Arnold Palmer was the most thrilling golfer in America at the time that television started broadcasting the game. He revolutionised the perception of the sport with his exciting brand of golf. Whether they watched him on television or lined the fairways, Arnie’s Army brought new fans to the game. But almost before the King had been crowned, so came along the Golden Bear. Jack Nicklaus won more of the biggest tournaments for longer than anyone else in the history of the game. From the US Open in 1962 to the Masters in 1986, he was golf’s gold standard. And if there was to be a third member of golf’s latest superstar trio, Gary Player was a worthy inclusion. The South African travelled more than anyone else and still managed to win nine major championships. The Big Three was how they were marketed by Mark McCormack, who founded the International Management Group, and he was not wrong. But, in contrast, truly out on her own was Mickey Wright who dominated the women’s game in this era, and who might just have had the best swing of anyone, male or female.
Tommy Bolt had one of the sweetest swings in the business but that is not why people watched him. His mentor, Ben Hogan, once said: ‘If I could only have screwed another head on Tommy’s shoulders, he could have been the best player that ever played.’
He was called ‘Terrible Tommy’, ‘Thunder Bolt’ and ‘the Vesuvius of golf’ for the very good reason that his temper often got the better of him. This was the handicap he overcame to win the most frustrating championship of all, the US Open, in 1958 at Southern Hills in the intense summer heat of Oklahoma. That week he was all smiles, joking with the gallery and the press. Less than impressed with a newspaper report that said he was 49, Bolt claimed he was 39. ‘It was just a typographical error,’ he was told. ‘Typographical error, my ass,’ he replied. ‘It was a perfect four and a perfect nine.’ Bolt was actually 42, but that only came to light much later.
It was Bolt who advised, in the style of instruction articles for the swing, on how to throw a club. ‘Always throw it forward,’ he said. ‘It takes less energy than having to walk back for your club.’ Often he would not bother throwing a club, just put it over his knee and snap the shaft. ‘It thrills crowds to see a guy suffer,’ he said. ‘That’s why I threw clubs so often. They love to see golf get the better of someone.’ Faced with a short approach shot at Pebble Beach once, his caddie offered him a choice between a three-iron and a three-wood. ‘Those are the only clubs you have left,’ Bolt was told.
In the 1960 US Open at Cherry Hills, Bolt went into meltdown on the back nine with a string of bogeys, and worse. At the last, he hooked his drive into a pond, and did exactly the same with his next attempt. ‘Teeth bared in crazed rage,’ wrote Robert Sommers, ‘he drew back his driver with a perfect pivot and exceptionally fine hand position at the top of the backswing, took one step forward, and while Claude Harmon, his playing partner, ducked out of the way, he flung his driver into the pond.’ A small boy then dived into the pond and retrieved the club, to great applause and even a smile from Bolt at the prospect of the club being returned. But the boy sprinted past Bolt, across the fairway and over a fence, disappearing with his treasure.
Bolt joined the PGA tour aged 34. At one point he was in the army and stationed at a golf club in Rome offering instruction to officers and perfecting his game. He played in two Ryder Cups, including at Lindrick in 1957 when the home side claimed a rare victory. Bolt faced another fiery character, Scotland’s Eric Brown, in the singles and when neither appeared on the tee, Jimmy Demaret quipped they were still on the practice range throwing clubs at each other from 50 paces. It was a match full of needle, Bolt losing 4 and 3. He said he did not enjoy the game. Brown said: ‘That’s because you don’t like getting stuffed.’
Mickey Wright never played golf in Britain, so for golf writers like Liz Kahn and Pat Ward-Thomas even catching a glimpse late in her career was a blessing. ‘Meeting Mickey and seeing her play was a highlight in my life,’ said Kahn. Ward-Thomas wrote: ‘From the moment she stood to the ball there was an impression of authority seen only in the finest men.’ Wright had the power of Babe Zaharias but was the total opposite as a personality, far more in the modest mould of Joyce Wethered. Wright and Wethered are contenders – for many the only contenders – for the greatest woman golfer of all time.
Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan said Wright’s swing was the best they had ever seen. Herb Warren Wind described her as a ‘tall, good-looking girl who struck the ball with the same decisive hand action that the best men players use, her swing like Hogan’s in that all the unfunctional [sic.] moves had been pared away, and like Jones’s in that its cohesive timing disguised the effort that went into it.’
