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The phone rang. Nathaniel Crosby answered: “Hello?”

It was Wednesday, December 13, 2017, mid-morning on the east coast.

On the other end,  a woman’s voice, unfamiliar to Nate.

“Hi, Nathaniel, this is Diana Murphy with the USGA.”

“Hi, Diana, what can I do for you?”

“Are you somewhere where we can talk?”

“Well, I’m driving, but that’s okay. Go ahead.”

“Well, if you think you’re safe to hear some news, then I’d like to tell you that you’ve been chosen as the Walker Cup captain!”

Doing his best to maintain his composure and keep from swerving off the road, Nate tried to focus on driving. He was elated with the news he had just received. Being a Walker Cup Captain was something he’d always had rattling around in the back of his mind as a possibility. To favorably move the process, he admits to “shamelessly lobbying for the job.”  

Later that day, Crosby would espouse his sentiments to the world’s sports media relating:

I am thrilled and overwhelmed to be chosen captain of the next USA Walker Cup Team. It will again be a privilege to be a part of the Walker Cup competition that I was so fortunate to be a part of back in 1983. My experiences with the USGA, the Walker Cup Match and the World Amateur Team Championship have proved to be the most memorable weeks of my life, as I am sure it will be for the members of the 2019 Team. Many of my closest friends are former captains who will hopefully take the time to share their approaches in an effort to help me with my new responsibilities.

And with that, the newest chapter encircling Nathaniel Crosby’s golfing life was about to unfold and be memorialized. A growing compendium of golf reflections, when complete, would serve as another grand reflection recounting this newest Walker Cup adventure. Surely, it will weave a special memory in Nate’s heart and soul that will last for years to come—as it will with his players under Crosby’s captaincy, as Team USA bested Great Britain and Ireland 15 ½ to 10 ½.

Papa Bing would be, oh so proud!  

So what got Nathaniel Crosby to be chosen as the Walker Cup captain? Here’s a look…

Growing up across the bay in Hillsborough, California, and being the youngest son of a golf-enamored, world-famous crooner—one who seems to have entertained as a means to pay his country club dues—set the stage for young Nate’s golfing aspirations. Golf was in Bing’s blood, and it would course through Nate’s veins even more.

From the time he was a wee lad attempting to swing a cut-down golf club for the first time in the Crosby family’s Hillsborough backyard, the golf path could be seen winding toward the horizon. Not long after, young Crosby would receive his first starter set of clubs from his godfather, and golfing icon, Jackie Burke, Jr.

Maurice Ver Brugge, the golf professional at Burlingame Country Club in Hillsborough, brought young Nathaniel under his coaching wing and developed him into a competent, talented player. Later, Nathaniel would hit thousands of balls with lessons provided by Bing’s friend and former touring professional, Toney Penna. Golf became a significant focus and profound influence in his life.

Was a sense of spiritual magic evoked, invading the depths of Nate’s soul, thanks to Bing?

Due to Bing’s hands-on, watchful, loving support and tutelage—coupled with his renowned celebrity influence—Nate was compelled to chronicle his father’s impact in his book, published in 2016, entitled, 18 Holes with Bing: Golf, Life, and Lessons from Dad. Within its pages, he affectionately capitulates tribute towards his famous father and the game of golf:  

“The happiest times of my childhood were spent on the golf course with him.”

With Bing’s paternal endearment, his son’s golf resume became one of substantial accomplishment—notwithstanding Nate’s athletic proclivity to seamlessly gripping and swinging a golf club. 

“Dad didn’t realize that I was so smitten with the game that I envisioned becoming the best in the world. You don’t want to put a lid on anything. I was competing well, so there is no reason to put a lid on your aspirations.”  

In 1981, four years after Bing’s passing, Nate, a University of Miami sophomore, arrived at the 37th hole with the match all square. Gripping his putter and standing just outside the first cut of the green at the Lake Course’s first hole, Crosby sank his 20-foot birdie attempt to win the 81^st playing of the United States Amateur Championship held at San Francisco’s famed Olympic Club, laying claim to his name being etched on the prestigious Havemeyer Trophy.

