He was a 1930s golf legend and Hollywood trickster who adamantly refused to be photographed. He never played professionally, yet sports-writing legend Grantland Rice still heralded him as “the greatest golfer in the world.” Then, in 1937, the secrets of John Montague’s past were exposed—leading to a sensational trial that captivated the nation.

From three-time New York Times bestselling author Leigh Montville

John Montague was a boisterous enigma. He had a bagful of golf tricks, on and off the course. He could chip a ball across a room into a highball glass, and knock a bird off a wire from 170 yards—and when the big man arrived in Hollywood in the early 1930s, he quickly became a celebrity among celebrities. He lived for a time with Oliver Hardy (whom he could lift, one-handed, onto the country club bar) and played golf with everyone from Howard Hughes and W. C. Fields to Babe Ruth and his close friend Bing Crosby, whom he famously beat while playing only with a rake, a shovel, and a bat. Yet strangely Montague never entered a professional tournament, and in a town that thrived on publicity, he never allowed his image to be captured on film.

The reasons became clear when a Time magazine photographer snapped his picture with a telephoto lens … and police in upstate New York quickly recognized Montague as a fugitive wanted for armed robbery. As Montague was indicted in the tiny upstate town of Jay, New York, hordes of national media descended and turned a star-studded legal carnival into the most talked about trial of its day – the trial of “the Mysterious Montague.”

From the glamour of 1930s Hollywood, to John Montague’s extraordinary skill and triumphs on the golf course, to the shady world of Adirondack rumrunners and bootleggers, three-time New York Times bestselling author Leigh Montville captures a man and an era with extraordinary color, verve, and energy. The Mysterious Montague is Leigh Montville’s most entertaining achievement to date.

"When John Montague died alone on May 25, 1972, age 69, in a fleabag hotel in Studio City, Calif., his body went unclaimed for a week. Hardly a fitting end for a man who once rubbed shoulders with Bing Crosby, Richard Arlen, Oliver Hardy and the other Hollywood swells who golfed, drank and caroused at the Lakeside Country Club in L.A. In the capable hands of bestselling sportswriter Montville (Ted Williams), Montague's is a quintessentially American story of a man from a hardscrabble background who found himself in the glamorous, easy-money world of Hollywood. But Montague had a past that caught up to him. Having fled a charge of armed robbery in upstate New York, Montague was brought back in 1937 to stand trial, and though he got off, his life quickly unraveled. Hyped by the great sportswriter Grantland Rice (who called him 'a golfer who would be a wrecking whirlwind in any amateur championship and on a par with any pro') and other newshounds, Montague struggled through a series of increasingly embarrassing attempts to go legit on the golf circuit. An entertaining read for the golf lit completist, this doesn't rise to the level of compulsion for the average reader." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Unlike much of America in the mid-1930s, with the economy nearly comatose from the Depression, Hollywood was thriving. Stars like Cary Grant, Bette Davis and Errol Flynn worked steadily on the huge backlots where the studios ground out film after film that the public craved as distractions from reality. Movieland was fantasy land. "Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you'll find the real tinsel... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) underneath," cracked good-timer Oscar Levant.

Enter a skilled fantasist who called himself John Montague. An actor, though not on the screen, he played a self-assigned role that brought stardom of another kind. In his early 30s and stockily built, he was a golfer who relished big-money games, complete with side bets that he could hit birds on telephone wires 175 yards away. He earned enough money, and downed enough crows, on Los Angeles public courses to join the private Lakeside Golf Club, becoming the club champ in 1935. Fellow members included Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, Douglas Fairbanks, Humphrey Bogart and, for lively and good measure, Howard Hughes, the last tycoon. For a time, Montague roomed with the even burlier actor Oliver Hardy.

"John Montague fit perfectly into this scene with its equal parts alcohol, golf, testosterone and madcap bravado," writes Leigh Montville in this sprightly vivisection of an era and a golfer whose exploits are all but forgotten in the Age of Tiger. (The last time I remember anyone gabbing about Montague was 1959, when as a college golfer I played a money match in Point Clear, Ala., against Titanic Thompson, then near the end of a legendary career as golf's heaviest and wiliest gambler. Titanic spun some stories about Montague, which I would have enjoyed more had he not been taking me to the cleaners.)

Montague was justifiably called mysterious in a 1937 Time magazine article. He refused to be photographed, he sought no publicity, never spoke of his past and played in no tournaments even though he regularly scored in the low or mid-60s. Grantland Rice, the dominant sportswriter of the time, hailed him as a supreme talent, and he became known as "the greatest golfer in the world." He once played golf-mad Bing Crosby with a baseball bat, shovel and garden rake. After Montague won the first hole, Crosby crooned that he'd had enough and quit.

The mystery man was exposed in 1937. Despite his no-photos policy, a picture of Montague had accompanied the Time article, which was seen by the police in Elizabethtown, N.Y., in the Adirondacks. Montague's real name was LaVerne Moore, and he was wanted on a seven-year-old charge of armed robbery.

Montville's account of this masquerader is a well-paced ride that bumps along between high courtroom drama and low-grade farce. The national media swooped into Elizabethtown during the ensuing trial, with Bob Considine of the New York Mirror saying, "The little town is like a college station on the eve of the big game, with lights in the dormitories and songs in the pub."

