While watching the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club I saw the palm trees forming that big W behind the 7th green. I’ve seen it before, and it always reminded me of the Big W in the 1963 movie It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I’ve always figured it couldn’t be the same palm trees as in the movie – they were full grown 50 years ago, looked about the same as they do now, and the movie was set in Southern California, not Hawaii – but I’ve always wondered if there was a connection.

For those of you that don’t know the movie, it was one of those cavalcade of stars events  and included Sid Caesar, Spencer Tracy, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Jimmy Durante, etc., etc. The plot revolved around a madcap search for a lot of money buried under “The Big W”, but no one knew where that was. Eventually they discovered four palm trees in the shape of a W, like the ones at Waialae.

According to Matt Ginella in Golf Digest, there is a tenuous connection. You can find the whole story by following the link above.

Thank you, Matt. I can sleep better now.