In asking him what he considered to be his greatest golfing accomplishment, Nate replied:

“Without a doubt, it was winning the U.S. Amateur. Coming from four shots down on the tenth hole and winning in my hometown was huge, especially with The Olympic Club not being my home course. That U.S Amateur win is what opened the door for everything that followed. I would be ranked as the number three amateur by Golf Digest and would keep that ranking following my U.S. Open appearance the next year. Another great take away from that win actually took place a couple of weeks later. I was playing in a tournament, when Arnold Palmer came up to me in the locker room and shared something I will always remember:

‘Winning the U.S. Amateur was the greatest accomplishment I ever had. It was my highlight.’

Having my name on the Havemeyer Trophy alongside Jones, Nicklaus, Palmer—as well as Tiger Woods and other greats, is something special.

With the U.S. Amateur win, Nate qualified to be in the field the following year for the 1982 U.S. Open that convened at Pebble Beach—a course familiar to him due to his dad’s annual Pro-Am tournament played there. Nate began playing in his dad’s event at age 14. Two years later, in 1978, with his older brother, Harry, he would begin hosting the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am for the next seven years—a favored venue of PGA Tour players held annually at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Six years later, at age twenty, divine Crosby good fortune smiled down again. Nate made the cut, finished 59^th overall, and captured low amateur honors for the tournament.    

I then asked Nate to recount his fondest memory from playing in the 1982 U.S. Open.

I have some great take backs. On the downside, I made triple bogey on the 4th and made a quadruple-bogey nine on the 14th hole. At one point, I think I was only 3 back of the lead. My playing partners were David Graham, the defending U.S. Open champion and Phil Rogers. Despite my earlier hiccups on four and nine, I felt proud to have held the tee fourteen of eighteen tees.

On the 17th, I hit my 1 iron, hooking it to the back left pin placement to four feet. Unfortunately, I missed the birdie putt.  After hitting my shot, David Graham came up to me and said: ‘Laddie, I think that’s the best shot I’ve ever seen in my life.’ Being on the Dias receiving the low amateur medal ahead of Tom Watson is a great memory, especially after what Tom had done to win the U.S. Open.

That same year following the U.S Open, he would be rostered as a member of the U.S. team that would compete in the World Amateur Team Championship in Switzerland. Perched atop that elite golfing pinnacle featuring the world’s best amateurs, Nate would shoot a 68, which propelled the U.S. team to their victory.

The following year he would again be tabbed to represent his country as a member of the victorious 1983 USA Walker Cup team matches winning 13½ to 10½. Those matches were played at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England — the site of this year’s Walker Cup matches. Nate’s stellar amateur status paved his way into playing in three Masters: 1982, 1983 and 1984, along with two British Opens in 1982 and 1983 prior to playing the European Tour.

With Nathaniel Crosby being chosen to represent the 2019 version of the Walker Cup as its captain, Nate would not disappoint.

I asked Nate what this version of the Walker Cup was all about for him. He replied, “To go back and visit old memories from the 1983 matches I played in really wasn’t that much for me. It was more about the players and creating a winning memory for them that would last a lifetime. The positive memories are more important, because of confidence-building for their long term playing careers.”

Those sentiments just might be the best ever offered by any team captain. Good on ya, Laddie!

On Friday, October 25, 2019, the USGA honored Nathaniel Crosby once again by naming him to repeat as the captain for the upcoming 2021 Walker Cup team. Following the announcement, Crosby conveyed:

“The 2019 Walker Cup experience was an unbelievable journey from start to finish, and I am honored to be allowed to once again guide an outstanding group of young men in 2021. As a member of the 1983 Walker Cup Team, I formed bonds and created friendships that have lasted a lifetime. I hope that I have left this year’s players with that same sense of excitement and honor, and I look forward to passing it on to our next group of players.”

The matches will be played at Seminole Golf Club in Juno, Florida, where Crosby is a member.

You can view the1981 U.S. Amateur video at: https://www.usopen.com/content/usga/home-page/videos/2016/09/01/1981-u-s–amateur-vignette-mp4-5107990318001.html

She was a child night club dancer, an actress, a mega movie star, and a princess. She was Brooklyn-born Margarita Carmen Cansino, known to millions of admirers the world over as Rita Hayworth, Hollywood’s Golden Era “Love Goddess.” The actress had earned the unique moniker after the statuesque beauty starred in the 1946 film noir masterpiece Gilda.