Like Hogan, Wright was a perfectionist, even well before she turned professional. She had a drive to win like another southern Californian, Tiger Woods. Like Wethered, Jones and Nelson, she had an intense period of winning and then backed away from full-time golf. Her four US Opens has only been matched by Betsy Rawls, her four LPGA Championships is still a record, and her 13 majors second only to Patty Berg. In 1961 she won three majors in the season and two years later she won a record 13 times. She won 81 times between 1956–69, then just once more.
It was advice from Rawls that turned a player with a superior swing who won regularly into a superstar who could not lose. ‘Betsy taught me the most important thing of all – to take responsibility for everything that happens to you on a golf course, not to blame the greens for bad putting, the caddie for bad club selection or the fates for a bad day.’
Publicly, Wright spoke out against the prize funds in men’s golf, not because she wanted paying more but because ‘it is self evident that there is something wrong when a golfer makes $20,000 for a weekend of work, while a professor or scientist can’t make that in a couple of years. It seems like a phoney value system to me.’ She agreed with an LPGA proposal to cut the first-place prize money and pay out more to players down the leaderboard, which could only adversely affect her.
Wright attracted attention to women’s golf not only by her personality but also by the sheer quality of her play. Judy Rankin said: ‘She made the golfing world sit up and take notice, and when they started looking past her they saw us. We went from strength to strength thanks to her amazing skills.’ All the more remarkable since the men’s game had produced another big three, perhaps the biggest trio of all, in Palmer, Nicklaus and Player.
No one was more exciting than Arnold Palmer on a golf course. Others, before and since, played ‘smash it, find it, smash it again’ golf but Palmer brought the everyman’s charm to what in America was still an elite sport. ‘Palmer went after the ball like a guy beating a carpet,’ said sports columnist Jim Murray. Legendary US golf writer Dan Jenkins wrote: ‘He first came to golf as a muscular young man who could not keep his shirt tail in, who smoked a lot, perspired a lot, and who hit the ball with all of the finesse of a dock worker lifting a crate of auto parts. He made birdies by streaks in his eccentric way – driving through forests, lacing hooks around sharp corners, spewing wild slices over prodigious hills, and then, all hunched up and pigeon-toed, staring putts into the cups. But he made just as many bogeys in his stubborn way.’
Palmer learnt the game at the nine-hole Latrobe, where his father, Deke, was greenkeeper and professional. Deke told his son to get the grip right and then hit the ball hard. With huge shoulders, thick forearms and strong hands, Arnie hit it hard. Balanced and effortless, it was not. But he simply loved to play, and the passion has never dimmed, whether in public or with friends at home. Most of all, he looked everyone in the eye and smiled, spent hours signing autographs. His fans on the course were the adoring Arnie’s Army, while millions more watched at home. When he was not playing, he was piloting his jet to the next event.
With great good fortune for the game, Palmer’s greatest triumphs arrived shortly after television started broadcasting golf. Today’s golfers make millions because of ‘Mr. Palmer’, while Mark McCormack founded a mighty sports promotion agency, the International Management Group, based on a simple handshake with him.
The first televised Masters was in 1956. By 1964 Palmer was the first player to win four green jackets. In 1960 he birdied the last two holes to win. At the next major, the US Open, he came from seven behind at Cherry Hills, driving the first green at the par-four first hole on the way to a 65. He arrived at the Centenary Open hoping to emulate Bobby Jones’s Grand Slam but was just beaten by Kel Nagle.
He would return to win the Open in the next two years, and America, then the centre of the game, once more took notice of the oldest championship. He never did win the USPGA and there were losses galore, not least when Jack Nicklaus arrived, but it all added to the attraction. Jenkins again: ‘He is the most immeasurable of all golf champions. But this is not entirely true because of all he has won, or because of that mysterious fury with which he has managed to rally himself. It is partly because of the nobility he has brought to losing. And more than anything, it is true because of the pure, unmixed joy he has brought to trying.’
If Arnold Palmer played competitive golf for longer than anyone, Jack Nicklaus won for longer than anyone. Henry Longhurst was ‘very surprised’ Nicklaus turned professional at the end of 1961. With two US Amateurs to his name, a lucrative career selling insurance awaited. But with Palmer and television, for the first time a golf career could also be lucrative. It was championships, though, not riches that Nicklaus aimed for. Longhurst added: ‘How will Nicklaus fare in direct competition with Palmer? I think very well. Firstly, let me go on record as saying that, like Palmer, he is not only a fine golfer but a very fine fellow. He looks the world in the eye with a fearless sincerity and he has “guts”.’
