Tales From The Bunker

In our last post one of our loyal readers stated that Byron Nelson and Harold McSpaden were named the “Gold Dust Twins” at the 1944 Minneapolis Four-Ball Golf tournament. That got me wondering about other “Gold Dust Twins” and where did the name originate.

After an spending a massive amount of time on intensive research (no way) I discovered surprising that the name came from Gold Dust Washing Powder, an all-purpose cleaning agent first introduced in the 1880s.

The Gold Dust Twins, “Goldie” and “Dustie”, were the ‘faces’ of the Gold Dust Washing products.  The original version of the twins was a standard drawing of two young African-American children cleaning up together in a washtub. The Twins were featured in print advertising and radio ads for over sixty years. When national sensibilities about race began to change, the products (along with Goldie and Dustie) were phased out by the mid-1950s.

The phrase has also been used to describe two high profile individuals working successfully to achieve a common goal. Examples of “Gold Dust Twins” include:

• Harold “Jug” McSpaden and Byron Nelson, golf (1930s and 1940s)
• Royal Copeland and Joe Krol, gridiron football (1940s and early 1950s)
• Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall, tennis (1950s)
• Fred Lynn and Jim Rice, baseball (1970s)

So sorry Byron and Harold, you were not the original “Gold Dust Twins”.

Until next time, keep ‘em in the fairway.

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