John Thurman Oxley (1909-1996) was born in Bromide, Oklahoma. He attended college at night at the University of Tulsa and after years in the petroleum industry, started Texas Natural Gasoline Corp in 1948. After taking up polo at age forty-six, Oxley took over the struggling Royal Palm Polo Club, and in 1978 moved it to Jog Road at Old Clint Moore Road.
At sixty-one, Oxley captained the first U.S. team to win England’s Gold Cup, the oldest player ever to win that major event. Before he stopped playing polo in his eighties, Oxley won several major events, including the U.S. Open Championship, twice as captain. He helped to develop an official umpire program, one of the first safety helmets, Polo magazine, and the Polo Training Foundation. In 1994, Oxley was inducted into the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame in Lake Worth, which he helped to establish.
Oxley’s elder son, John C. “Jack” Oxley (1937-), graduated from the University of Oklahoma and in 1962 founded Oxley Petroleum with his father. Jack joined his father’s polo team after college and later captained his own team to win the 1983 U.S. Open, and won every major tournament of the U.S. Polo Association, which he chaired from 1988 to 1991. He was inducted into the Polo Museum Hall of Fame in 2005. In the 1970s, he started racing thoroughbreds, and won the Kentucky Derby in 2001 with Monarchos, the second Derby winner to finish in less than two minutes. Jack was inducted into the Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.
Thomas E. Oxley (1944-2009) graduated from Florida Atlantic University, where he founded the Tom Oxley Athletic Center. He played polo until 1968, when a fall left him in a coma for a month. After a long recovery, Tom moved from polo player to announcer at Royal Palm. The sons continued their father’s legacy as supporters of polo and the club, which closed in 2008, after 49 years of Oxley leadership.