For his first professional win, Nicklaus beat Palmer in a playoff at the 1962 US Open at Oakmont. ‘He’s got everything,’ Palmer said. ‘You’ll be reading about tournaments he’s won for a lot of years.’ In 1986 Nicklaus won a record sixth green jacket in one of the most exciting, unexpected and joyous Masters of all (though his fifth, 11 years earlier, against Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf at their best, was another of the most stirring championships). Nicklaus collected 18 professional major titles, while the next best is Tiger Woods, stuck on 14 despite his avowed quest to get to 19. Amazingly, Nicklaus was also second in 19 majors and finished in the top five on 19 other occasions. He hung around the leaderboard at majors, often playing conservatively but with the aim of ‘playing my own game longer than the rest of them could play theirs’.
Palmer loved to play, Gary Player was all dedication but no one exhibited more concentration and determination than Nicklaus. He was a powerful striker, hitting wondrous long-irons. His swing was honed by Jack Grout, who would stand in front of him and hold his blond locks. ‘I learned not to move my head if I wanted to keep my hair,’ Nicklaus said. Although a relatively poor chipper and bunker player, only Woods (maybe) ranks with Nicklaus as a pressure putter. Bobby Jones said: ‘He plays a game with which I am not familiar.’
The longevity of his winning may be down to his stoic acceptance of losing. Henry Cotton once asked Nicklaus why he did not win more. ‘Don’t forget, Henry,’ Nicklaus replied, ‘I am human.’ He also played relatively few tournaments. ‘I was as fresh at the end of a year as at the start.’ But, more than anything, there was his wife, Barbara, and their family, as well as his interests in hunting and fishing, tennis and boating, and then a golf course design business. Pat Ward-Thomas went out sailing with Nicklaus and wrote: ‘He seemed absolutely identified with the ocean and boat, standing easily as it bucked over the waves. Golf was in another world; it could never be an obsession with him; he has always had the priceless gift of detachment. Never has the ancient phrase about a healthy mind in a healthy body been more true of a golfer than it is of Jack Nicklaus.’
Gary Player won nine major championships and at the 1965 US Open he became only the third player to win all four majors, joining Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan. He beat the might of American golf, the likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino. But he was not of American golf. He was a South African, of short and slight stature, who overcame a dodgy swing and the necessity to travel halfway around the world to achieve anything (his 13 South African Open titles aside). Some years ago it was said he had clocked up over 13 million air miles in golf’s cause. ‘He works hard, he out-travels Magellan, and there’s never been a tougher competitor,’ wrote Dan Jenkins.
But with Player it was never just about the golf. In 2000 he was named South Africa’s greatest ever athlete but he was also named among the top five of his nation’s most influential people. Once a defender of apartheid, he later denounced it and named Nelson Mandela as his hero. Mandela wrote in Golf Digest: ‘Few men in our country’s history did as much to enact political changes for the better that eventually improved the lives of millions of his countrymen. Through his tremendous influence as a great athlete, Mr. Player accomplished what many politicians could not. And he did it with courage, perseverance, patience, pride, understanding and dignity that would have been extraordinary even for a world leader.’
At the 1969 USPGA, anti-apartheid protesters dogged his every move, threw ice in his face and tried to charge him on a green. He still finished second. He was always a good man in a crisis. In fact, a crisis saw him at his best, whether in a bunker – he became the very best recovery artist from sand – or starting the final round of the 1978 Masters seven behind but coming home in 30 to equal the course record of 64 and win a third green jacket. Or being seven-down after 19 holes to Tony Lema in the World Match Play. He won that match at the 37th and the title five times.
His first golfing crisis came on his first trip to Britain in 1955. He barely broke even and the locals were not impressed. Peter Alliss was among those who thought Player should return home and play golf only socially. ‘He had a hooker’s grip and a very flat swing,’ Alliss said. ‘Worse, he had little balance or rhythm and no apparent feel for the game. We perhaps didn’t notice his tenacity and how good he was around the greens.’
