F. Morgan Taylor Jr.

Frederick Morgan Taylor Jr. was born on July 13, 1931, in Quincy, Illinois.[1][2] His father, the elder F. Morgan Taylor, had won Olympic gold and bronze medals in the 400 m hurdles and broken the world record at the 1928 Olympic Trials;[3] he had also placed second to DeHart Hubbard in his son's future event, the long jump, at the 1925 NCAA Championships.[3][4]

Taylor grew up in Illinois, first Quincy and later Evanston and Skokie in the Chicago area.[1] He acquired a love for golf early on, becoming a caddie at the Evanston Golf Club at age 9 and later joining the greenkeeping crew.[1][5] He went to high school at Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois,[6] where he was successful both academically and athletically.[7]

Taylor was one of Western Military Academy's top athletes, captaining the track and field team; he also played football and basketball.[6][7][8][9] While the long jump (then usually called the "broad jump") was already his best event,[10] he competed in and won other events for his team, including the sprints, high jump and pole vault.[9] His best jump in 1949 of 22 ft 3+1⁄2 in (6.79 m) ranked him among the top Illinois high schoolers that year,[9] although it was nowhere close to the national leader, George Brown, who had jumped 25 ft 2+1⁄2 in (7.68 m) to break Jesse Owens's national high school record from 1933.[11][12] Taylor graduated from high school in 1949 and went to Princeton University on a scholarship.[6] He played defensive back for a Princeton Tigers football team that went 26–1 over three seasons.[6][13]

In 1952, his junior year at Princeton, Taylor reached the international top level as a long jumper. In early May he jumped 25 ft 2+3⁄4 in (7.68 m) in a dual meet against Yale, a new meeting record and Princeton school record.[14][15] Four weeks later he won the IC4A long jump championship, defeating the previous year's winner, Cornell's Meredith Gourdine.[16] At the NCAA Championships in mid-June he was up against Brown, who had become the world's best jumper.[17] In the last round Taylor jumped 25 ft 6+1⁄8 in (7.77 m) to take the lead, but Brown responded with a leap of 25 ft 11+1⁄8 in (7.90 m) and won.[18] Taylor placed second, as his father had done in 1925;[4] his new personal best was good enough to also place him second on the annual world list.[2]

At the national championships Taylor only placed sixth with a jump of 23 ft 8 in (7.21 m),[19] but he was still considered a favorite to quality for the American team for that summer's Olympic Games in Helsinki.[17] In a prediction poll of coaches ahead of the Olympic Trials he ranked second to Brown, ahead of Gourdine and Jerome Biffle; he was the only jumper other than Brown that any coach predicted to win.[20]

The Olympic Trials were held in Los Angeles in late June, with the top three qualifying for the Olympic team.[21] The Trials long jump did not go according to the predictions. After five rounds Biffle was in the lead with 25 ft 2 in (7.67 m), followed by Gourdine; Taylor was in third place with 24 ft 11+1⁄2 in (7.60 m) and the favorite, Brown, was set to not qualify.[21] As at the NCAA meet, however, Brown came through in the last round, overtaking Taylor by two inches and pushing him out of the team.[21]

Biffle and Gourdine went on to go one-two at the Olympics, while Brown failed to record a valid mark.[21] Track & Field News ranked Taylor No. 4 in the world in its 1952 rankings, behind Brown, Biffle and Gourdine but ahead of all non-American jumpers.[22]

In 1953 Taylor's best jump was 25 ft 5⁄8 in (7.63 m), his winning mark at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia.[2][23] He repeated as IC4A champion,[3] and Track & Field News again ranked him fourth in the world.[22]

After graduating from Princeton in 1953 Taylor served in the U.S. Army for two years as a lieutenant.[1] He married Barbara Olin, daughter of Olin Corporation executive Spencer T. Olin, in June 1954.[1][24] Taylor's career with his father-in-law's company started in 1955.[25] He went through a number of managerial roles,[25] eventually rising to be general manager of the Olin-owned Winchester recreation products group and a corporate vice president.[1][26]

Taylor left Olin Corporation in 1974 and joined Victor Comptometer,[1][13] heading that company's recreation products side.[1] In 1981 he bought AquaVac Systems, Inc., which manufactured robotic pool-cleaners; he remained its chairman and principal owner until his retirement.[1][27]

Taylor joined the United States Golf Association's Executive Committee in 1986.[1][5] He served as the association's secretary, treasurer and vice president before being elected president in 1998.[1][5]

Taylor was involved in a number of controversies over golf equipment.[5][13] He was with Victor Comptometer in the 1970s when they introduced the Polara ball, which sought to reduce hooks and slices;[1][13] the ball was banned by the USGA, leading to a lawsuit.[13] He was a member of the USGA's implement and ball committee in the late 1980s when Karsten Solheim's square-groove clubs led to another controversy and lawsuit, which was eventually settled out of court.[5][13][28] Fights over new technology also marked his presidency;[1][5][13] he opposed new clubs that enabled longer shots, citing the increasing costs and slower play that would come with longer courses, as well as the game's traditions and integrity and a rule forbidding spring-like effects in clubs.[1][13] Taylor had the support of other USGA officials, as well as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus,[1][13] but Wally Uihlein, a leading club manufacturer, called him an ideologist and a "loose cannon on the ramparts of golf".[13]

Taylor was also a member of the Masters Tournament's rules committee.[1][5] His son, James, won the U.S. Mid-Amateur Golf Championship in 1989.[1][5]

Taylor died of lymphoma in his home at Jupiter Island, Florida on October 29, 2010.[1] He was survived by his wife, four sons, three siblings and ten grandchildren.[1]