Great Shots Of 50 Years
I have seen more good golf shots than I can count. Among them are hundreds of wonderful drives, down impossibly tight fairways, long irons hit close to the hole, over bunkers to rock hard greens, along with chips, pitches and bunker shots not to be believed. However, a few were so spectacular they are etched in my memory forever.
How does a shot make the list? First, I was a witness to the shot, in person. No TV, no second hand. I saw every shot. Next, it required a vast predominance of talent, not luck. Finally, they all happened in competition.
I cannot rank them, you can do that yourself. I present them in random order starting with these three.
1) Ray Floyd at The Bing Crosby in 1970
It was January of 1970 and I was caddying for George Boutell in the Bing Crosby Tournament at Pebble Beach. It was the final round of the tournament. George was playing well as we came to the difficult eighth hole. Play slowed as amateurs struggled to play the par four, the second shot requiring a long carry across an inlet to a green hanging precariously on the edge of the world. Seeing there were two groups waiting on the tee, I turned and wandered back toward the seventh green to watch play.
The seventh hole at Pebble Beach is a 120 yard downhill par three. A stiff wind blew off the ocean from Raymond Floyd’s right. One of the great players of his day, he won two PGA Championships, in ’69 and ’82, The Masters in ’76 and the US Open in ’86. Ray Floyd was blessed with a wonderful short game.
Although #7 was a short downhill hole, with the wind blowing at 25 MPH, it was a treacherous shot to a green surrounded by bunkers. Legend has it a three iron has been hit on windy days.
I watched as the wind caught Raymond’s shot, drifting it left off the green and plugging near the severely sloped top of the bunker. He was about to pay the price for wayward shot. The ball was about pin high, plugged such that it was difficult to address it, to say nothing of making a play. The architect intended for balls to land and roll to the bottom of the bunker. However, this shot plugged and he was going to have to deal with it.
I stood next to the bunker as he walked toward me. At 6’ tall and 28 years of age, he never looked like a great athlete as Gary Player or Arnold Palmer did. He wasn't 'heavy' but looked like he could lose a few pounds. Wasting no time, he looked the shot over, pulled a sand wedge, climbed the four steps up the back face and dug in. We have all had the shot he faced. He seemingly had no chance. The ball would simply dislodge and roll to the bottom of the smallish bunker. A four was the best score he could make.
Opening the face of the club, he hit a blast that somehow carried just out of the bunker into the first cut of rough surrounding the green. The ball took one bounce, rolled across the green, hit the flagstick and went in the hole! I was stunned at what I had seen.
Ray Floyd had never been known as an overly friendly person, however, he responded in a jovial manner after I said, "Great shot!"
"What do ya know!" he said walking by. "I just missed three putts inside ten feet the past four holes and then I do that! You figure it out."
The only thing I could figure was Ray Floyd was a great player.
2) Sam Snead at the Los Angeles Open in 1973.
It was the fall of 1972, I wanted to try someplace other than Minnesota in the winter and after a job search, took a position in Phoenix with a Los Angeles company. On January 1st, 1973 I moved and immediately went to Los Angeles for training.
The PGA Tour opened in Los Angeles in 1973. Played at Riviera for just the second year, I was anxious to see the famed course as I drove into LA and the Riviera Golf Club. An added bonus was my friend Bob Barbarossa was in the starting field and had made the cut, paired with Arnold Palmer for the Saturday round.
Spectators are very predictable at golf tournaments, particularly in big cities with an annual tour event. The smallest crowds are on Thursday morning and slowly build through Sunday afternoon. In addition, most people arrive late each day. Getting to the course by 8:30 assured me of a close parking place and no line to buy a ticket.
Rain spit as I entered the club grounds near the middle of the first fairway. Off to the right on a high hill overlooking the golf course was the clubhouse and first tee of the par five. I waited for the crossing guard to give me the all clear and moved to the second fairway which parallels the first hole.
