“Happily Retired Litigator” has posted a comment casting doubt on this fine club’s having hosted a good round of fisticuffs between Walter Noel and Marc Fisher. Fisher, our litigator points out, is garment money and that sort of NOCD type doesn’t darken RHCC’s RHC’s door. It’s been a while since I sat on the club’s membership committee so I don’t know whether a bar to the sons of Abraham still exists but it doesn’t seem unlikely. Too bad, though, I much prefer our local scandals.
I recall, for instance, returning to town in the early 80′s just in time to watch with glee as a local yacht club dealt with the fallout of a spouse-swapping scandal that involved – who knew such things went on? – “key parties”, where participanting wives went home with the owner of the car keys they drew and, we were told in hushed tones, all sorts of nocturnal activities. When the music stopped many of the husbands and wives settled down with the partner they were with at the end of the game but some, like the cheese, were left to stand alone. All very interesting and left me wodering what the hell had been going on in town while I was away in ribald old Bangor, Maine.
I’m sure such things never happened at RHCC RHC though, which is why I was so pleased to think that, finally, a little excitement had shown up on its greens. There’s still time, of course, and if Walt Noel continues to hang out there while his friends’ losses grow, we may yet have something to report. Stay tuned.
Funny thing about those patrician WASPs: they’re as star-struck as your typical Oprah watcher. I did a bit of caddying when in high school and somehow or another (I knew absolutely nothing about golf) I found myself caddying at the RHCC.
I was assigned to an older couple who, while hardly chummy with me, were perfectly respectful (as true WASPs are with the help) and actually gave me valuable pointers on how to be good caddy (they were both excellent golfers, he had a two handicap).
A few holes into their round Mrs. WASP asked me my name and I told her. She and her husband did a double take and asked if were related to a certain retired silent movie star who lived in Greenwich. When I told them I was, they got terribly excited and peppered me with questions, giving me the impression they would have been pleased to carry the clubs themselves if I would just walk along and chat with them. All in all, it was a very pleasant loop.
Round Hill is “restricted” (growing up, that was understood to be “no blacks, no Jews, no Catholics”). Belle Haven was until Joseph E. Levine wanted to join, but there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Oh, and the party where the fisticuffs happened was in Palm Beach. I think there was a game of “telephone” going on, and it got misconstrued with the “walter Noel was at RHCC this past weekend”.
Well I can certainly understand the ban on blacks and Jews, but surely it’s time to let a few mackerel snappers in, eh? I mean, weren’t the Skakels Catholic? Now there was a fine family and I understand that at least one of them was known to have an interest in golf.
It ain’t RHCC, it’s the RHC!
There’s a big difference – no wonder you guys can’t get in.
Oh for heaven’s sake, so THAT was the problem!
…no wonder you guys can’t get in.
The Round Hill Club must have thrown its doors wide open if a blatant climber like Noel could get in, rather like the University Club in Manhattan did after the crash of 1929.
” …I understand that at least one of them was known to have an interest in golf.” (column author’s own comment, #4 in the comments section, at 9:38 p.m.)
Some other readers–please chime in to let me know I’m not the only one who ‘gets’ this. Quite humorous, I think; apparently more subtly humorous than I realized! Perhaps recent financial unpleasantries have fogged readers’ memories about more serious things?
Tom Wolfe, on hedge funders . . . and eventually, Jews, Greenwich and the RHC.
http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2007/04/16/The-Pirate-Pose?page=1#page1
“I strike the pose of the bohemian, the freebooter, and yet they know that I am pure gold, a golden creature who can buy them and sell them or snuff out their livelihoods anytime I like. And I am more than willing to do it … those soft, lazy hooples hanging like sloths inside their “clubs.”
“Have you ever actually been inside that Round Hill Club they’re so proud of? The worn wood, the rickety sashes, the tired paint, the failing fabrics, the cracked leather—the place is falling apart, the way we see it. . . . Imagine how it would look if it were set beside Stevie Cohen’s own 32,000-square-foot clubhouse . . . “
But Stevie Cohen can’t plop his fat Jewish ass on a single one of those shabby leather chairs and that, as they say, makes all the difference. Membership? $100,000. The ability to discriminate and pretend that your dying class still rules the world? Priceless.