SAN FRANCISCO – Frank "Sandy" Tatum did not hit a single shot. Nor did he deliver any inspirational words to the participants.

Yet if there is one clear winner of the Presidents Cup, besides the American players and Harding Park, it is Tatum, 89 years young, who helped raise the necessary funds and awareness to upgrade the course he loves.

Before Tatum got involved, Harding was a mess. Such a mess that he didn't play it for about a decade.

"I couldn't bear it," Tatum said.

Walking inside the ropes on Saturday, Tatum was stopped on a number of occasions by fans in the gallery thanking him for his efforts. In typical fashion, he didn't focus on the attention. He focused on the golf course. He kept pointing to the contour of the greens and the design of the fairways. It was a shock that he didn't pick up any trash.

Tatum first teed it up at Harding in 1938. A freshman at Stanford, he was competing in the San Francisco City Championship, for years the most prestigious municipal title in the United States.

In roughly 35 appearances, he once made it as far as the quarterfinals.

"I lost to a carpenter," Tatum recalled. "You played with carpenters and police officers and firemen, and they were damn good players."

Tatum, who won the 1942 NCAA championship, wasn't too shabby, either, but professional golf was never on his agenda. A Rhodes Scholar, he practiced law instead, and became an invaluable member of the United States Golf Association. As the USGA president in the early 1970s, he came up with the unforgettable response when Winged Foot, the venue for the 1974 U.S. Open, was heavily criticized by players who felt the organization had set out to embarrass them.

"We're not trying to embarrass the best players in the game," Tatum said. "We're trying to identify them."

At Harding, the best players stood out again, and so did Tatum.