The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta (20 page)

Television would have loved Arnie in the second round. Going off at 11:29 a.m., Palmer surged into the lead for a forty-five-minute stretch that had his army on the march. Following a bogey at the 1st, Palmer stuck a pitching wedge to four feet for birdie at the 2nd. He converted an eight-foot birdie putt at the 4th, the longest par three at Augusta National. On the plateaued 7th green guarded by five bunkers, Palmer rolled in a twenty-foot birdie from left of the hole and gave a vigorous fist pump. His caddie sprinted to pick it out of the hole.

The three birdies in his first seven holes vaulted him into the lead at six under. The roars echoed through the course to a level of “ten million decibels” according to playing competitor Tom Watson. There was more excitement on the uphill par-five 8th where, after hitting two shots from the trees on the left, Palmer hit his fourth shot from forty yards to two feet. His charge ended on Amen Corner with back-to-back bogeys at the 11th and 12th and a 4-wood second shot into the water on the 13th. A final birdie on the 15th gave him a one-under 71.

“I had to work a heck of a lot harder to shoot the 71 today than I did yesterday to shoot a 68,” he said. It was much more exciting,
though. Palmer hit only nine greens in regulation but one-putted eight greens, scrambling for par on holes 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, and 18. It was vintage, retro-Palmer on the greens, hunched over, playing the ball off his left big toe, knees almost touching, draining putt after putt. “In the last seven or eight years or so, my major problem has been getting them up and down. I would just miss the green by a few feet and then take three to get the ball in the hole,” he explained.

It had been eleven years since his last major triumph on this course, but now with no one between himself and the leader at the midway point, Arnie’s Army had visions of another Augusta conquest. “A lot can happen on this golf course,” he said. Maybe even the greatest win of his career.

BY THE END
of the day, Palmer’s 36-hole score of 140 was matched by two future Hall of Famers—one on the tail end of his career and one just beginning his.

In the Masters, players were repaired after the first round, although not by score. Tee times were made at the committee’s discretion. Amateur Craig Stadler played with Palmer on Thursday. Playing alongside Palmer was a thrill for youngsters, but it wasn’t something others enjoyed. The pairing was almost like a one-shot penalty a side, not because Palmer wasn’t gracious, but because the feverishness of the galleries could spill over the ropes. At least Tom Watson had experience from which to draw.

At age fourteen, Watson had played with Palmer in an exhibition match back in his hometown of Kansas City. “You think I was nervous out there today,” said Watson, who was the Kansas City Amateur champion at the time, “but boy was I nervous then.” Now twenty-five, Watson was competing in his first Masters as a professional. “Anyone who has ever watched Arnold Palmer play has thought about playing with him in the Masters,” he said.

Watson had played in the 1970 tournament as an amateur, but the road back to Augusta had been arduous. He turned professional in
1971 after earning a degree in psychology at Stanford University. He was a high-ball hitter with no fear and a great short game. But Watson soon gained a reputation for squandering leads on Sundays. The most significant occurred at the 1974 U.S. Open, where he led outright after 54 holes only to shoot a 79 in the final round to finish 5th. One week later at the Western Open, Watson started the final round six shots behind and was never in contention until the closing nine. He shot a 69—the only sub-70 round that day—to win his first PGA Tour title.

Instead of being distracted, Watson fed off the feverish atmosphere of a Palmer pairing. On the 13th hole, he lashed a 3-iron second shot to three feet and made the only eagle of the day there. Two birdies and two bogeys coming in gave him a second consecutive round of two-under-par 70 and put him in contention for his first major championship going into the weekend.

Also in at 140 was a man who many saw as the antithesis of Arnold Palmer. Quiet and reserved, Billy Casper kept to himself and his family. He didn’t look the part of a golf star, so much so that when he turned professional Hall of Famer Paul Runyan asked him, “Why?”

On the course, Casper was all business. Only five players in the game’s history—Snead, Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus, and Nelson—had won more tournaments. His strengths were on the inside and not easily measured. Unlike most, Casper always had a game plan.