It was a breezy morning as I continued my trek across the course seeking the Palmer, Barbarossa, Chi Chi Rodriguez pairing, their having started on the 10th tee. Following the course map, I came to the par three, fourth hole, with Tom Weiskopf, Sam Snead and Eddie Merrins, the diminutive Golf Professional at Bel Air in Los Angeles, on the tee.
The hole was a 210 yard par three, slightly uphill, to a wide but shallow green. The hole location was cut six paces from the left edge of the green. With the wind blowing hard from the right, the green dropped off the left side, sharply down a hill. It was a difficult hole location.
I stood a few yards off the front left corner of the tee with a few scattered spectators, wondering how the greats would handle the shot. Left was dead, on the short side. With the wind blowing at 20 plus, even a shot to the right could easily get caught in the wind and end up missing left. A shot to the right side of the green, left a brutal down hill, down wind putt.
Weiskopf was up first. One of the strengths of Tom’s game was his high ball flight. Not so much a desired pattern in the wind, however. His shot got up, had a slight draw, and we watched as his four iron shot bound off the left side of the green and down the hill into the tough kikuyu grass. Only a miracle would get him less than a 4. Eddie Merrins, seeing Weiskopf’s result, wasn't going to let it happen to him. Striking it flush, he rifled a four iron to the right, but with the wind never touching it, finished on the right edge of the green, leaving himself a 70’ putt, downhill, down wind. Certainly no bargain and more than likely to make four.
Last was Sam Snead. At nearly 60 years of age, he was still out competing with the kids and making cuts. Flexible as Gumby and wearing his signature dress style hat, the 6'2” Snead had been standing watching the fiasco in his group. He made his way to his red and white Wilson Staff bag and pulled the driver.
“A driver,” I whispered to the lone man standing near. “What is he going to with this?”
He went through his pre shot routine and gripped the club down about 2 inches. With a rhythmical swing looking like it was set to a metronome, Snead hit a low cut up against the wind. I watched as the ball held it’s line, not moving a bit from his intended target, the flagstick.
“This looks very good,” my anonymous friend said. And he was right. The cut spin kept the ball from moving to the left and caused it to land quietly with no bounce or roll.
The ball went to two feet from the hole. “What a shot!” I exclaimed, standing in disbelief. A driver from 210, choked down, held against the wind to two feet. No wonder the guy could still play on tour with talent like that!
Scores for the hole. Weiskopf 4, Merrins 4, Snead 2. If they had played a big skin game, Sam would have won with a two on the fourth!
I can’t determine the best one of the best shots I have seen, but the Sam Snead shot was the most fun to watch unfold. The wind, the hole location, the green design, the club used and shot hit. It was remarkable.
I moved on out to the 12th hole and found Barbarossa with Palmer. But I was not going to see another shot like the one Sam Snead hit for a long time.
3) Robert De Vincenzo at the PGA Senior Championship, Palm Course, Disney World in 1978
Following a last minute call from our travel agent, my wife, Sandy, three year old son, Tyler, and I found ourselves at Disney World in February of 1978. In a situation that could never happen today, we were given with four days notice, at virtually no cost, a trip unable to be used by another family. We hustled around, canceled meetings, made arrangements and were on the plane to Orlando.
In looking at the sports section of the 'Orlando Sentinel' our first night, I noticed the Senior PGA Championship was being held across the street at the Palm Course at Disney World. This was pre Champions Tour, before Arnold, Jack and Gary were 50, and in a period of time where senior players had been dismissed and forgotten.
However, not forgotten and ignored by a golf obsessed 30 year old. It was a bonus on this free trip, a chance to see some of the great players in the history of the game.
“Sandy, look at this!” I proclaimed, looking at the pairings and starting times for the next day. "8:20 on the first tee, Sam Snead, Roberto De Vincenzo and Chandler Harper.”