Player has spoken at length about fitness – he was the first to exercise other than on the course or in the bar – religion, diet, drugs, obesity and the like. He coined his famous phrase: ‘It is truly amazing, the more I practise, the luckier I get.’ He also said: ‘Look after your body. If you do, it could last you a lifetime.’ Not everyone has always been impressed. US Ryder Cup player Dave Hill quipped: ‘So what if he has the most perfect bowel movement on tour?’
Gary Player won his last big title aged 42, yet this ranks low on the table of oldest major champions. Jack Nicklaus and Old Tom Morris were both 46 but Julius Boros was 48 when he won the 1968 USPGA by one stroke from Arnold Palmer and Jacky Cupit. According to Dan Jenkins, ‘a middle-aged man struck a blow for tired, portly, beer-drinking, slow-moving fathers of seven. Julius Boros, who is all of those things, says he doesn’t so much play spectacular golf as “throw a lot of junk up in the air”.’ Some junk. Lee Trevino said Boros could hit drives ‘down those turnpike tunnels and not hit either side’.
By game and temperament he was suited to the US Open, which he won twice. Trevino added: ‘When he putts you can’t tell by looking whether he’s just practising or that it’s 50 grand if he sinks it.’ Boros disputed the impression. ‘I was as apprehensive as the next guy in a tight situation,’ he admitted. ‘It felt like razor blades in my stomach.’
‘Julius never looks like he’s playing for anything but self-punishment,’ wrote Jenkins at the 1968 USPGA. ‘He wastes no time. He strolls up and slaps the ball, and good or bad, he walks away expressionless. He smokes and stands under an umbrella, shielding himself from the heat, and yearns for a cold beer.’
Boros, of Hungarian heritage, was known as ‘Moose’ by his peers. He turned professional at the age of 29, the end of a career for some players. He was an accountant who had a heart problem which was discovered when he was in the army. But he played lots of golf and was tutored by Tommy Armour. Armour was of the hit-at-it-hard school. Boros did the opposite – his mantra was ‘swing easy to hit hard’. He feared locking up over the ball so he would walk up to it, shuffle his feet into position and then swing right away. It was said he was the slowest to get to a ball, but the quickest once he was there. He had a great short game. Armour’s advice on turning professional was to ‘aim for the bunkers and you might make it’. Within three years he had beaten Ben Hogan, then in his pomp, to win the 1952 US Open.
Form came and went but Boros kept on playing and contending into his 50s, more than once having a chance to beat Sam Snead’s record as the oldest winner on the PGA Tour at 52. He played a part in the creation of the Seniors (now Champions) Tour and when asked if he would ever retire, he replied: ‘Retire to what? All I know how to do is play golf and fish.’ He died of a heart attack playing at Coral Ridge in 1994. Two years later his son Guy also became a winner on the PGA Tour at the Greater Vancouver Open.
Tony Lema, like Julius Boros, was a late starter but, unlike Boros, his career ended suddenly at its peak when he was killed in a plane crash at the age of 32. A marine in Korea before becoming an assistant pro in San Francisco, he was encouraged by Eddie Lowery, the one-time caddie of 1913 US Open champion Francis Ouimet. His first few years on tour were not successful but he got there in the end. He won his first tournament, the Orange County Open, in 1962. After the third round, Lema promised the press they would all celebrate with champagne. The next day he beat Bob Rosburg in a playoff and made good on his promise. He was ever after known as ‘Champagne Tony’ and then celebrated all his wins the same way. The odd enlightened champion still continues the tradition today.
Lema said in his first few years on tour he ‘moved from city to city like a zombie’. But he came to enjoy the high life, such a contrast to the poverty of his childhood. A tall, handsome man, he was popular with both players and spectators. He had an elegant swing, all rhythm and grace, and was a superb pitcher to the green. In 1963 he was runner-up to Jack Nicklaus at the Masters. In 1964 he had won four tournaments, including three in four weeks, prior to arriving at the Open at St. Andrews.
Arnold Palmer did not make the trip that year so told Lema to secure the services of the caddie who had helped him to a runner-up finish and two victories in the previous four years. Tip Anderson, a St. Andrews legend, guided Lema around the Old Course, which was vital since the American only arrived 36 hours prior to the first round and had only one practice round. So well did Lema execute Anderson’s instructions that he beat Nicklaus by five strokes. ‘It was without doubt one of the most remarkable victories in the championship’s history,’ wrote Peter Ryde. ‘He showed rare judgement and control of the little shots into the greens which have no parallel in America, putted marvellously on greens which had baffled many distinguished overseas challengers of the past, and drove superbly – particularly on the first day when gale-force gusts blew from the west.’
