The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta (12 page)

Their pairing and tee shots became ceremonial in 1963 when the growing number in the field (there were a record 110 starters in
1962) forced officials to make Hutchison, McLeod, and others honorary invitees. With this new non-competing category, past champions of the other three majors and U.S. Amateurs could attend the tournament, play practice rounds, and participate in the Par Three Contest. Still, the two Scots frequently kept playing after their tee shots, routinely scooting around nine holes in ninety minutes.

Hutchison hadn’t participated in the opening tee shot since 1973 and was unable to attend at all this year. So for the second year McLeod had the honors to himself. Still spry, McLeod didn’t retire from his position as head professional at Columbia Country Club in Maryland until age eighty-four after fifty-five years of service. Resplendent in his Tartan pants, white dress shirt, and tartan tie underneath a Christmas-red cardigan, McLeod stood over the ball and took the club halfway back. Under low clouds that seemed to touch the ground and resemble his homeland of Scotland, he poked the ball through the mist. At 9:20 a.m., the thirty-ninth Masters Tournament was underway.

There is no organization, association, or club in the sporting world that has done more to foster the connection to their game’s past than the Augusta National Golf Club. McLeod embodied this link—the oldest living U.S. Open champion and one of scores of professional emigrants from the links of Scotland and England who helped spread the game in the United States. But on this day, the focus at Augusta National was its break from the past.

THIRTY-EIGHT GROUPS
of twos would go off on Thursday. First at 9:30 a.m. were Bob Menne and Lou Graham. The last would be nearly five hours later, Gary Groh and Terry Dill at 2:24 p.m. Everyone started on the 1st tee, situated just a few yards from the clubhouse. Players wanted to avoid the bunker on the right side of the fairway on this 400-yard par four. “The opening tee shot was a piece of cake,” says Tom Weiskopf of the hole at the time. “It’s just being on the first tee. You’re getting going. The nerves. The anxiety.”

As play commenced, a light rain began to fall. Not ideal weather for the patrons, but good for scoring. The first player to take advantage was in the fifth group off. His name was Miller. Allen Miller.

“The Masters is like an actor going on stage. It’s a real production,” said the twenty-six-year-old from Pensacola, Florida, who was commonly referred to by the press as “the other Miller.” The moniker didn’t bother Allen, who at the time was known more inside golf circles for his columns in
Golf World
magazine. He had been one of the nation’s leading amateurs in the late-1960s and early-1970s. An All-American just up the road at the University of Georgia, he played in three Masters as an amateur, finishing tied for 42nd in 1971. This Masters was his first as a professional after earning his invitation with a win at the Tallahassee Open in April 1974, the same week Johnny Miller won the Tournament of Champions. “I haven’t been as good as a pro because my game isn’t as good as it was then (as an amateur),” said Miller, in his fourth full season on Tour. He admitted to making a common mistake—trying to change his game for the Tour. In an attempt to hit it farther, he lost his swing and confidence.

As so many players at the Masters did, Miller entered the week full of hope, although he had been struggling mightily with his game. In the previous month, he ran out of golf balls during practice rounds in both Jacksonville and Hilton Head. Just seventy-fourth on the money list and with a scoring average of 74.6 in his last two starts, golf was work, not fun as it was when he was a hot-shot amateur. For help, he called Bob Toski, and Monday on the practice range something clicked. Miller rolled in a twenty-five footer for birdie on the 1st hole, which after the round he claimed, “I don’t remember playing it, I was so nervous.” But it was a bunker save on the downhill, par-three 6th hole that was the real spur to his round. Thanks to Clifford Roberts.

Normally, balls landing in wet sand would plug. This wasn’t ordinary sand anymore at Augusta National. Following the 1974
Masters, the local quarry where the club’s sand came from ran dry. In the meantime, Roberts had become enamored with the sand at Grandfather Golf & Country Club in the northwest mountains of North Carolina where he spent a majority of his summers.