Montague/Moore beat the rap, defended by the same trial lawyer who once won an acquittal for gangster Dutch Schultz. Suddenly a tabloid celebrity and no longer shy around the cameras, he lost little time in using his propulsive energy for self-promotion. He and Babe Ruth, joined by two female golfers of note — Babe Didrikson and Sylvia Annenberg — staged an exhibition match on Long Island. The crowd was so large and unruly that the match was halted after nine holes.

Afterward, Montague returned to Hollywood. "The Garbo of Golf, the Sphinx of the Links, the Phantom of the Fairways," writes Montville, "had to get going, get busy, put up, yes, or shut up. The legend had to be fortified by facts to stay alive." He entered the 1939 U.S. Open but failed to qualify. The next year he made it into the field but shot a weak 77 and 73, missing the 36-hole cut. He was derided by the media that had once enthroned him.

Montville provides scant details on how Montague earned a living from the 1940s until his death in Studio City in 1972. Those were evidently parched years for him, so perhaps there wasn't much to tell. At the end, the former "greatest golfer in the world" had been subsisting on social security and welfare checks.

Colman McCarthy is the director of the Center for Teaching Peace and the author of "At Rest with the Animals," to be published in August.

Reviewed by Colman McCarthy, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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“Montville is a wonderful storyteller and Ruth’s story, from Baltimore street urchin to international celebrity is indisputably amazing … a fascinating tale, alternately happy and sad, and always artfully written.”

Chicago Tribune

EARLY RAVES FOR THE MYSTERIOUS MONTAGUE

“Critics who think bestselling sports biographer Montville’s popularity rests on that of his gargantuan subjects, from Ted Williams to Dale Earnhardt, had better think again: He hits the pin in one with this page-turning account of a long-forgotten golfer….Explaining why reporters loved to write about Montague, the author declares, ‘Intrigue is a better seller than great golf any day.’ Here, he gives readers both.”

—Kirkus, starred review

PREVIOUS PRAISE FOR NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR LEIGH MONTVILLE

TED WILLIAMS

“Exceptional. Montville on Ted Williams is can’t-miss, one of America’s best sportswriters weighing in on one of the last century’s most intriguing figures. A great read.”

—Chicago Tribune

“In Ted Williams, Leigh Montville reaches a threshold even the mighty Williams could never touch: perfection. The beauty of Montville’s work is that it is not a baseball book, per se, so much as the life and times of an oft perplexing, always fascinating man.”

—Newsday

“Montville is refreshingly nonjudgmental about his superstar subject. First-rate biography.”

—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Crisp analogies and astute observations, combined with a fluid writing style, are Leigh Montville’s strengths in this definitive biography of the Splendid Splinter.”

—Tampa Tribune

THE BIG BAM

“[A] vivid, intimate account. Montville’s unique voice … makes old yarns seem new.”

—Sports Illustrated

“Montville is a wonderful storyteller and Ruth’s story, from Baltimore street urchin to international celebrity is indisputably amazing … a fascinating tale, alternately happy and sad, and always artfully written.”

—Chicago Tribune

“The best Ruth biography to date … [Montville’s] adroit organization of the historical material—enhanced by newly studied archival material and oral history transcripts, together with his flair for marshalling undisputed facts that are intertwined with plausible speculations—has produced an engaging, entertaining, and eminently readable biography.”

—Library Journal, starred review

“Critics who think bestselling sports biographer Montville’s popularity rests on that of his gargantuan subjects, from Ted Williams to Dale Earnhardt, had better think again: He hits the pin in one with this page-turning account of a long-forgotten golfer….Explaining why reporters loved to write about Montague, the author declares, ‘Intrigue is a better seller than great golf any day.’ Here, he gives readers both.”

Kirkus, starred review

PREVIOUS PRAISE FOR NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR LEIGH MONTVILLE

TED WILLIAMS

“In Ted Williams, Leigh Montville reaches a threshold even the mighty Williams could never touch: perfection. The beauty of Montville’s work is that it is not a baseball book, per se, so much as the life and times of an oft perplexing, always fascinating man.”

Newsday

“Crisp analogies and astute observations, combined with a fluid writing style, are Leigh Montville’s strengths in this definitive biography of the Splendid Splinter.”

Tampa Tribune

THE BIG BAM

John Montague had a bagful of golf tricks. He could chip balls into a hammock hung on a balcony and pick a bird off a wire at 170 yards. When he arrived in Hollywood in the early 1930s, he quickly became a celebrity among celebrities. He lived for a time with Oliver Hardy and played golf with everyone from Howard Hughes to W.C. Fields to Bing Crosby, his close friend, whom he famously beat while playing with only a rake, a shovel, and a bat. Yet strangely, Montague never entered a professional golf tournament—and in a town that thrived on publicity, he remained conspicuously silent about his lavish lifestyle and absolutely refused to be photographed.

The reasons became clear when Time magazine published his picture...and police in upstate New York instantly recognized him as a fugitive wanted for armed robbery—and his name was not John Montague. The trial of the “Mysterious Montague” was held in a tiny upstate New York town, attracted hordes of national media, and became the most talked-about trial of its day.

From the glamour of 1930s Hollywood to Montague’s tricks and triumphs on the golf course, to the shady world of Adirondack bootleggers and rumrunners, Leigh Montville captures a man and his era with the verve and energy that have made his books major national bestsellers.

LEIGH MONTVILLE is a former columnist at the Boston Globe and former senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He is the author of five books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth, Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero, and At the Altar of Speed: The Fast Life and Tragic Death of Dale Earnhardt. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.