Richard E. Fuhrer / Insurance exec's other passion was golf

Aug. 01--Oakmont Country Club was still feeling the embarrassing sting of Johnny Miller's record-setting final-round 63 in 1973 when the U.S. Open returned to the club 10 years later.

Determined that a low score would not happen again and stain the club's reputation for being one of the hardest golf courses in the country, Oakmont president Richard E. "Dick" Fuhrer had the rough along the fairways and around the greens grown to nearly impossible lengths and thickness for the 1983 national championship.

But the height of the rough was unacceptable even for the United States Golf Association, which had a reputation for providing the toughest and most grueling course setups for its tournaments. P.J. Boatwright, the USGA's executive director of rules and competition, was so angry he ordered Oakmont to cut the rough to a more acceptable level. When Mr. Fuhrer refused, Mr. Boatwright had the USGA cut the rough, even though the grass was still high for the tournament.

That's how protective Mr. Fuhrer was of Oakmont's reputation and integrity.

"He was pretty passionate about Oakmont," said Bob Ford, the club's longtime head golf professional. "He almost got into fistfight with P.J. Boatwright. That was Dick Fuhrer. He stood up for the club."

Mr. Fuhrer, an East Brady native who played basketball in high school and college and later developed his independent insurance agency into one of the most successful in the region, died Wednesday after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. He was 87.

"His passions were golf and insurance," said his older brother, Frank Jr., a Fox Chapel businessman who has financially supported golf in Western Pennsylvania and invested in several professional sports teams in the city. "That was his life."

Dick Fuhrer came by his passion for Oakmont honestly. He served as club president from 1983-84 and was connected to the historic club's "first family." His late wife, Gladys, was the daughter of Bill Stitt, who was Oakmont's manager and secretary in 1925.

Bill Stitt lived with his family in the Gatehouse, the red-brick English Tudor-style home that sits just inside the entrance to the club. The house was built by W.C. Fownes Jr., son of Oakmont founder Henry C. Fownes and one of Mr. Stitt's closest friends. Previously, the Stitt family lived on the third floor of the Oakmont clubhouse until Gladys was 9.

"A great house," Dick Fuhrer said in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2007. "It holds a lot of memories for me."

Mr. Fuhrer played basketball at East Brady High School, where he set scoring records, and later at Westminster College in an era when the tiny school was known as a national basketball powerhouse. But golf was his real passion.

After starting as a pharmaceutical sales rep, Mr. Fuhrer migrated to the life insurance business and started his own independent agency, Fuhrer Inc., in 1962. For years, his only two agents were his son Steve and Sean Knapp, one of Western Pennsylvania's top amateur golfers whom he first met when Mr. Knapp caddied for him at Oakmont.

"He was a very kind man," said Mr. Knapp, 53, who had worked for Mr. Fuhrer for 31 years. "He's very intelligent, but he had a very generous and sensitive side to him."

In 1979, Mr. Fuhrer's passion for golf led him to buy a nine-hole layout in Chicora, northeast of Butler, called Ridgeview, the course where he and his brother Frank grew up learning and playing the game.

"We used to play golf and fistfight and roll around any place on the golf course," Frank Fuhrer said. "We were both competitors. We wanted to win. It was a pretty good battle all the time."

Mr. Fuhrer built nine new holes with the help of club professional Ron Milanovich, changed the name to St. Jude Golf Club, and made it a members-only club known for some of the best and fastest greens in Western Pennsylvania.

He took pride that three of his members -- Mr. Knapp, four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champ Nathan Smith and Rick Stimmel -- were among the top amateur players in the region.

"Richard enjoyed making the course difficult with bunkering and some of the holes he designed," Mr. Knapp said. "He named it St. Jude because St. Jude was the patron saint of the desperate and hopeless. He wanted you to feel that way on the golf course."

Mr. Fuhrer was preceded in death by his wife of 64 years, Gladys, and is survived by his brother, Frank; a sister, Mary Lou Waltman of Chicora; a daughter, Gayle Hitchcock of Naperville, Ill; and two sons, Kurt of Chicora and Steve of Wilkinsburg.

Visitation is from 2 to 4 and 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday at the Burket-Truby Funeral Home, 421 Allegheny Ave., Oakmont. A funeral Mass will be at 12:30 p.m. Monday in St. Irenaeus Catholic Church, Oakmont. Private interment will take place in St. Eusebius Cemetery in East Brady.

Donations may be made in his name to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, 262 Danny Thomas Place, Memphis, TN 38105.

Gerry Dulac: [email protected].

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