Roberts called his pro Bob Kletcke, who also happened to be the head professional at Grandfather during the summer season. Kletcke knew all about the sand and the man in charge. “You get a hold of him and see if he wants to sell us some sand,” said Roberts, who called back three times that day to see if Kletcke had gotten hold of him. “He’s working, Mr. Roberts, he’ll call me tonight,” Kletcke told him. That evening, Kletcke talked with his friend who owned the quarry in nearby Spruce Pine. Little did they know that their conversation would create the most famous bunker sand in the world.

Only it wasn’t sand. It was a byproduct of feldspar mining. Feldspar is a major ingredient in the manufacturing of many types of glass and ceramics. The majority of it is mined in a section of the North Carolina mountains. The byproduct is basically ground-up rock, so it can’t adhere to itself. When dry, it doesn’t stay together, and because of that, the material tended to disperse when balls hit. Therefore, balls wouldn’t bury as much as they had before. Roberts loved it because it was plentiful, easy to get, and had a distinctive bright white color. He had all of the bunker sand at Augusta National replaced. After the 1975 Masters, calls to Spruce Pine for the new sand came from around the world.

Allen used the momentum from that sand save on the 6th to birdie five of his next seven holes. A missed eight footer for par on the 18th didn’t dampen his outlook as he grabbed the early lead in the clubhouse. In a matter of four hours, he went from contemplating a layoff from the Tour to shooting a 68—his first sub-70 round in more than two months.

One by one, players teed off. The starting times continued to click by until the time of 11:15 a.m. and the fifteenth pairing of the
day. After 354 days, the most anticipated first-round tee time in Masters history was here.

LEE ELDER CLAIMED
he had a peaceful night’s sleep. “I went to sleep at midnight and slept until 8:00 a.m.,” he said. “I’ve been trying to keep the people around me from getting too nervous all week.” But Elder later admitted that he had not slept well.

Making the walk to the 1st tee with Elder would be forty-four-year-old Gene Littler, the 1961 U.S. Open champion and veteran of twenty Masters, who lost to Billy Casper in a playoff for the 1970 tournament. Elder hadn’t found out his pairing until Wednesday morning. Many had thought Elder’s tee time would have been announced as a marquee pairing a day earlier.

In addition to being one of the most successful players of his era, Littler was known as one of the nicest guys on Tour. The pairing wasn’t circumstance. He was a cancer survivor, having had a malignant melanoma tumor in a lymph gland under his left arm removed during extensive surgery the week of the 1972 Masters. Littler came back six months later with great success, and in 1975 captured the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am for his twenty-sixth PGA Tour title, a win that earned him a Masters invitation. On Wednesday night, the Golf Writers Association of America presented him the Charles Bartlett Award for contributions to society.

Officials hoped that Littler’s steady, comforting nature would rub off on Elder, but it hadn’t helped before the start of their round. As Elder was readying himself in the locker room, he placed his golf balls in his locker and his watch in his pants pocket—instead of the other way around. “I was shaking so bad, I didn’t think I was ever going to be able to relax,” said Elder.

Wearing green pants and a green sweater over a green golf shirt—all different shades mind you—Elder strode nervously to the first tee in the light drizzle and low overcast conditions, the sun trying mightily to peak through. Even though the club had provided extra
security, he knew it took only one person to slip through the gates unnoticed to take away his moment—or his life.

On the 400-yard opening hole that moved gently to the right, Littler hit first—a low drive pulled left off the fairway. Then, it was Elder’s turn, twenty-eight years to the day that Jackie Robinson’s contract was purchased by the Brooklyn Dodgers, making him the first black major league baseball player. “Lee Elder now driving, fore please,” announced club member Phil Harison, who had served as the starter since 1948. Elder pushed his tee into the Georgia soil and placed his ball on top of it for the most pressure-filled opening tee shot in history of the game.

In front of several hundred people, Elder addressed the ball. He took a quick look down the fairway, then waggled the club. Again, a peak and a waggle. The only sound was the soft pitapat of rain as Elder took the club back. He struck his tee shot down the center of the fairway. The spectators clapped politely, their applause muted only because most were holding umbrellas. A relieved Elder picked up his tee, having not embarrassed himself, his entourage, or his race. The first black competitor in the Masters had officially teed off.

