When Rossie Routed Ty Cobb

Antonio Gonzalez with a splendid history of Olympic Club's membership through the years, especially the early years, including Mark Twain and later Ty Cobb.

Cobb, a hot-tempered and aggressive slugger who received the most votes on the original Hall of Fame ballot, played 12-year-old Bob Rosburg in the first club championship in 1939. Although Cobb had retired from baseball more than a decade earlier, his competitiveness never cooled.

Cobb lost 7 and 6. Rosburg later won the PGA Championship in 1959. And while popular lore is that Cobb resigned in furor, the club has no record that he gave up his membership. Rosburg told Golf Digest in 2010 that Cobb was gracious in defeat but "guys at the club rode him unmercifully for losing to a child. He disappeared and didn't come back to Olympic for years."

"He was just so embarrassed," Olympic general chairman Stephen Meeker said of Cobb, recalling the story.