Babe Ruth exhibition match

Published November 8, 2017 01:00 PM

Pictures from one of the wildest golf exhibition matches ever played, featuring Babe Ruth and Babe Didrikson.

UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 14: Here’s the foursome that drew the crowd, John Montague Sylva Annenberg, Babe Ruth and Babe Didrikson. The two Babes were leading when match was called at end of nine holes at Fresh Meadow Club in Flushing, NY. (Photo by Larry Froeber/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

(Original Caption) Left to right, Babe Ruth, Babe Didrikson, Bill Corum, Sylvia Annenberg, and John Montague.

(Original Caption) Flushing, New York: Babe Ruth In A Striking Golf Match. Babe Ruth driving off at the Fresh Meadow Country Club, Flushing, New York, Nov. 14th, in the four-ball charity golf match in which he was paired with Mildred ‘Babe’ Didrikson against John Montague, Hollywood’s gift to golf, and Sylva (CQ) Annenberg. The game ended on the ninth green when the craziest gallery in golf history jammed it to such an extent that it was impossible for the players to go on, even if the spectators hadn’t grabbed the balls as souvenirs.

(Original Caption) Mildred ‘Babe’ Didrikson, golf star from Texas, driving off, as the gallery hems her in, in the four-ball charity golf match at Fresh Meadow Country Club, Flushing, Long Island, New York, in which she was paired with Babe Ruth against John Montague, Hollywood’s mystery golfer, and Sylvia (CQ) Annenberg, one of the best women players in the east. The match ended when the craziest gallery in golf history jammed the ninth green so thickly that it was impossible to play, even if the spectators hadn’t grabbed the balls as souvenirs.

John Montague, Hollywood’s mystery gift to golf, lets his face tell just how he feels after his club hits a crowding spectator on the sixth green at the Fresh Meadow Country Club, Flushing, Long Island, New York. On November 14, 1939 Montague was part of a four-ball charity match in which he was paired with Sylva Annenberg against Babe Ruth and Mildred ‘Babe’ Didrikson. The match ended when spectators crowding the ninth green and seized the balls as souvenirs. Montague, whose real name was LaVerne Moore, became infamous as an excellent golfer with a mysterious past who showed up in Hollywood in the early 1930s, and came to rub shoulders with the town’s rich and famous. In 1937 a New York State police officer recognized him as a fugitive and con man, and he was put on trial in New York for his past crimes. His was acquitted on all counts.

UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 14: Crowds swarm over fairway, leaving golfers only a narrow strip for charity match featuring John Montague, Babe Ruth, Sylva Annenberg and Babe Didrickson at Fresh Meadow Club, Flushing N.Y. (Photo by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)