Hunting For College Golf Treasure
The Search for Lost Championship Trophies
SEARCHING FOR THE LOST MEN’S COLLEGIATE GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHIES
Each year, a multitude of similar looking trophies are awarded to the men’s D1 championship winning golf team, each player and coach on that team, the tournament individual winner, and even the team that individual winner plays for. In fact, these trophies are very similar to all of the NCAA championship trophies which have been standardized across all men’s and women’s sports; only the frosted text and cartoonish outlines on glass inserts (and maybe a plaque on the bottom) differentiate the sport and title won.
It hasn’t always been this way, though. Up until the 1980s, men’s golf had a pair of really incredible traveling trophies - one for the winning team and one for the individual champion - which were held by the winning program(s) for the year. Along with showing it off throughout the next season, the winners got to literally etch their names into history and then arrive at the next championship with hardware in hand to remind everyone who was the defending champ. Surely such important artifacts, passed around for 4+ DECADES, have been retired to a nice lavish display case somewhere, right? If they are then the NCAA, GCAA, USGA, and various people who have been involved in college golf since the early 1980s don’t seem to know about where that might be. That’s...interesting. Welcome to my personal obsession, an ongoing hunt for the Maxwell Cup and Chick Evans Bowl!
WHAT ARE WE SEARCHING FOR?
THE MAXWELL CUP [TEAM TROPHY]
BACKGROUND: The 1920 Championship
During the 1920 championship hosted by Nassau CC, Howard Maxwell Sr - Nassau club President and father of then-current Princeton player Maxwell Jr - announced his donation of a new perpetual team trophy to replace the existing trophy/tablet that had been donated by the USGA in 1905. The brand new sterling silver trophy with distinctive handles was completed in time for the 1921 championship and was awarded to teams for at least the next 60 years. We’ve covered some of the background on this trophy as well as additional context on this championship as a part of our Men’s Championship Series, and would invite you to check it out:
First Known Picture (1935)
Well into the late 1930s, the winning college golf teams did not often pose for photos with their awards. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the Eastern powerhouses of Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth had shared the trophy amongst themselves before the University of Michigan earned the colorful moniker of “western barbarians from beyond the mountains” who “proceeded to ravage the Eastern golf front” in 1934 and steal away their favorite drinking mug. Apparently it was the second ravaging in 1935 that was picture worthy, but in any case the above photo is the oldest yet found image of the Maxwell Cup.
Carried Over Into NCAA Era (1939)
The NCAA takeover of the collegiate golf championship is often treated as a definitive line in the sand of the sport’s history, yet for practical purposes it was more of a point when the annual party got better advertising. Stanford was the last pre-NCAA champion and waltzed into Iowa to successfully defend their title in 1939 and return to California with the same trophy. If you’re interested in this changeover in tournament leadership we’d highly recommend either of the following posts that touch on the subject:
Through the Years
Above is one of the clearest images yet found of the engravings that cover the historic trophy as each year the winning team would etch their names in history. Note that there are only 4 names listed beneath many of the legible teams. Multiple sources and as many pictures indicate that although teams were allowed to have up to 6 players before 1960 (6-count-4) and then 5 since then (5-count-4) only those four players that represented the counting scores got their name etched on the trophy for a number of years. This makes sense considering the 4 counting scores used to be determined at the end of the tournament (aggregate) rather than daily as we are used to today, but those are some serious consequences for being the drop score!
What follows is a small sampling of the Maxwell Cup making its way from team to team in the march through time. The first photo is especially interesting as it shows how at the first NCAA championship the trophy was filled not with beer - well at least not during the championship - but rather with slips of paper representing each of the 64 individual stroke play qualifiers who got placed in the match play bracket by drawing lots. This process, rather than seeding based on stroke play scoring, was used for some time even after the NCAA takeover and is an interesting bridge between this trophy and the other one we’ll talk about below.
Eventually, that NCAA “board-style” trophy first seen in 1964 became the trophy front and center at the awards ceremony, and the team pictures began featuring only the NCAA’s trophy. We can’t say for sure, but this seems to have been intentional on the NCAA’s part which by the 1970s and certainly 1980s had made a concerted effort to eradicate (sorry...“standardize”) the trophies in all collegiate sports.
Despite its relegation to the background, the Maxwell Cup continued to be awarded, but according to sources it was a more perfunctory delivery to the coach as everyone packed up to leave town. Over the years it grew to have two pedestals to hold the engraved team names. If you look closely at this image of Wake Forest Coach Jesse Haddock you’ll see that the last engraving is for the 1985 Houston team, indicating this was taken sometime between Wake Forest winning the 1986 championship and adding their own engraving.
Last Picture of a Team with the Maxwell Cup (1981 - BYU)
This photo of the 1981 champion BYU team is the most recent yet found of a team celebrating with the Maxwell Cup.
THE CHICK EVANS BOWL [INDIVIDUAL TROPHY]
BACKGROUND: The 1940 Championship
The 1940 tournament hosted by the Ekwanok Club (Manchester, VT) was a huge success for the NCAA thanks in large part to the man responsible for bringing the tournament back to club (1912 tournament): Beech-Nut CEO, Bartlett Arkell. Mr. Arkell was known as quite the character and donated many items over his lifetime, one of those things being a new trophy for the individual winner of the NCAA Golf Championship. The Chick Evans Bowl was introduced at the 1940 championship in a lavish ceremony where the University of Virginia’s (Frederick) Dixon Brooke was presented the large silver Paul Revere Bowl-style trophy to keep for the year along with a smaller replica for his personal trophy case.