Budd Burton Moss was Rita Hayworth’s longtime agent and managed her career up to her passing in 1987. I interviewed Moss for ALIVE Magazine in September 2014 in a piece entitled, “Starmaker: Hollywood Talent Agent,” when he published his memoir.

Moss called me recently about an upcoming documentary on Rita Hayworth to be filmed by the German Bremen-based Bremedia Produktion GmbH, who have formulated a story-line treatment of their documentary to be aired initially in Germany and France. Henning Van Lil and Katja Runge will be commencing work on the German-produced documentary for a French-German network to be aired throughout Europe in mid-2020 titled, Rita Hayworth—Glamour and Drama of a Hollywood Legend.

During a recent phone interview, Henning told me production will commence in October and will be filmed at relevant locations with interviewees in New York and Los Angeles. Burton Moss, their U.S.A. producer, will be suggesting locations and arranging interviews of those who were connected to the star.

The producers’ treatment spells out how they plan to film the documentary by exploring her domineering father’s influence, his overpowering control, and how it played into her future with five failed marriages and being manipulation by Hollywood Studios during her 37-year career.

Henning Van Lil, a twelve-year documentarian, will focus on Hayworth’s backstory, her tireless tenacity, and the intricacies of one of the 20th Century’s most iconic movie stars; beautiful, vulnerable, courageous and exploited.

Burton Moss and Foster Hirsch will hopefully be arranging interviews with Robert Wagner, Angie Dickinson, Constance Towers, Diane Baker, and the daughters of Gary Cooper and Orson Welles.

Rita Hayworth’s life was exciting, if not downright tumultuous. Her Seville-born father, Eduardo Cansino, was a flamenco dancer, and Irish-American mother, Volga Hayworth, danced in New York. Margarita, born in 1918, performed on the stage at the tender age of four, and by twelve was her father’s regular dance partner. He defied child labor laws by taking his pre-teenage daughter to Tijuana, Mexico, where they did as many as twenty shows a week in nightclubs.

At the age of eighteen, Margarita married an older man to break away from her demanding father. Realizing her star power potential, her husband introduced her to the head of Columbia Pictures. The Studio neutralized her “Latin” look, receded her hairline, dyed her dark hair red, and changed her name to Rita Hayworth. They put her through grueling speech lessons and an exercise regimen that helped the shy dancer evolve into the studio-molded femme fatale and sensual sex symbol that never knew a real childhood.

After several B-movies, Hayworth did not yet have a breakthrough film part but the perfect role and an iconic photoshoot was on the near horizon. Bob Landry took a photo of Rita in a silky negligee for the August 1941 Issue of LIFE Magazine. His camera malfunctioned, the flash failed thus the image had a shadowy chiaroscuro quality resulting in the pin-up photo being one of the favorites of wartime GIs.

The LIFE Magazine photo caught the discerning eye of genius filmmaker-director Orson Welles who was internationally celebrated for his visionary Citizen Kane masterpiece film. Welles set out to marry Hayworth in 1943 and the following year Rebecca was born.

Innovative Welles re-invented his wife for The Lady from Shanghai part, and with scores of media onlookers, had the hairdresser cut her trademark red hair short and dyed it blond. A brand new Rita emerged, shedding the sensual-dancer-voluptuous-siren persona that had made her into a Hollywood icon.

Hayworth had already been featured in about half a dozen “ethnic” roles in the early years then came the breakout 1941 FOX Studio bullfighting film, Blood and Sand, with Tyrone Power and Anthony Quinn. By 1942 she was dancing with Fred Astaire in You Were Never Lovelier, followed by Cover Girl in 1944.

In 1944 the sensational star was named the top box office movie star in the world. Many years later the American Film Institute named Rita Hayworth as one of the top 25 female screen legends of all time and listed the cinematic screen icon among AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Stars.

Rita starred as “Gilda” in the film noir movie as a nightclub singer who removes long satin gloves with such sensual finesse that it set her on a trajectory to unequaled stardom. The post-war film was an international sensation and a short time later, she married a prince.