Lema had quickly established himself as one of the next rung below the Big Three. A brave defence of his Open title was only thwarted at the end by Peter Thomson. In two Ryder Cup appearances, he lost only one of 11 games. After the 1966 USPGA, Lema, then aged 32, and his wife Betty and two companions, travelled from Akron, Ohio to Chicago in a private plane which ran out of fuel approaching its destination. The plane crashed on a golf course in Lansing, Illinois, the pilot managing to avoid a crowd of people by the clubhouse. More than a thousand people attended his funeral, with Palmer among the pallbearers.
Put-downs of Billy Casper are legion. ‘An empty car drove up to the clubhouse and Billy Casper got out,’ was one. Another: ‘He is so austere in his personal life that by contrast a Franciscan monk looks like a swinger.’ Dave Hill, always ready with a quip about his fellow players, said: ‘He has as much personality as a glass of water.’ At the 1959 US Open, when Casper had 31 single-putt greens but made only eight birdies, Dan Jenkins wrote: ‘For four rounds he escaped from more dangers than Tarzan. The only thing he didn’t do was swing from a vine to save par.’
There was no need, since Casper could save par with his deadly putting. He had an unusually wristy action but it was highly effective. ‘Billy has the greatest pair of hands God ever gave a human being,’ said Johnny Miller. Casper won three majors and 51 times on the PGA Tour playing against the Big Three and the rest. He plotted his way around the course with the sort of intensity Ben Hogan used to have. It was a deliberate act of homage to his hero. ‘Hogan seemed to be in this sort of hypnotic state, and I wanted to be just as focused,’ Casper explained.
The only time the rotund Casper got serious ink from the press was when he complained about his allergies or went on a diet of buffalo, elk and bear meat, giving rise to his nickname ‘Buffalo Billy’. He is a Mormon and has 11 children, six adopted. Miller called Casper the ‘most underrated golfer of all time, hands down.’
‘Billy was a killer on the golf course,’ said Dave Marr. ‘He just gave you this terrible feeling he was never going to make a mistake, and then of course he’d drive that stake through your heart with that putter. It was a very efficient operation.’ The most famous example came at Olympic in the 1966 US Open. Everyone wanted Arnold Palmer to win and he led Casper by seven strokes with nine holes to play but Palmer collapsed, Casper came home in 32 and the pair tied. In the playoff, Palmer led by four at the turn but, yet again, Casper rallied to become the villain of the piece. ‘I had seen other guys tense up, panic under pressure, but not Arnie,’ Casper said. ‘His swing just got shorter and faster.’
‘To be a winner you have to have heart,’ said Jack Nicklaus. ‘You really have to control your emotions and your golf game. Billy Casper was wonderful at this and does not get the credit he deserves. He didn’t have all the shots that others had but he was able to will the ball into the hole.’
He was not one for worrying about technique. ‘How does a seagull fly? How does a centipede get all those legs working at once? I’ve been playing this game of golf for more than 20 years. I just do it. I don’t question it.’
Bob Charles ranked alongside Billy Casper and Bobby Locke as one of the great putters in the game. He remains New Zealand’s greatest ever player. And he was the finest left-hander the world had then seen. Harry Vardon may never have seen a lefthander ‘worth a damn’ but Charles was the first to win a major and the only one until Mike Weir, Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson. Charles is right-handed in everything but games requiring two hands. His parents played left-handed and so he merely picked up some of their spare clubs. His success and endorsements of left-handed clubs helped make the game more accessible for those who play the ‘wrong way round’.
Charles was a different sort of putter to Casper. A tall man, he played much more in the modern way, keeping the wrist out of it and hinging from the shoulders. He seemed to hole everything from inside five feet and a three-putt was a rarity indeed. His greatest triumph was a good example. After a long amateur career when he was also a bank teller, Charles turned professional in 1960 and just three years later he won the Open at Royal Lytham. He beat Phil Rodgers in the last ever 36-hole playoff by eight strokes and in the morning round alone single-putted 11 times. ‘When he was on the green, the hole was never safe,’ reported the Sunday Telegraph. ‘Keeping his wrists unbroken and moving the club-head more slowly under pressure than the game’s case-hardened chroniclers had ever seen, Charles dropped putt after putt from any distance.’
