Kenneth R. Kingsbury was the Chairman of the Board of Bapco in the 1930s and died unexpectedly in November 1937. Ever since, we have presented the Kingsbury Cup trophy each year at the Presentation Dinner-Dance to the winner of the Flight-1 off-scratch knock-out: the winner also receiving the accolade of "Club Champion". But you knew all that anyway, didn't you, so you may ask ... why is this being repeated here? Read on.

The importance of Kenneth Kingsbury to AGC, or more accurately his death, is this: it led to the inauguration of a competition and a trophy that bears the inscription: "Kingsbury Memorial Cup, Presented by J. A. Moffett" (on its front) and "Bapco Golf Club Won By 1937-38" (on its rear). This rear inscription, together with the information displayed on the related Honours Board of winners of the Kingsbury Cup "1938/39 C.R.B. Hopper" is the reason we describe the year of establishment of our Club as 1938. And thus, for example, the reason we held our 75th Anniversary Festival of Golf in 2013. Although we know the Bapco oil workers were playing golf in the early 1930s in the desert near the location of "Oil Well No.1", we have no competition results predating those of the Kingsbury Cup.

Since volunteering to fulfill the duties of a "Club Historian" in 2010, Onny has tried for many, many hours to clear one of the last outstanding items related to the history of AGC: a photo of Kenneth Kingsbury. Efforts sat at home trawling the Internet saw him fail. Finally, in February 2015, he wrote to Mr. John Watson (pictured left - a successor to Kingsbury), the current CEO of Chevron and based in California, describing AGC and asking for assistance to locate a photo of Kenneth Kingsbury.

This latest effort has met with success: AGC's thanks thus go to Mr. Watson for taking some time out for this distraction, one not exactly related to Chevron's core business. Passing Onny's request to the Archivist at the Chevron Corporate Archive, Mr. Peder Hash responded on 14th April 2015 by email with a photo (pictured right). However, he went beyond supplying just the requested photo, taking time to perform some research and supply a copy of the Standard Oil Bulletin (the internal newsletter of the Standard Oil Group) of Nov-Dec 1937 that describes more about Kingsbury and his unexpected death. AGC's thanks thus go to Mr. Hash for his efforts on AGC's behalf.

Comments about Kingsbury's photo
The photo's date and Kingsbury's age at the time are currently unknown. However, Kingsbury was born in 1876 and became SOCAL's youngest ever President in 1919 at the age of 43: perhaps this studio portrait was taken near this time with Kingsbury in his mid-40s. Does this look like a man in his mid-40s to you?

Comments about the Standard Oil Bulletin of Nov-Dec 1937
This reveals some interesting pertinent information not previously known to members of AGC (those still living, that is):
Mr. Kingsbury served successively as assistant to H. M. Tilford and J. A. Moffett, presidents of Standard Oil Company (California)

He was a golfer and an enthusiastic fisherman. He served terms as president of the Pacific Union Club and of the San Francisco Golf Club.

This is the only reference to Kingsbury's sporting life in the bulletin: clearly Kingsbury was a keen golfer. As a working colleague of J.A. Moffett over many years, perhaps we can assume that a cordial relationship existed between the two executives and also that J.A. Moffett was a golfer as well. With this in mind, the inscription on the Kingsbury Cup can be explained.

Unanswered questions
Questions which we do not know the answer to still remain, namely:

What is the date of the photo ?
Did Kenneth Kingsbury or J.A. Moffett ever visit Bahrain ?
Did Kenneth Kingsbury or J.A. Moffett ever play golf in Bahrain, noting that the course at our current site is believed to have been in operation in 1938, albeit only nine holes (becoming 18 holes in 1940) ?
Did J.A. Moffett present the Kingsbury Cup to Club officials, in Bahrain, in person ?

The Pacific Union Club still exists (this Wikipedia link shows Kingsbury as its President 1921-22). Another description was recently found on the Internet:

This is the crème de la crème of San Francisco elites, and after almost 125 years, it is still only for men. In fact, the members’ wives must come in the back door if they wish to eat lunch with their husbands. There’s exclusive, and then there’s places you’ll never get into. This is the latter.

The San Francisco Golf Club still exists too. Surprisingly, it appears easier to become a member of AGC than SFGC.

Now who will our industrious Historian be attempting to contact next ....