“Who is Roberto De Vincenzo?” she said, not beginning to comprehend the history that would be on the tee, right across the street. “It’s going to be cold and we didn't bring clothes for cold,” she reminded me.
“Roberto De Vincenzo lost The Masters in 1967 when he signed an incorrect scorecard. He signed for a par when he made a birdie on the 17th hole, allowing Bob Goalby to win. An Argentinian, he has been a great international player since the early 1940’s.“
Saturday morning did end up cold and breezy. With the temps not above 40 and a freshening breeze driving the wind chill down, I left saying, “I’m just going to watch them play a hole or two, while it warms up enough for us to go out.”
Wearing a cotton golf shirt, cotton sweater and slacks, I ventured across the street to watch my “feature group”. I realized there was no way to dress warmly enough as I saw the three legends approach the tee. They had gloves, hats, jackets and rain pants ready to fight the cold.
The wind buffeted the side flaps of the flimsy aluminum framed starters tent, threatening to pull it from its moorings. Score cards and rules sheets were held down by rocks on the starters table as the wind whipped up the fairway, swirling around in the tent.
No ropes, no tickets, no gallery, just a Saturday morning at the Palm Course like any other, except, “On the tee from White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Sam Snead; from Argentina, Roberto De Vincenzo; and from Portsmouth, Virginia, Chandler Harper,” barked a very cold starter.
The first hole on the Palm Course with dormant Bermuda grass fairways and rye over seed greens, was a 440 yard par four, moving slightly down hill and into the wind. All three hit remarkably good drives for the conditions, solid down the middle, about 220 in distance. Making their way down the middle, Harper was first to play from the tight brown fairway, made all the tighter by the damage of months of cart traffic. Harper, a good tour player in the 50’s, hit 4 iron, conceding that he could not get to the green through the unyielding wind, making a conservative play to about 50 yards from the hole.
Sam Snead was next. At 66 years of age, his swing was still long, smooth and fluid. Taking a three wood from his tight lie into the freezing gale, Sam topped it down the fairway 150 yards. Even the best can have bad things happen under the conditions he faced. He probably would not have ventured out in White Sulphur Springs on such a day.
Roberto was last to hit. He looked strong and athletic in his 6’3” 210 pound frame, at 57 years. De Vincenzo won eight times on the American PGA Tour, the 1967 British Open, and six different Open Championships in various countries around the world. Driving his cart up to the ball, he got out and looked over the shot. Moving around to the back of the cart, he looked in his bag and pulled the driver.
“You have got to be kidding!” I quietly said to myself. “Driver off the deck from a beaten down dormant Bermuda fairway at 38 degrees?” I wanted to go over and ask Sam Snead what he was thinking.
Hitting a driver off the ground requires great club head speed to get the ball up, with balance and timing, in order not to hit the ball thin or fat. The length of the club makes this difficult to accomplish under the best of conditions.
He set up and with a swing that would never be more fluid on the warmest day of the year, hit a laser shot to ten feet. Struck flush, like it was shot from a gun and never going anywhere but on the green. Fantastic, I thought as I stood in awe.
They jumped in their carts were off. Sam pitched to the green and made 5 as did Harper. Roberto hit a good putt, but, like a lot of good putts, it wouldn’t go in. He had made a statement, however, with a gutsy play from the fairway. Etched in my mind, the only person watching, it was one of the greatest shots I have seen.
By the completion of the first hole I was frozen. I turned and went back to the hotel, waited for the day to warm and enjoyed Disney World. Had I followed the group the rest of the round, I have often wondered, what kind of conversation might I have entered into with them? With just three in the group and no spectators, would they have invited me to ride along? No matter, I made a memory lasting forever.
What shots would others in golf have on their list? What would Bones McKackay, Phil Michelson’s long time caddie or long time PGA Tour Official Mark Russell say about their list? This is the first installment of “Great Shots I Have Seen,” in A Life In Golf.