On the 30th anniversary of his victory, Charles returned to Lytham and won the Senior Open Championship for the second time with a birdie on the last hole. Golf Weekly said: ‘If you had to put your life on someone sinking the winning putt in a major that someone would be Charles. When it comes to testing seven-footers there is no-one better.’
Charles was never a flamboyant player. ‘I’m an introvert,’ he admitted. ‘I take things seriously, particularly my golf. That’s my business and the golf course is my office.’ But he won events all around the world, including the World Match Play at Wentworth in 1969, the year he was runner-up in the Open for the second successive year. He won in Japan, South Africa and Europe, as well as on the PGA Tour in America and was even more successful on the Champions Tour. In 2007 he set a record as the oldest player to make the cut in a non-seniors event. Aged 71 he was invited to play in the centenary New Zealand Open, which he had won for the first of four times as an 18-year-old amateur in 1954. After an opening 75, Charles scored a 68 on Friday to make the cut. He matched his age with a 71 on Saturday and then broke his age again with a 70 on Sunday and received a standing ovation at the final hole. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999.
The best of times and the worst of times, as far as championship golf goes, arrived for Roberto de Vicenzo within a nine-month stretch. When he won the Open in 1967, it was joy unconfined but the 1968 Masters was one of the saddest of climaxes to any major. De Vincenzo was a charming man and became South America’s greatest player, despite starting in the game as a caddie’s assistant – fetching balls from positions where no self-respecting caddie would dream of prostrating himself. But he grew strong and tall and developed the most pleasing swing. He was a peerless ball-striker and despite an unreliable putter, won around 200 times around the world.
When he first played at the Open in 1948, Bernard Darwin said he gave ‘more aesthetic pleasure than any other man in the field’. He finished third for the first of five times and was second in 1950, so by the time he played at Hoylake in 1967, he was the sentimental favourite. Jack Nicklaus put the pressure on by birdying two of the last three holes but de Vicenzo hit a superb wood over the corner of the practice field (out of bounds) to the green at the par-five 16th and victory was assured. ‘Vicenzo, the look of an emperor about him, strode into the amphitheatre by the last green towards a reception the like of which I had never heard before,’ wrote Pat Ward-Thomas. ‘Its sustained warmth and affection were tribute to a fine human being as well as to a great golfer and a victory nobly won.’
He was 44 at the time of his greatest victory. His 45th birthday was on Easter Day 1968, the final round of the Masters. De Vicenzo holed a full nine-iron for an eagle at the first hole and the gallery serenaded him with a burst of ‘Happy Birthday’. He birdied the next two holes and a three at the 17th seemed to assure victory. But he bogeyed the last and then failed to notice that his playing partner, Tommy Aaron, had put down a four for the 17th instead of a three. The error came to light too late and the four had to stand. Instead of a 65, he was given a 66 and lost by one to Bob Goalby. The scene was one of distress but, famously, de Vicenzo said: ‘What a stupid I am.’
Ward-Thomas recalled his appearance in the interview room. ‘He sat on the dais, for all the world like a great wounded bear, and faced a barrage of questions, many of them uninformed and inconsiderate and designed to snare him into criticising others, but he steadfastly insisted that the fault was his alone.’ Arguably Goalby was the more affected and he never received his due as a major champion. Some time later, the Golf Writers Association of America presented de Vicenzo with its award for sportsmanship. He looked at the trophy and said: ‘Golf writers make three mistakes spelling my name on trophy. Maybe I not the only stupid.’
Catherine Lacoste never had a professional golf career. She hardly had a career in golf at all. She was a shooting star so glorious as never to be forgotten. It was as if, having emerged from the shadow of her parents with her own momentous achievements, she was happy to do other things, get married, start a family, run the golf club started by her grandfather at Chantaco and serve on the board of the famous family clothing business. At the age of 22 Lacoste was then the youngest ever winner of the US Women’s Open and she remains the only amateur to win the title. ‘It made me into a person who wasn’t just my parents’ daughter,’ she said.
She had impeccable sporting genes. Her father was René Lacoste, the great French tennis player, a multiple grand slam champion and one of the ‘Four Musketeers’ along with Henri Cochet, Jean Borotra and Jacques Brugnon. Her mother was Simone Thion de la Chaume, who won the British Ladies Amateur in 1927 and was the greatest French player of her era, competing against the likes of Cecil Leitch and Glenna Collett. Catherine said she was a lousy tennis player but she rode, played handball, volleyball and basketball, yet excelled at golf. She had some lessons from the great Jean Garaialde but otherwise developed her game playing in little tournaments organised by her mother at Chantaco.