“I got a mental image of each hole in my mind. I would go through each hole and plan where I wanted to hit the ball and places I didn’t want to hit the ball, so that when I played each hole I had a pattern that I had established,” says Casper. And that never ever changed, no matter his score, the leaders’ scores, or conditions.

For many of Palmer’s fans, Casper was the man who broke the King’s reign. With nine holes to play in the final round of the 1966 U.S. Open, Palmer led by seven shots. By the end of the championship, he and Casper were tied. Casper won in an 18-hole playoff the next day. Palmer had not been the same golfer since.

The self-control and focus displayed by Casper in San Francisco was something he first learned by watching Ben Hogan play a practice round in San Diego for an exhibition years earlier. Hogan would hit balls from all angles to determine the best point of attack on each hole. Casper filed that away. “I knew exactly where I wanted to hit the ball off the tee, and I knew exactly where I wanted to hit the ball on my second shot,” he says. Casper employed this discipline during his breakthrough win in the 1959 U.S. Open at Winged Foot when he famously laid up on the par-three 3rd hole all four rounds, then chipped up and one-putted for par each time.

Like Palmer, though, Casper was extremely competitive and had an affinity for Augusta National. “The Open was the tournament that really was the one that you thought more of,” says Casper. “Not until I went to Augusta in 1957 did it change. Once I went there I wanted to win the Masters.”

Around the greens no one was better than Casper. At age eleven, he began caddying at San Diego Country Club, and at the end of each day, he and his friends would practice putting in the dark. “I feel that’s where I developed a very sound touch,” says Casper. “You could walk up to see the hole, get the hole in your subconscious, then walk back keeping your eyes on that area where the hole was. It was surprising how close you could get that ball. I did that day after day for a number of years.”

Casper felt the most important aspect of putting was reading the greens, especially at Augusta National. “It’s a real science to be able to read the greens. I always wanted to know where the highest place was in the area, because that had an effect on the final read of the putt,” he says. “I putted with feel. I didn’t try to hole putts from any length. I wanted to get the ball next to the hole and get it in from there. If it went in that was a bonus. So consequently, I was a speed putter and always wanted the ball within a two- or three-foot circle when I was any distance away.”

To take advantage of his short game at Augusta, Casper worked backward from the hole, always wanting to keep his ball in a position where he could succeed. That strategy gave him confidence that he would succeed. “I always felt that I could win at Augusta,” says Casper.

In the 1969 tournament, Casper had been in control from the start but lost the opportunity for victory by playing the first ten holes of the final round in five over. The next year, he found himself in a playoff with fellow San Diegan Gene Littler. After opening with a birdie on the 1st hole, Casper pulled his tee shot left on the 2nd. The ball settled inside a lateral hazard with a stick right behind it. With Littler in the fairway and a branch directly in front of him, the only shot was a 9-iron to get back in play. “It was the most perfect shot I’ve ever hit in my life,” says Casper. “I could have made anything.” He made 5; Littler made 6. When he walked off the back of the 18th green as the winner, Cliff Roberts stood waiting for him. They shook hands. “I expected him to say congratulations, but he didn’t,” says Casper. “He said, ‘Thank you, Billy, thank you.’ He’d been rooting for me to win and finally I’d won. It made him happy, and of course, what it did for me was unbelievable.”

He had come a long way from pulling a trailer from tournament-to-tournament in his first year on Tour. Now forty-three, Casper notched three top-tens on the West Coast, but recently had been spending more time working on his farm than golfing. He had moved into a new home in Mapleton, Utah, just outside Provo. He and wife Shirley were raising eleven children at home, where Casper was also managing an organic orchard of some 6,000 fruit trees, including peaches, pears, and cherries. After five weeks off, he didn’t pick up a club until going to Greensboro, where he opened with a 79.

A week later, he was nine shots lower in the opening round of the Masters when Johnny Miller had predicted Casper would do well
because he’s a “good mudder.” “I liked adverse conditions,” admits Casper.

On Friday, he finished stronger than anyone. Casper was the only player in the field to birdie the 17th and 18th holes. “It’s those holes down around the water—11th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th—that scare you to death,” he said. Casper made four birdie putts over twelve feet in round two, even though he hit it in the trees on five holes. “The greens are absolutely perfect,” he said. “If you can read them right and stroke the ball right, there’s no reason you should miss.” With another 70 on the scorecard, Casper was in position to win again, this time as the oldest Masters champion.