There’s actually a pretty interesting controversy around the awarding of the 1940 championship to Ekwanok CC that Mr. Arkell was not only in the middle of, but may have had a direct tie to this trophy being created/donated. For more information on that, check out the section on the 1940 championship in the following post:
Incredible History
Like the Maxwell Cup, the Chick Evans Bowl was engraved each year with the winner’s name, which includes some incredible players whose legacies stretch far beyond college golf. Again, below is just a sampling of the many worthy champions over the next 40 years.
Last Picture of a Player with the Chick Evans Bowl (1980 - Jay Don Blake [Utah State])
Just like with the team championship trophies, the NCAA eventually phased out the Chick Evans Bowl from the awards ceremony. The above 1980 photo of champion Jay Don Blake is the most recent one found of a winner holding the large silver bowl. Note that although Jay is wearing an Ohio State hat, he played for Utah State (see his shirt); our best guess is that he got the hat while playing at the 1980 championship hosted by Ohio State.
THE HUNT IS ONGOING
I think it’s fair to say that the hunt for these seemingly lost relics of college golf history has become an obsession for me. What started as a passing curiosity regarding some old trophies during my early days researching pre-Tiger Woods college golf gradually turned into an earnest need to know what had happened to these once prized possessions. Generations of players longed to etch their names on these vessels and yet there are very few references online of their existence much less where they might reside today. In the summer following the 2022 NCAA championship I took a more active approach into trying to discover the whereabouts of either of these trophies, and yet as of the start of the 2023-24 season I have literally no idea where they might be.
Last Known Appearance (1987-88)
The last real firm information point regarding these trophies comes from Oklahoma State. The above photo, which appears prominently in the OSU media guide, was taken not long after the 1987 championship where the Mike Holder led Cowboys secured their 6th team title (Holder’s 5th) and 5th individual champion (Holder’s 3rd). According to Coach Holder, the trophies were returned the following year like normal, but were collected by the NCAA and not redistributed. Had they been awarded, UCLA would have taken the Maxwell Cup and the Chick Evans Bowl should have returned to Stillwater to get EJ Pfister’s name engraved on it right next two teammates - Scott Verplank (1986) and Brian Watts (1987). If that timeframe is correct, then that means the likes of Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, and 30+ other names are also missing from that trophy, not to mention the scores of players on the winning championship teams who should have their names added to the Maxwell Cup.
Reaching Out to…Everyone
Before speaking to now retired Oklahoma State AD Mike Holder, I first reached out to the next most obvious place to start, the NCAA. Over months of email correspondence, I’ve managed to speak with (read: annoy) some wonderful people at the NCAA including one of their lead championship historians. They have assured me in no uncertain terms that the trophies do not reside in the home office in Indianapolis, nor are there any records to indicate if they were ever there in the first place and/or where they might have absconded to since.
Next up on the email rolodex was the USGA. At the risk of offending any number of the incredible people who have been gracious enough with their time to humor me in my endeavors, there may be no finer folks than the team at the USGA. Unfortunately, not only were there no clues hidden within their extensive archives, there doesn’t seem to be any references of these trophies at all. With how vast their collection and knowledge is, that seems like an incredible feat to me, but I may be overstating things.
Finally I worked up the nerve to pester people directly involved in college golf. From Athletic Directors and coaches (both current and retired), to the Golf Coaches Association, and even former individual champions, I kept getting variations of the same polite response:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but that sounds interesting. Let me know what you find.”
I’ve even chased a few wild theories. One of the most plausible of these was the notion that maybe Dave Williams was gifted the trophies; after all he did retire following the 1987 championship which was the same year that last photo of the trophies with the Oklahoma State coaches was taken. Maybe once the NCAA was done with them they were given to the man who is literally nicknamed Mr. College Golf? Apparently they don’t reside in the Houston archives, and yet there may still be a few threads to pull there. Unfortunately, none of the other less-substantive theories have panned out either.
General Call for Help
How is it possible that very few people, even those who played or coached as far back as the 1970s-80s, seem to have even heard about these trophies? It’s entirely likely I just haven’t spoken to the “right” person yet, but I don’t think it’s that simple. We’re far enough removed from the timeframe where these trophies seem to have been taken out of circulation that unfortunately several key people have passed on. Along with the obvious individuals already mentioned, I would have loved to have been able to ask the great Ron Balicki, who covered his first NCAA championship in 1985 for (Florida) Golfweek, what he might have known.
At this point I’m hoping that someone will see this post and reach out to let me know that of course they’re residing at [obvious place], maybe a little dusty but otherwise perfectly not lost. More than anything I would just love to see clear pictures and maybe even get to touch these relics of the somewhat-forgotten college golf past.
In the end, this isn’t about some old trophies. In fact, in my mind at least, the Maxwell Cup and Chick Evans Bowl are trophies the same way the Walker Cup and Havemeyer are trophies; that is to say something that doesn’t belong on a shelf but rather traveling symbols that people get excited to see and hold. These are historical documents made tangible, a handshake across time for those that have reached the summit. Don’t get me wrong, the NCAA trophies are important markers of the incredible accomplishment, but they lack a deeper connection. There is a brotherhood of names etched into each these trophies, and whether they are truly physically lost or merely resting on a shelf, it would be wonderful to see that lost connection infused back into the spirit of college golf.