USGA (Finally) Honors Hannigan With A Portrait

When you go to the USGA's Far Hills, New Jersey headquarters, portraits of the group's executive directors greet lobby visitors. With one glaring omission: Frank Hannigan. Even though David Fay, who succeeded him has had his likeness on the walls for some time now, Hannigan's place was mysteriously absent. Naturally, only after his passing did the organization finally commission a most appropriate John Boyd Martin work.

With the Mets were in the World Series at the same time as the unveiling, Frank might have said everyone's time would have been better spent watching the game. Nonetheless, Mike O'Malley documents the occasion, even if it probably upset some the Uptight Wing of the USGA who had come to dislike Frank for his views on the USGA so desperately needing to be loved, its hoarding of cash (if he only knew how much more hoarding had gone on since his passing) and the organization's failure do anything meaningful to protect classic golf courses while professing their love for the classics. Among other areas of regulatory malfeasance.

O'Malley writes:

You could do worse than be commemorated with your beloved pet at a place that reveres history and the people who have had a hand in making it. So it was that family, friends and associates of Frank Hannigan gathered to honor the late USGA executive director Wednesday night with the unveiling of his portrait at the USGA Museum’s Ben Hogan Room.

“Unique,” said the USGA’s Mike Butz. An iconoclast, said Jerry Tarde of Golf Digest, where Hannigan’s biting opinions spared no one, and his observations were prescient. Hannigan’s wife of 50 years, Dr. Janet Carter, cited one of his Golf Digest stories from a decade ago: “More and more, the future of golf is looking like Donald Trump." Added longtime ABC colleague Peter Alliss, via video: “He was naughty, cheeky, and sometimes he could be a bloody nuisance … but I loved him.”