It was during the 1948 Cannes Film Festival when Rita Hayworth caught the eye of dashing Prince Aly Khan who owned a lavish chateau on the Riviera. Several times the bon vivant had watched “Gilda” in his private screening room and set out to pursue the star. The playboy prince gambled at chic casinos, drove fast cars, owned Irish race horses, had married socialites, and targeted the voluptuous movie star who had just divorced Orson Welles.

Being considered one of the leading movie stars in the world, she had also been pursued by Ari Onassis and the Shah of Iran. But the suave Prince Aly Khan, whose own father was literally worth his weight in gold, charmed her with diamonds, pearls and lazy romantic days at his terraced chateau.

After a whirlwind romance and a speedy divorce from his wife, the charming prince married Rita Hayworth and she became a bonafide American princess. Their daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, was born in 1949 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Hayworth lived in Europe with her husband and two daughters but the fairy-tale marriage faded into twilight and ended after four years followed by a bitter child custody battle. Soon after returning to Los Angeles she married crooner Dick Haymes who was severely in debt and whom she divorced after he cleaned out her bank account. One more marriage and a career total of 61 films followed.

Budd Burton Moss’ uncle was Sam Zimbalist, his mother’s brother, and his father was film editor at Fox which later became 20th Century Fox. Zimbalist produced Ben Hur which won 11 Oscars in 1959 and he was the first person to earn an Academy Award posthumously, having died in 1958 during filming in Rome.

Moss first saw Blood and Sand as a youth, and years later at a Fox Studios commissary, he finally got close to the silver screen idol who was lunching with studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck. A few years later Budd Burton Moss was Rita Hayworth’s agent/manager, confidant, and friend up to her illness. In 1976 he accompanied Hayworth to London on a TWA flight and just before landing she became agitated, demanding, and short-tempered for no apparent reason.

In 1980 it was revealed that her mood changes and agitation was caused by a then-unknown illness, later diagnosed as Alzheimer’s Disease. In 1987 Rita Hayworth passed away.

Today, Rita Hayworth’s daughter, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, dedicates much of her time and effort to raising both awareness and funds to help find a cure for the mind-stealing disease of Alzeimer’s that touches the lives of about 50 million people worldwide. Princess Yasmin is president of Alzheimer Disease International and Alzheimer’s Association as well as serving on several boards.

It has been 72 years since the Roswell UFO Crash hit the news. For all those years, the U.S. Military and Government have maintained that it was nothing worthy of so much interest, “It was nothing but a weather balloon!” So why was and is there such effort to maintain a veil of secrecy and coordinated effort to suppress the original story and carry on with such a history of deception and misdirection?

If you haven’t heard of or read about the Roswell UFO Crash, then you have probably not heard of the many-layered cover-up carried out by the Government to hide the truth and mislead the public. You would think that all that effort by the authorities was carried out because they must have believed that the witnesses involved were a bunch of dumb, uneducated yokels who couldn’t identify cow dung, even if they had stepped in it.

Well, let me start with the very first witness, Mac Brazel, an old cowboy who was well acquainted with manure of the bovine variety. In his later years, he confessed that had he to do it all over again, he probably wouldn’t have told anybody, and most certainly, not the authorities, about what he found and would have kept the evidence and the story all to himself. But thanks to him, the Roswell UFO Crash became a worldwide sensation that is still floating around, waiting for a final verdict, thanks to the multi-layered cover-up that the U.S. Military and Government concocted.

I will try to unravel this dark web of secrecy and see what we find.

On Friday, July the fourth, 1947, Mac Brazel was sitting inside his small shack on the Foster sheep ranch where he was foreman, listening to claps of thunder. In the midst of all that clattering, he heard something that didn’t quite fit the pattern—a splintering boom, like some sort of explosion. The ranch was about thirty miles from the Roswell Army Airbase, and some distance further from the White Sands Testing Grounds. If you looked at a map of New Mexico, the ranch, the Roswell Army Airbase. and White Sands, form a perfect triangle.

               On July the 4th 1947, the Military was already aware of the crashed UFO and the Alien occupants. They had actually been aware of the UFO since July the 2nd. As a matter of fact, a fellow named Ragsdale and his girlfriend had decided to go camping in the hills which just so happened, were overlooking the crash site. When they noticed the military caravan of trucks and 50 or so men, they decided to beat a hasty retreat, back through the hills and away from any roads. They didn’t tell their story for several years later.

