The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta (30 page)

Billy Casper bogeyed the first two holes and struggled to get anything going. He holed a few long putts just to stay in contention with a 73. There was no extra practice for Casper as he left with his family after the round.

Tom Watson scrambled around the golf course as well until arriving at Amen Corner. He hit his approach shot into the pond at the 11th and made bogey, and then he made another bogey on the 12th after hitting his tee shot in the front bunker. The resilient Watson, however, came back with birdies on the 15th (for the third consecutive day) and the 17th. He made a solid par four at the 18th for a four-birdie, four-bogey round of 72.

The soft conditions that had helped faders and lower-ball hitters like Bob Murphy, who shot 80 on Saturday, and Lee Trevino were gone. Frustrated as he watched Nicklaus stonewalled on the leaderboard, Trevino struggled with both the quicker pace of the greens and his attitude, which he could never put on the back burner. Over their second shots on the par-five 8th, J. C. Snead goaded him into hitting since he couldn’t get there. Trevino couldn’t resist:
“Oh no, I’m not breaking any rules out here. I’m not going to give them anything to say about me this year. I’m even afraid to take a divot out here.” After striking his 3-wood, he retorted, “See, I didn’t even bend the grass.” Trevino’s hook wasn’t cooperating either on this day. He failed to make a single birdie in his round of 74, and his playing competitor J. C. Snead didn’t make one either in his round of 75.

In the fifth pairing from the end, Bobby Nichols didn’t look like a contender on the opening hole. Up against a tree after a wayward drive, he hit his next shot left-handed with a putter. Able to gather himself, Nichols went out in 35 before finding pay dirt on the back.

On the 12th, Nichols used the advice that Dr. Cary Middlecoff gave him years before during a practice round. “No matter where that pin is, don’t ever look at the left or the right. You look right over the top of that trap. You try to hit it there every day,” says Nichols, who doesn’t remember ever hitting it in the water there. So Nichols fired a towering short iron right at the middle of the green. It cleared the bunker by mere inches and plugged. After a drop right next to the bunker, he didn’t have a stance to take, so he played another left-handed shot, nearly holing it for a birdie.

On the 13th, he hit a 4-wood to fifteen feet and holed the putt for an eagle—the only eagle of the day on any hole. On the 14th, after his drive hit a tree, the first-round leader rolled in another fifteen footer—this one for birdie—that moved him within a stroke of the lead at six under.

Then, the glow of his orange golf glove faded. In perfect position from the middle of the fairway, he three-putted the par-five 15th for bogey, missed an eight-foot birdie putt at the 16th, missed a par putt just inside three feet at the 17th after leaving his approach in the front bunker, and left a ten footer short on the 18th for par after hitting a really poor second in the right bunker. In less than an hour, three bogeys in the last four holes dropped Nichols from one back to
six back. “I had myself in the hunt, but I kinda blew myself out of it,” said Nichols. “If I were Johnny Miller and I thought I could shoot a 65, I would feel great about tomorrow.”

UNLIKE OTHERS
, Nichols’s playing competitor Tom Weiskopf hadn’t conceded anything to Nicklaus, even though he had been six back at the start of the day. Weiskopf had to think back only two weeks earlier to the South Carolina Lowcountry. There in the Heritage Classic, Nicklaus also held a six-shot lead after 36 holes over Weiskopf. But Nicklaus shot 74 in the third round while Weiskopf recorded a 68 to get right back in it. With nine holes to play, Weiskopf was even in front of a struggling Nicklaus, whose swing had gotten flat and loose by letting his hands drop too much. After losing his shots to the right, he made an adjustment. Nicklaus would win by three, but Weiskopf’s confidence had returned. It flourished further with victory the following week at Greensboro.

Like Miller, Weiskopf felt he had played really well the first two days but putting woes gnawed at him. And also like Miller, Weiskopf was doing the damage tee-to-green with clubs that were meticulously put together and cared for. When Weiskopf turned professional in 1964, MacGregor sent him four sets of Tommy Armour Silver Scot irons (1-iron through pitching wedge, all with four degrees difference in loft). Every iron, though, was two degrees weak and upright to match his swing. “That helped get elevation,” he says. Out of the four sets, he picked the two best irons out of each to create the two best sets. The first-choice team stayed in his bag for eleven years.” I started with them in 1965 and gave them to the R&A in the fall of 1975,” he says.

