Going for the ‘Greene’: Readers recognize fairway and DA
The first fairway at Greene County Country Club as it appears today
Posing on the fairway of the first hole at Greene County Country Club are, from left, Waynesburg attorney W. Bertram Waychoff, club professional Bob Kidd, Charles “Cash” Mordesovich, William “Bud” Schiffbauer and Dr. Robert Bell.
It’s been about 60 years since Greene County District Attorney W. Bertram Waychoff investigated the scorecard of this foursome at the Greene County Country Club. We received many responses from readers to this Mystery Photo, and about half of them agreed that the man with the bow tie was W. Bertram Waychoff, longtime Waynesburg lawyer and district attorney from 1947 to 1955 and again from 1964 to 1980. The others were tougher to identify.
Peggy Strain of Burgettstown remembered her one-time employer Waychoff. “I was his legal secretary from 1958 through June 1962. His office was in the Milliken Building,” she wrote in an email.
Waychoff died at age 82 in 1992.
A couple of folks guessed the photo was taken at Rohanna’s Golf Course, but that’s an unlikely possibility because that course did not open until 1956. Several readers guessed correctly that the location is the first fairway at Greene County Country Club in Lippincott – a course that opened for play in 1923.
“I think that picture was taken in about 1954,” said Mike Vukmanic, the club’s greens superintendent. Vukmanic started caddying in 1964 and started working at the course after graduation from Penn State. He’s been there for 40 years.
“This was a links-style course when it opened,” Vukmanic said. “The only trees on the course were there naturally. They planted trees in the early 1950s.”
The tiny dots visible in the top left of the old photo have grown into 50-footers today.
Last Wednesday, as several foursomes were finishing their morning rounds, current club pro Josh Kokoska introduced me to some longtime members who were able to recognize some of the faces in the Mystery Photo and confirm the suspicions of other readers, one of them being Bill Bell of Fredericktown, who recognized his father, Dr. Robert Bell, the man on the far right.
Bill Bartoletti agreed and named the man next to him as William “Bud” Schiffbauer of Uniontown. Some other golfers hesitated about the identification of Bell, noting that the doctor, who was quite short, always wore a mustache not clearly visible in the photo. But under magnification, a gray mustache is clearly there.
The man in the center stumped most of our readers and golfers, who offered half a dozen possibilities for his identity. But Bill Bell and another reader, Bill Groves, insist he is Charles “Cash” Mordesovich.
“I practically grew up at the Greene County Country Club,” Groves, 73, of Carmichaels, said. “My dad knew all those guys. Cash was a coal miner who built a house here in Carmichaels and later lived in Dry Tavern.”
A search of the Internet turned up a September 1957 item from the Uniontown Herald-Standard, which named Mordesovich and Schiffbauer as partners representing the club in a golf tournament.
The young man next to Waychoff is Bob Kidd, who was head pro and greens superintendent from 1950 to 1957. Kidd graduated from Moundsville (W.Va.) High School in 1944 and served in the U.S. Navy before turning pro. He worked at a number of other golf courses in the region over a long career. He died in June 2010 at the age of 84.
Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.