronish Cooley LLP is an American international law firm, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices worldwide. The firm's practice areas include corporate, litigation, intellectual property, fund formation, public markets, employment, life ...

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

Death

Tatum died on June 22, 2017, at the age of 96.

Writings

* ''A Love Affair with the Game'', by Sandy Tatum, with foreword by Tom Watson ()

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tatum, Sandy American male golfers American memoirists Amateur golfers Stanford Cardinal men's golfers Golf administrators Golfers from California Golf course architects Golf writers and broadcasters California lawyers 20th-century American lawyers American Rhodes Scholars Stanford Law School alumni People from San Francisco 1920 births 2017 deaths