In 1964 Lacoste led France to victory in the inaugural Espirito Santo Trophy in Paris, and two years later she won the Astor Trophy with a round of 66 at Prince’s that was considered one of the finest rounds ever played by a woman. Yet she was unheralded when she travelled alone to Hot Springs, Virginia, and led from start to finish against the might of the American tour to win the US Women’s Open. Two years later she won her own grand slam, the Amateur titles of Spain, France and the two that had eluded her so far, the two she most wanted, the British and American championships.
‘She was sparky, cheery and talented,’ recalled Peter Alliss. She was as powerful a striker of a one-iron as the women’s game has known. She could also be ‘scornful of opposition to the point of giving offence,’ wrote golf journalist Peter Ryde. ‘Add to this some blunt remarks, remarkable more for their honesty than for their tact, and it is hardly surprising that she roused occasional animosity. She once admitted to being perhaps “un peu cabochard”. We must make what we can of that, but “caboche” is a hob-nail, and riding roughshod over people’s feelings might not be wide of the mark.’
Yet there was an awareness of what a competitive life might cost. ‘Each time you win, you lose a little of your sensitivity. And that’s a bad thing for a girl,’ she said. Even in her prime, Lacoste admitted she found too much golf boring. ‘I think golf should be fun,’ she said, ‘and I wouldn’t have much fun as a pro.’
JoAnne Carner had a ‘presence that was completely overwhelming’, said Peter Alliss. ‘She had a wonderfully slow, hippy, rhythmical walk. She smoked, but she didn’t just smoke, she smoked as dramatically and as stylishly as Ingrid Bergman or Dean Martin. She liked a glass of beer, too, and had a wonderfully open face framed by short, fair, curly hair, a broad mouth, strong teeth and a ready smile, the look of someone you could completely trust in whatever situation you found yourself in.’
As JoAnne Gunderson, Carner emerged from the Pacific Northwest to win the US Amateur five times, one fewer than the record held by Glenna Collett Vare. Twice she faced Marlene Stewart Streit in the final, losing one and winning one. The ‘Great Gundy’ loved head-to-head competition and never lost a singles in the Curtis Cup.
At the age of 24, she married Don Carner. He was much older, the owner of an electronics and jewellery business. ‘There are two things we don’t discuss,’ Don Carner said, ‘JoAnne’s weight and my age.’ They were inseparable, living in a trailer which they drove from event to event, setting up never far from fertile fishing waters. In 1969 Carner won an event on the LPGA circuit. It was the moment that persuaded her to turn professional but while she thought she would dominate immediately, and she won the first of her US Open crowns in 1971, it took a few years. In 1974 she won six times, and then the victories kept coming.
‘I expected to take over the tour but Sandra Haynie told me it would take four years,’ Carner recalled. ‘I said, baloney, but it did. I was used to matchplay and winning, not staying there and grinding it out for $500.’ She was a strong driver of the ball. Sandra Palmer said the ‘ground shakes when she hit it’ and not for nothing did her new nickname become ‘Big Momma’. Advice from Billy Martin, the manager of the New York Yankees, was the key. ‘He told me not to analyse what I was doing with every club on the practice tee before I played. He said I should use that time strictly as a warm up session to loosen the muscles. His advice made me stop over-analysing and work out my problems after the round.’
She added: ‘I have never had any trouble controlling my emotions. I get excited with pressure, not nervous, and you have to learn how to compensate when you are pumped up. But I can’t play if I get too serious. I relieve the pressure with a little light chatter with the gallery. I enjoy my golf more than anyone.’ At one point Carner was the LPGA’s leading money winner of all time but money is a warped currency in evaluating success. In 1981 Carner was involved in a race to become the first woman to win over $1 million. She was pipped by someone who had started earning and winning a decade earlier, Kathy Whitworth.
It was with a certain irony that Kathy Whitworth’s career earnings went past $1 million at the 1981 US Women’s Open. It was the one title she never won, and the one that meant most to her. ‘I would have swapped being the first to make a million for winning the Open,’ she said, ‘but it was a consolation which took some of the sting out of not winning.’