Mac figured that a plane might have crashed, or the people at White Sands had exploded another one of their bombs. Although, at the time, he had thought that the explosion had to have been a lot closer by the clarity of the sound. In the darkness outside, he couldn’t see any signs of an explosion, so he decided to wait until morning before venturing outside and investigating the source of the late-night racket.

A neighbor kid, William Proctor, showed up the next day, July 5, 1947 and he and Brazel rode out in the general direction the sound of the explosion had come from. They didn’t have to ride very far because they soon discovered that the ground in front of them was littered with dull and shiny, metallic looking debris, extending about three quarters of a mile in front of them, in the direction of some hills. The debris field was also about half a mile wide, or so they guessed. Mac figured, some fairly large object, had blown into pieces, to cover such a large area. What could it have been? Brazel couldn’t even imagine. He picked up some of the strange metallic pieces and broken balsawood-light metal beams and discovered that although they were light weight, he could not break or bend them, nor could he burn them with his lighter. Even the thin foil-like strips were impossible to cut with his pocketknife.

The next day, July the 6^th, Brazel drove his pickup to the sheriff’s office in Roswell and showed the box of debris to Sheriff George Wilcox, who then suggested that maybe, they should contact someone at the Roswell Army Airbase.

The call was forwarded to Major Jesse Marcel. When Sheriff Wilcox explained to Major marcel that an old cowboy named Mac Brazel had come across a field practically covered in strange metallic looking debris, Marcel decided that he had better head out to Brazel’s place for a look-see. So, the Major and another man from the base drove out to Brazel’s place and the next day, July the 7th, both men loaded up their vehicles with all the strange debris they could fit into them and drove back to Roswell Army Airbase.

Now, you and I know that the news media have a way of sniffing out stories, so Frank Joyce, a reporter for radio station KGFL in Roswell, got a whiff of Brazel’s tale from Sheriff Wilcox. Joyce and the station owner, Walt Whitmore, got Brazel to do an interview, which they recorded on a wire-recorder and were going to put it on the air the next morning. Unfortunately for them, the Military showed up and the whole idea was nixed, when the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) threatened Whitmore and Joyce by telling them that if they wanted to keep the radio station and their license, they had better not air that interview. Back then, the government had the power to muzzle the news media. The recorded interview was also confiscated.

To keep anyone from talking with Brazel, the US Military kept him incommunicado for seven or eight days, in one of the base barracks, under lock and key. The Military claimed that it was for his own good. Even once, when he was allowed to return home, the Military kept an eye on him, to make certain that he wouldn’t tell his story, to anyone. He did tell family members, behind closed doors, some of the details that had gone onto the wire recorder. The irony of Brazel’s story was, he never actually got to see the crashed UFO up-close, nor did he know where it had crashed, because by the time he was able to return home, all the evidence had been gathered up and flown away to parts unknown.

While all this was going on, the U.S. Military actually knew of the crash and the alien bodies and had already dispatched a convoy of vehicles and men to start gathering up all evidence of the crash as they had been monitoring the UFO (s) at several radar stations. In addition, an MP on guard duty had actually witnessed the flash of the explosion. One of the MPs on the recovery team got there just in time to rescue the one living member of the alien UFO crew. Interestingly enough, the MP, a Sgt. Gonzales, claimed that the alien had communicated with him, get this, in English. (More on this, later.)

Here is how the whole story started. Unbeknownst to the local population, a UFO or Unidentified Flying Object of some sort, had been picked up on radar at Roswell Army Airfield, White Sands testing grounds, Alamogordo, and Albuquerque, on or about July the second 1947. This piqued the interest of various high-ranking military officers, as the object was flitting about in an area that was classified as a no-fly zone for civilian and even commercial aircraft.The radar operators, at the time weren’t even certain of what exactly they were tracking. They tracked the UFO until the night of the fourth of July, when the object disappeared after a big blip on the radar screens in the middle of that nasty and unexpected electrical storm. The Military had a general idea of where the object had had gone down, and a convoy of Jeeps and trucks loaded with servicemen was immediately dispatched to the scene, which was about 35 miles north to northwest of the Roswell Airbase.