Followed by a legion of friends and family, most wearing “Good Luck Lee” buttons, Elder walked with his chest out briskly down the hill on the 1st hole and then back up to the fairway. He hit his approach shot fifteen feet behind the hole and barely missed his birdie putt, leaving it inches short. On the dogleg left par-five 2nd, he hit a wedge to fifteen feet for a birdie to get to one under. It would be the only time Elder would be in red figures for the tournament. Once he got going, Elder claimed most of the nerves went away. “Gene talked to me quite a bit and really helped,” Elder said. “The gallery was fantastic. They applauded me on the greens. I couldn’t ask for any more.”

But the distractions that had infected Elder’s game remained with him. He drove the ball well enough but his iron play wasn’t sharp. Under ideal conditions for scoring, he bogeyed the par-three 4th after missing the green; the par-five 8th after missing a
four-foot putt; the par-five 15th after a poor wedge shot; and par-three 16th after a three putt. A birdie at the 17th from twelve feet helped him salvage a 74, the same score he shot in his first trip around the layout six months earlier.

Elder wasn’t as much disappointed as he was relieved. “I’m glad the first round is over,” Elder said. “Now the people around me don’t have to worry about me shooting an 85.”

TWO PAIRINGS
in front of Lee Elder was the player always just above “Nicklaus” on the alphabetical field list. Bobby Nichols, one of the most popular players on Tour, had won eleven times in a sixteen-year career. Of all the competitors Nicklaus would not be happy to look up at on the leaderboard, it was Bobby Nichols.

It started twelve years earlier in Houston. Nicklaus was a rookie on the circuit, looking for his first win when Nichols edged him and Dan Sikes in a playoff. Two months later when Nicklaus finally did get his maiden victory at the U.S. Open, Nichols tried to spoil things again. He was tied for the lead with four holes to play before bogeying Oakmont’s 15th and 18th holes to finish tied for 3rd, two shots behind.

Then, there was the 1964 PGA Championship at Columbus (Ohio) Country Club. It would be the only major championship Nicklaus would ever play in his hometown, and Bobby Nichols took it away from him. The omens were in Nichols’s favor all week. On the way to the course for the first round, the tire on his car went flat. He flagged down someone who gave him a ride to the club, arriving just before his starting time. He went right out and shot a championship-record 64. Nichols never looked back, even though he seemingly hit it everywhere. After holing approximately eighty feet worth of putts on the final four holes, he won wire-to-wire by three shots to earn, at the time, a lifetime exemption on Tour. His total of 271 stood as a tournament record for thirty years. Nicklaus closed with a 64 himself, just missing a thirty-foot eagle putt on the final hole for
63, which would have been the first ever in a major. Nicklaus tied for 2nd with Arnold Palmer, his playing competitor that day, who shot all four rounds in the 60s.

Born in Louisville, Nichols had begun caddying as a nine-year-old at Audubon Country Club. Toting bags was made even more enjoyable by a club member who took a liking for him—Pee Wee Reese, the Brooklyn Dodger shortstop who played there regularly in the off-season.

Nichols was a good athlete in high school, a standout in both football and basketball. But life changed for the junior early one September evening in 1952 as he sat in the front passenger seat of his good friend’s car, riding along with three others. The time was just after 8:00 in the evening when Nichols told his friend, “Jimmy, I got to get home, football practice is tomorrow morning.” Soon, the car picked up the pace, as Nichols says Jimmy “had a tendency to get a little heavy on the pedal.” In the blink of an eye, the car veered off the road and struck a post. When the police looked inside what was left of the vehicle, the speedometer was stuck on 107 miles per hour.

“When I look at the pictures, I think how did anyone get out of that thing alive?” says Nichols, the most seriously injured of the group. In the minutes, hours, and days following the accident, that question wasn’t asked. The crash threw Nichols from the car, puncturing his spine, shattering his pelvis, and causing severe internal injuries to his kidneys and lungs, as well as a brain concussion. “They gave me my last rites,” says Nichols. “They put a sheet over me actually.”

But Nichols fought. They took him to the hospital where he remained unconscious for thirteen days. He stayed in traction for a total of ninety-six days. Miraculously, Nichols suffered no long-term ill effects. His football days were over, though; golf would be his sport once he started playing again the following May.