WITH NO EARLY-ROUND
television coverage, the world never saw a live golf shot of Lee Elder in his first Masters. For the second round, he dressed in all cardinal red, with his contestant pin prominently displayed on the front of his visor, which was red.

However, Elder didn’t produce any red numbers on his scorecard Friday, failing to record a single birdie. Paired with Miller Barber, Elder’s pop stroke resulted in a myriad of three-putt greens, and his iron play was no better than it was the day before.

“Well, you fellows got rid of me,” joked Elder. His 78 (40–38) left him at eight over par for the tournament, four shots off the halfway cut line. Elder’s Masters, for which he waited 352 days, was over after just two.

“I was too relaxed,” he said. In 36 holes, Elder made only two birdies but ten bogeys. “I thought I could do anything and get close to par. I wish I had felt some pressure. Everything I did was incorrect. We were a bunch of choppers, Henry and I.”

Indeed, Elder later blamed many of his difficulties on his confident caddie Henry Brown. A year later, he claimed, “My caddie would tell me which club to use for approaches instead of telling me the yardage and letting me make my own club selections. I’d be fifteen
or twenty feet beyond the pin. I’m not trying to use him as an excuse, but it happens to be the truth.”

“I didn’t feel drained after the first round,” he admitted. “I did feel relieved. The only pressure was that of keeping the people with me calm. Maybe I should have done something to help keep me calm.”

Elder had no regrets about his decision to accept the invitation. “It was worth it, no doubt about it,” he said. “Just playing here was worth it. It’s everything I thought it would be and more. I expected to play better, and I look forward to playing better next year.”

In order to return in 1976, Elder would need a top-sixteen finish in the U.S. Open, a top-eight finish in the PGA, or another win. He hugged and kissed Rose in front of the main scoreboard, posing for photos. For Elder, his exit stayed with him for a long time: “On the way out, after I had finished playing, every black person who worked at the club—caddies, servants, the people who worked in the restaurants—was lined up against the wall, waiting for me, waiting to congratulate me and thank me for what I had done.”

In the end, there were no public pickets or threats to the club, disruptions or boycotts. It couldn’t have gone smoother as far as the club was concerned, and Elder earned equal amounts of praise. “Elder proved to be some kind of man,” wrote Robert Eubanks in the next morning’s
Augusta Chronicle
. “He handled the big week with dignity, grace, and poise. Maybe he was on his best behavior just for Augusta. But we don’t think so. We think this is par for Lee Elder’s course. And Rose Elder, too.”

ELDER WAS ONE
of thirty in the field of seventy-six who wouldn’t make it to the weekend. The 36-hole cut fell at 148. Only the low forty-four players and ties advanced, along with anyone within ten shots of the lead. Four over par matched the lowest cut in Masters history. There hadn’t even been a cut in the tournament until 1957 when a record field of 101 necessitated one be made to the lowest
forty players. It was changed to low forty-four and ties and ten shots in 1962. The pros who missed still received $1,250.

Among the other notables who missed the cut were Sneed, Mahaffey, and Oosterhuis. Only two of the seven amateurs made the 36-hole cut: twenty-five-year-old George Burns with two rounds of even-par 72, and reigning U.S. Amateur champion Jerry Pate, a twenty-one-year-old senior at Alabama with scores of 71–75, although no birdies Friday. A day after playing with Nicklaus, Curtis Strange shot a 77. With a 74, Gary Koch’s mind turned to his wedding two weeks later to his college sweetheart Donna Suarez.

Even with his opening round 71, Sam Snead would not be around for Saturday and Sunday either, but it wasn’t because of his score. Snead continued his good play, getting to two under par with a birdie at the 4th. On the 7th hole, however, Snead almost went to the ground. His sciatic nerve was acting up and causing muscle spasms. He proceeded to bogey the 7th, 8th, and 9th holes and, at one over par, decided to withdraw at the turn. Snead would never shoot another subpar round in the Masters.