In a later era, Karrie Webb became the first player to win $1 million in an LPGA season. But many of Whitworth’s records still stand. She won a tournament each season for 17 consecutive years and in 22 seasons in all. Her most famous record is her 88 career victories. In the 1980s, amidst much publicity, she first overtook the 82 of Mickey Wright and then the 84 of Sam Snead – his USPGA Tour record was later downgraded to match Wright’s 82. Whitworth’s first win was in 1962. She won six major titles including three LPGA Championships, and her last regular win came in 1985.
The following year was a financial disaster when the management company to which she had entrusted her savings filed for bankruptcy. ‘It was very depressing, a sickening feeling that is hard to describe,’ she told Liz Kahn. ‘You can’t believe it is happening to you. After the initial shock, I realised I was young enough to get a job and make some money. I couldn’t really cry because compared to many older people who lost everything, it was not nearly so brutal for me. You can wallow in it and not accomplish anything, or you can go on.’ She became a teaching professional and, in particular, helped young women from Japan become professionals themselves.
Whitworth grew up in New Mexico but when she showed talent, her local pro drove her down to Austin to learn from Harvey Penick. Her first few years on tour were unsuccessful. Tall and striking, she was also painfully shy but she was taken under the wing of Wright and Betsy Rawls. She worshipped Wright but competing against her brought out the best in Whitworth. Always modest, Whitworth never rated her own swing but Penick put her at the top of his list when someone needed to hole a long, crucial putt. She was a ‘feel’ putter who thought only of making a good stroke, not whether or not it would go in. ‘At her peak, she would get a mental picture of the line of the putt, and her hands would control the distance,’ said Penick. ‘Putting was as simple as pointing her finger.’
Whitworth said: ‘I was fortunate to be so successful. What I did being a better player does not make me a better person. I am not smarter or more intelligent than someone who digs a good ditch. When I’m asked how I would like to be remembered, I feel that if people remember me at all it will be good enough.’
John Shippen finished sixth at the second US Open in 1896 but it took an intervention from USGA president Theodore Havemeyer, who had donated the trophy the year before, to prevent a boycott by white players at the inclusion of black player Shippen and Native American Oscar Bunn. When the PGA of America was formed in 1916, the constitution stated that members had to be of the Caucasian race. This was only removed in 1961 after the state attorney of California threatened to ban the tour from holding events in his state. Charlie Sifford had become the first black player to gain his PGA card the previous year.
Bill Spiller and Ted Rhodes were two of the most prominent pioneers before Sifford, who had started in the game by caddying. After serving in the army, Sifford won the National Negro Open, run by the United Golf Association, six times and became the personal professional of jazz singer and band leader Billy Eckstine. Sifford provided coaching and Eckstine helped fund Sifford’s travels to those tournaments on the PGA Tour that did not discriminate. ‘To have a man like Mr B behind me was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me,’ said Sifford, whom Eckstine called ‘Little Horse’. ‘He was the benefactor who made it possible for me to live my dream.’
In the History of the PGA Tour, Al Barkow wrote: ‘Sifford had a gruff and sometimes difficult manner, but he was not a radical in the way that Jackie Robinson was in breaking baseball’s colour barrier. The NAACP wanted Sifford to challenge sponsors who would not let him play, mainly in the southern states, but Sifford wouldn’t. And in those places where he played and was subjected to racial insults, he turned his cheek or withdrew from the tourney. Nonetheless, Sifford put himself out there, took the abuse when it came – and it did come – and kept going. In all, he was a solid frontiersman for his race.’
Sifford was in his late 30s when he was first allowed to play full-time on tour, but he won twice, at the 1967 Hartford Open and the 1969 Los Angeles Open. ‘If you try hard enough,’ he said, ‘anything can happen.’ He never played in the Masters, however. That distinction went to Lee Elder after he won the Monsanto Open in 1974. Elder was present at Augusta when Tiger Woods won in 1997. Tiger said of Sifford: ‘He has my respect and my gratitude for the sacrifices he made to open the doors to this great game to people of colour.’
Sifford won the 1975 PGA Senior Championship and also won on the Seniors Tour in its inaugural year of 1980. His autobiography, published in 1992, was called Just Let Me Play. In 2004 he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in the lifetime achievement category. ‘Man, I’m in the World Hall of Fame,’ he said at the induction ceremony. ‘That little old golf I played was all right, wasn’t it?’
