Goodall Palm Beach Round Robin

The Goodall Palm Beach Robin Robin was a golf tournament on the PGA Tour from 1938 to 1957. It was also known as the Goodall Robin Robin and the Palm Beach Robin Robin. The sponsors were the Goodall Company (later Goodall-Sanford Co.) and its subsidiary, the Palm Beach Clothing Co. The purse for the tournament was $5,000, with $1,000 going to the winner, from 1938 to 1941, increased to $10,000/$2,000 in 1946, and increased again to $15,000/$3,000 in 1949. Sam Snead won the event five times including both the first and last events.

Format

The tournament featured an unusual round robin format. From 1938 to 1946, the field consisted of 15 players. They would play seven rounds in five threesomes, a total of 126 holes. A player earned or lost points on each hole, in a match play style, based on his score versus his two opponents for that round. A player scored "+1" for each hole won and "-1" for each hole lost to each opponent. The groups were shuffled after every round so that every player played one round against every other player. The player with the most points after seven rounds won.

In its first year at Wykagyl Country Club in 1948, the tournament's format was altered to feature 16 invitees playing five rounds in groups of four. change made to the format. In 1949, two further changes were made to the format. Up to that time, the committee, after every round, had to calculate the points won or lost on each hole for five and, in 1948, four matches. This had proven difficult to figure out quickly, prompting the switch to a medal match play style where players plus or minus points were based on their medal score (strokes per round).

The cause of the second change was television. In 1949 NBC televised a segment of the event making it the the first ever network telecast of a golf tournament. To accommodate the TV coverage, Wykagyl rearranged the golf course so that the regular ninth hole became the eighteenth hole. The number of spectators at the tournament opening day topped 5,000 people, the largest attendance for any of the Round Robins to that date. From 1947 to 1957, the field was 16 players and they played in four foursomes over five rounds for a total of 90 holes.

Tournament hosts

The tournament was played in May or June at a number of different courses, mostly in the New York metropolitan area.

Year	Country Club	City / State
1938	Kenwood Country Club	Cincinnati, Ohio
1939 - 41	Fresh Meadow Country Club	Great Neck, New York
1946	Winged Foot Golf Club	Mamaroneck, New York
1947	Charles River Country Club	Newton, Massachusetts
1948 - 52	Wykagyl Country Club	New Rochelle, New York
1953 - 54	Meadow Brook Country Club	Westbury, New York
1955	Deepdale Country Club	Great Neck, New York
1956 - 57	Wykagyl Country Club	New Rochelle, New York

Winners

Year	Player	Score
1957	Sam Snead	+41
1956	Gene Littler	+55
1955	Sam Snead	+46
1954	Sam Snead	+62
1953	Cary Middlecoff	+42
1952	Sam Snead	+57
1951	Roberto DeVicenzo	+40
1950	Lloyd Mangrum	+37
1949	Bobby Locke	+66
1948	Herman Barron	+38
1947	Bobby Locke	+37
1946	Ben Hogan	+51
1942-45	No tournament due to World War II
1941	Paul Runyan	+26
1940	Ben Hogan	+23
1939	Harry Cooper	+31
1938	Sam Snead	+14

The end of the tournament

After the 1957 event, The Palm Beach Round Robin dropped off the PGA Tour. The main reason for this was the Tour's huge success in the post-war era. Sponsors were lining up to get on the schedule. At the same time, the majority of the touring pros, those whom no one would include in any select list of 16 players, protested the fairness of an event that forced them to take a week off in the middle of the season while the favored stars enjoyed a good payday.

The tour had two options. The first was to replace the Round Robin with a full-field tournament. The second involved finding a sponsor who would not only fund the Round Robin but also put on a satellite tournament during the same week. The second option proved too difficult so it was decided to end the Round Robin.