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By Becky LaPlante
In the early 1900s, there was a group of brothers known to many in Wisconsin as the “golfing Galletts.” They came to the United States in the 1920s from Carnoustie, Scotland, looking to start new lives.
The four Galletts grew up on the game of golf, so it was only natural that they became golf professionals once they arrived in the U.S. But one of them, Francis, became so good at what he did that he would eventually go down in record books as one of the best golfers in Wisconsin history.
Gallett spent nearly his entire career as the head professional at Wauwatosa’s Blue Mound G&CC. He was awarded honorary lifetime memberships at two Carnoustie courses – New Taymouth GC in 1926, and the famous Carnoustie GC in 1947, an honor bestowed upon only two other Americans. The man known for his wristy golf swing and long drives won loads of tournaments from the 1920s to the ’50s. And while he spent a majority of his days on the course at Blue Mound and playing golf from Wisconsin to the Carolinas, Francis never lost sight of his Scottish heritage.
Born to Alfred and Mary Ann Gallett on May 15, 1895, Francis grew up in a house on a Carnoustie golf course. His father was a cobbler, and his mother stayed home and raised Francis and his eight siblings, most of whom learned to play golf at a young age.
Though golf was good in Carnoustie, economic opportunities weren’t. Like millions of others, Alfred Gallett came to the United States in 1916 looking for a better life, but he died shortly thereafter. Two of his daughters also immigrated to the U.S., so Alfred’s wife and two youngest sons, John, 14, and Leonard, 11 – who would later become two of the four golfing Galletts – followed in 1919. Over the next few years, all but one of the Gallett siblings made it through the Ellis Island gates.
Francis, his wife Violet, and their 1-year-old twin sons, Robert and Alfred, made their way to the U.S. via the S.S. Columbia, which departed from Glasgow, Scotland, on Feb. 15, 1921. It docked in New York on March 20, and it wasn’t long until Francis, then 25, found a job as an assistant golf pro at Baltusrol GC in New Jersey.
Gallett’s job at Baltusrol lasted a year before he became a private golf tutor for multimillionaire mining industrialist Daniel Guggenheim at the Guggenheim estate on Long Island in New York. That was followed by a stint as golf professional at Laurelton CC in Laurelton, on Long Island.
During his early teaching years, Gallett played in a number of golf tournaments in the New York area and the Carolinas. According to the “Blue Mound G&CC Centennial Club History” written by Bob Bonner, Francis played the Long Island Open three years in a row, each time taking second and missing the win by just one stroke.
Gallett participated in his first U.S. Open in 1923. The event was held at Inwood CC in New York state, and Francis nearly brought home a victory. Closely trailing Bobby Jones after 36 holes, Gallett’s chances slipped away after shooting 7 on a par-4 hole. He ended up tied for fifth with scores of 76-72-77-79. Jones went on to win his first of four U.S. Opens, and kick-started his spectacular amateur career.
In 1925, Francis decided to join the rest of his siblings in Wisconsin, and he accepted a position as head professional at Blue Mound, where he would remain for 37 years. During that time, Gallett would win the Wisconsin State Open five times and finish runner-up four times, win the Wisconsin PGA Championship four times and the Wisconsin Senior PGA Championship three times. According to Scottish newspapers, Gallett was once rated the fifth-best club professional in the U.S., and he was said to have been called the “father of Wisconsin golf.”
When Francis learned to play golf in Scotland, he did so with just six or seven clubs. That’s why Art Gebhardt, who took lessons from Francis in the early 1940s, thinks the man “was a magician with a 5-iron.”
“He could hit a 5-iron 120 yards, he could hit it 165 or 170,” Gebhardt said, “and he used (it) in a lot of different places.”
When Francis gave golf lessons, Gebhardt said, he used a strategy he coined the “double cock.” Gallett taught his pupils that cocking their wrists at the top of their backswing and again after their follow-through would ensure they swung the club completely.
“They don’t teach golf like that anymore,” said Gebhardt, 79, a former member of the University of Wisconsin golf team.
Helping with those lessons at Blue Mound was Francis’ brother Len, an assistant pro. The two, along with brothers John and James, made up the golfing Galletts. John got his professional start in Albert Lea, Minn., before finding his way to courses in Hartford and Watertown. James, despite a disability, was a longtime caddiemaster at Blue Mound. When he was young, James was hit in the knee with a golf ball, but he failed to tell his mother or go to the doctor. He eventually had the leg amputated from the knee down.
Tragedy struck the Galletts in 1941 when Francis’ son Robert died in a car accident. Because of that, Gebhardt said, Francis had a soft spot in his heart for children.
While those who knew Francis on the golf course would say the sport was his life, family members knew better. His niece, Mary Stoiber, who lives near Crivitz, remembers visiting her uncle “France” at his house on Burleigh Street, which was owned by the country club and located on the north end of the golf course. The kitchen always smelled of traditional Scottish food, and there was a huge blooming cactus in the living room. Stoiber can still recall the crocheted picture of the Last Supper hanging above the buffet in the dining room.
“We always had Christmas at their house,” Stoiber said. “Everyone who lived here in Wisconsin that was family went there. It was nice; it was special.”
Stoiber described her uncle as “jolly, generous and high spirited.” Everyone loved to hear Francis speak, she said, because he never lost his Scottish brogue.
“The rest kind of lost that, but he kept it – I think by choice,” Stoiber said with a laugh.
Stoiber’s cousin and Len Gallett’s daughter, Judy Holcomb, recalls the same thing about her uncle.
“He was the only one in the family that (kept the brogue), so I don’t know if he faked it or he just kept it. None of his other brothers and sisters that were born in Scotland had a Scottish accent,” she said.
Francis kept his Scottish heritage alive and well, Holcomb said, which could be noted by his home decor, the way he dressed and the foods he ate. Each morning, Francis awoke his wife by bringing her tea and toast with jam and clinking on the cup. It was things like that, Stoiber said, which made her uncle special.
Though he never made a lot of money playing golf, it was said that Francis still sent portions of his winnings back to Carnoustie for scholarships and to help the golf community. Gebhardt, his former pupil, said a life-size photo of Francis was supposed to have hung behind the bar of a Carnoustie clubhouse until about 15 years ago.
During long Wisconsin winters, Gallett held indoor golf clinics at a nearby school, and he was even a crossing guard in Wauwatosa. He spent evenings in his workshop in the basement, making and repairing golf clubs. He designed the “Gallett Rock and Roll Greenmaster Putter,” which he marketed as “the only perfect balanced putter of its kind in the world.” On a trip back to Scotland in December of 1946, Gallett advocated for the use of his club, since its head was made of Bakelite and was barred in Britain by the Rules of Golf Committee.
After his retirement in 1963, Francis and his wife Violet remained in the house on the golf course for a few more years. During that time, Francis got to know Russ Tuveson, the man who replaced him as head pro at Blue Mound. Tuveson and Gallett played golf together often in those years.
“He loved to hit a big hook off the tee. He hooked everything,” said Tuveson, who held the head pro position at Blue Mound for 32 years after Gallett. “He loved to hook the ball onto the green.”
Francis and Violet moved to Port Charlotte, Fla., not long after his retirement. They lived on a golf course there, and Gallett continued to play the game he loved right up until his sudden death on April 28, 1973, at the age of 77. Francis Gallett was buried in Wauwatosa Cemetery, and he was posthumously voted into the Wisconsin State Golf Association Hall of Fame in 1975.
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