Ed Heimann Has a Better Short Game Than You Do

Ed Heimann, Hyde Park Golf and Country Club, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 9, 2013.

Maddagiri Ed Heimann, Hyde Park Golf & Country Club, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 9, 2013.

order Latuda overnight A couple of weeks ago, I had the tremendous good fortune to play a round of golf (and give an evening talk and slide show) at Hyde Park Golf & Country Club, in Cincinnati. The club’s original course, which had nine holes, was laid out by Tom Bendelow in 1909, and the current course, which has eighteen holes, all of them terrific, was designed by Donald Ross a little over a decade later.

Among the members I played with was Ed Heimann, who has won Hyde Park’s club championship twenty-one times, in six different decades. His first win was in 1964, when he was twenty-six; his most recent was in 2010, when he was seventy-two. And he’s been the runner-up half a dozen times, during years when (I guess) he was struggling with his game.

Ed Heimann has won the Hyde Park club championship so often that his victories won't all fit on one plaque.

Ed Heimann has won the Hyde Park club championship so often that his victories spill over onto a second plaque.

His most recent victories. Still room for more.

His most recent victories. Still room for more.

Heimann isn’t very long off the tee anymore, but from inside a hundred yards he routinely gets the ball closer to the hole than many good players do from the fringe—a skill that’s especially devastating in match play, since guys who out-drive him by a hundred yards don’t expect to have to putt first. My advice to other golfers is to emulate everything Heimann does, including plumb-bobbing and wearing a green glove. And if you ever find yourself in a match with him you might as well just give him ten-footers.

Ed Heimann and Ian Wilt.

Ed Heimann and Ian Wilt. “That’s good, Ed.”

Heimann has a more interesting job than you do, too: he is the chairman of Hamilton Tailoring Company, in Avondale, which was founded the same year Hyde Park was. Hamilton has made clothing for customers as different as Perry Como and John Daly, and since 1967 it has been the exclusive manufacturer of the three-button, single-breasted sports coats worn by Augusta National members and Masters winners. (The exact shade of green: Pantone 342.) Heimann established his Augusta relationship by employing the same kind of creativity and determination that he has used to pick apart opponents in club matches for the past half-century. So watch it.

8 thoughts on “Ed Heimann Has a Better Short Game Than You Do

  1. My 14 year old son(at that time) and I were playing with Ed some ten years ago in Florida. When we reached the middle of the eight hole my son leans over to me and asks, “Does Mr. Heimann ever miss a shot”?

    To this date I can’t remember one!

    He is truly one of a kind both on and off the course.

  2. so he’s better than us and he has a better job than us, according to you, D.O.
    Are we supposed to strive to be like him, or just wonder why you wrote this article with this tone?

  3. Interesting piece, interesting golfer. It makes me smile to think of the younger members (flat-bellies) “gunnin’ for ol’ man Heimann” year after year only to be crushed by the green glove!

    I shall attempt to emulate Ed’s short game by not anchoring a long putter.

    Thanks, D.O.

  4. Ed’s short game is as good as described above. It’s a special day whenever I play with him and even more special when I win a match against him!!!

  5. Ed is as good a partner as you will ever have . He will pump you up and make you think you are carrying the team. and……..then he will sink the crucial twenty five footer to win the match. Afterword,over a cranberry and orange juice, he will tell you how “you carried us to victory”. Yes, he will ruthlessly beat you in a Nassau game but he is just as generous with his time and money. Eddie is what golf is about.

    Mike Pearson

  6. Greetings from the real Hyde Park in London. Think of you often and the times we rented a house in Augusta. Ralph Hostetter

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