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Without claiming his handicap, Hope has beaten Ben Hogan over nine holes, has tied Arnold Palmer. Once, he took $1,800 from Sportsman-Builder Del Webb, who now says, belatedly: "When you play with Hope, keep your hand on your wallet." Dolores Hope, a 13-handicap golfer herself, says she won't play with Bob again until he pays her the dollar she won in their last game; Bob just grumps. Jackie Gleason says that "Bob's only departure from sanity is his insistence that he can beat me."
Gleason and Hope once played a charity match in Florida. Hope dumped three shots in the water on the ninth hole.
"He kept expecting me to say something," says Gleason, "but I just sat there serenely puffing on a cigarette. When he finally got over the water, I just said, 'Nice shot.' It killed him."
It kills Hope to concede a putt, too. Most players will do so if the distance between ball and cup is "within the leather"—the length measured from the bottom of the handgrip to the club head. Not Bob; he always insists on measuring with whatever club has the longest grip.
A Nose for Land. After golf, Hope's favorite game is Monopoly—played with real money. He's got a nose for real estate properties as well as jokes. With Crosby, years ago, he got into a Texas oil deal that later brought him about $3,000,000. His business firm, Bob Hope Enterprises, owns 8,000 acres in Palm Springs, $35 million in property in Thousand Oaks near Los Angeles, 4,000-5,000 acres near Phoenix, more than 7,500 acres in the San Fernando Valley, 1,500 acres in Malibu, scattered properties in Burbank and the rest of Southern California and in Puer to Rico, and interests in the Cleveland Indians baseball team, a race track and a variety of broadcasting properties. These holdings, added to his homes in North Hollywood and Palm Springs, contribute to a net worth approaching $500 million.
Though he has a staff of managers and other aides, Hope himself is the key to the whole enterprise. More than one corporation boss has suggested that Bob is supremely capable of running any kind of major business. RCA Board Chairman David Sarnoff says that he is even slicker at the negotiating table than on the air. Richard Berg, who produced Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater for TV, says he "has a very crisp approach and a totally organized mind. He's not an easy man to please; you know he's measuring, testing you all the time."
Soft Shoe. Hope could have retired years ago, but it was not only his enjoyment of show business that prevented it. Too many people are dependent on him; besides, he says, "I've got a government to support." His gifts to charity are calculated in their entirety only by Hope, but unquestionably they run into the millions of dollars. He recently donated $802,000 to S.M.U. for a theater, $125,000 to the Los Angeles Music
Center. He gave 80 acres of land worth $500,000 in Palm Springs for an Eisenhower Medical Center, helped build a Catholic church in Formosa, was U.S. chairman of the Cerebral Palsy Foundation and the National Conference of Christians and