               A number of civilians living in the general area who had also heard  or seen the object flying overhead, then heard the crash itself, decided to go see what it was, but were escorted back to the main road and prevented by the military to get near the site. Of course, by this time, they had actually caught a glimpse of the crashed UFO and even the dead aliens. Some of the civilians who got a glimpse of the crashed flying vehicle, claimed that it was not round or saucer shaped, rather it looked more like a spaceship with bat-like wings.

Now, the reason that there was so little detail available about what exactly had crashed, for twenty to thirty years, was that the military had surrounded the crash site with all the trucks and jeeps, all facing out, with their headlights turned on. This ring of vehicles was in turn surrounded by armed MPs (Military Police), who had, in turn, been ordered to face away from all the action, to make certain that nobody without the proper clearance would get through and, they themselves wouldn’t see all that was going on. After a few hours, the MPs were relieved by a new unit and returned to base. This is how, when some had been found many years later, they were unable to give many details about the crash, even though they had been there.

               One of those MPs, a Sergeant Gonzales, who had been at the crash site with the initial unit, claimed many years later that he had actually helped out of the crashed UFO, the only live Alien. Sgt. Gonzales also claimed that he communicated with the alien being, in English. I will try to explain in my conclusions, why this may be a curious little factoid.

            While the recovery effort was on the way, the Military was already working on setting up two fake debris fields, close enough to some dirt roads, so that onlookers would be able to view the field before the MPs would push them back to the roads. They wanted the civilians to get close enough to be able see the balloon pieces and even allowed a photographer to take some shots from the road; close enough, but not too close.

The core group of 10 to 12 high-ranking military, some from Washington, some from White Sands, a couple of staff scientists, and two photographers, were the only ones allowed to get anywhere near the crashed UFO. This was the group that saw not only the craft, but the diminutive occupants. At first sight, observers thought they were looking at midgets; about four and a half to about five feet tall, with larger than human heads. This is when the stunned group realized that the occupants, four dead and one mortally wounded, were actually otherworldly, humanoid beings. The one ET that was alive, was actually seen walking into the base hospital, under his (her?) own power. He/she is the reason why, after many years, several witnesses were able to confirm that the crashed flying object from Roswell, New Mexico, had not in fact been one of our airplanes.

The gathering at the crash site had the flying object (which by the way, at this point turned out not to be a Flying Saucer, rather, it was more of an oval shaped Omnidirectional Flying Object), and all the debris from the site, packed up into the trucks and taken back to the Roswell Army Airbase, where they were immediately, on orders from Washington, packed into a B-25, B-26 or possibly a B-29 and flown to Andrews Army Airfield and then to Patterson Army Airfield (now Wright-Patterson Airforce base). The crates containing the five bodies (the fifth, the one ambulatory alien crew member, eventually succumbed to his injuries) were loaded onto a Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft and flown to Andrews as well. According to witnesses, this was done on the orders of Army Chief of Staff, Dwight Eisenhower, so that he would get his first look at an extraterrestrial entity. From Andrews, that crate was also flown to Patterson, although, the military threw up so many misdirections, the crates could have ended up somewhere else altogether, perhaps Area-51 or Hangar 18.

This is when, the misinformation campaign went into full swing.

First came “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch In Roswell Region” on the front page of the Roswell Daily Record’s, Sunday edition of July 6^th 1947, because that is what Major Jesse Marcel, the Intelligence officer of the 509^th Roswell Bomber Group had determined, upon his initial inspection of the recovered debris. Within a few hours however, this story fell apart when Brigadier General Roger Ramey and Colonel Thomas J. DuBose pulled a switcheroo by substituting damaged weather balloon parts and pieces for the original pile of debris that Marcel had collected, and which had been confiscated and flown to parts unknown. According to multiple sources, a photographer for The Daily Record, J. Bond Johnson, was only able to take four photos of Ramey’s phony display, because in his hurry to get the shots, he had only brought along two photo plate holders (you can take two shots on each one of these old-fashioned photo plates) for his Speed-Graphic camera.

———————————————END OF PART I—————————————

Catch part II in the December 2019 issue of ALIVE Magazine.