“I’d change my (leather) grips sometimes after every round,” states Weiskopf, who kept his backup set in a box at home, ready to be shipped at a moment’s notice. “I checked the lies and lofts all the time because the steel was so soft, and they had pretty long hosels. If you played on hard turf your loft would change. I was fanatical.”

Weiskopf originally had a MacGregor Tommy Armour driver as well until it broke on a practice range in 1969. When it happened, a few of Weiskopf’s expletives caught the ears of Bobby Nichols, who offered him two extra H&B PowerBilt drivers he had with him. Weiskopf hit three balls with the first one and each took off like a rocket. He didn’t even hit the other. Weiskopf says, “After the round, I gave it back to him and he said, ‘How’d you like it?’ I said, ‘It’s terrific.’ He said, ‘It’s yours’.”

Weiskopf, Nichols, and Nichols’s old driver teed off thirty minutes before Nicklaus and Palmer, and Weiskopf felt particularly good today. He was dressed in his favorite color—yellow—with a golden mustard-colored argyle cashmere sweater and chocolate-colored slacks.

After playing the first five holes in even par, Weiskopf, in his words, “got it going” at the 190-yard, par-three 6th where he hit a 4-iron into the wind to eighteen feet and made birdie. He added a tap-in birdie at number 8 and at the 9th nearly chipped in for another as it kissed the flagstick dead-on but failed to drop. Following a 4-iron approach on the 10th, he rolled in a thirty footer for another birdie. On the 12th tee, he reached into his back left pocket and pulled out a piece of legal pad paper and his scorecard. Weiskopf checked his notes, yardages, and arrows on greens, then walked twenty steps off the green to judge the wind. He hit a lovely short iron to eight feet, but missed the birdie putt low.

Weiskopf chose his 3-wood again on the 13th tee. After he hit it, caddie LeRoy Schultz implored the ball to “stay there.” Weiskopf immediately assured him, “That’s tremendous LeRoy,” as they watched it turn around the corner. It was the longest of the day on the hole.

If there was an advantage for Weiskopf at the Masters, unlike Miller and Nicklaus, Schultz was his regular Tour caddie. An Augusta native, Schultz had caddied for Weiskopf’s friend Bert Yancey in previous Masters and quickly saw the potential in Weiskopf. In 1969, he approached Weiskopf and, with a mumbling, southern
accent, said he sure would like to caddie for him at some point. Weiskopf offered him a tryout on Tour, but Schultz declined and waited for twelve months. He began caddying for Weiskopf at the 1970 Masters and held the job for twelve years.

“He knew my game really well, and he could read the greens pretty dog-gone good, I can tell you that,” says Weiskopf. “He rarely made a mistake.”

Otherwise, just like Peterson and Eubanks, Schultz was a hands-off caddie. “I got all my own yardages and usually chose my clubs,” says Weiskopf, who asked Schultz for advice on a green read or a club selection maybe three or four times a round. “He was more of a cheerleader, too.”

“I wasn’t a difficult guy to caddie for. I always blamed myself” says Weiskopf. “I needed a head psychologist, not a great caddie.”

Schultz moved slowly and stayed quiet most of the time, but his excitement level began to pique this afternoon. After a 3-iron to the middle of the green on 13, Weiskopf two-putted from thirty feet for birdie. When he parred the 14th, he was tied for the lead with Nicklaus at seven under.

The 15th could have been a turning point. With the hole playing into the wind, Weiskopf decided against going for it and laid up to the far left side of the fairway just in front of the water. From there he hit a delightful half-wedge shot three feet above the hole. After making birdie on the first three par fives, Weiskopf hit the putt firmly but it failed to touch the hole and missed on the low side. He made the comebacker from a similar length on the other side (just after Bobby Nichols had missed the same putt). He rued the missed opportunity as he walked to the next tee.

“It doesn’t matter where you are, what course, what tournament, the holes are not the same for all of the cast of characters involved. There are always holes that you feel so comfortable with, regardless of where the pin is, regardless of how the wind’s blowing. And then there’s always holes that, geez, you just have a hard time playing
them. Sometimes they can be what others think are the easy holes,” says Weiskopf.

For him, more than any hole at Augusta National, that was the 16th. The par three had originally been built as a 145-yard hole with the green set against a hill on the left and a stream that wrapped around it from right of the green to the front. Bobby Jones felt the hole lacked drama, so in 1947, he had architect Robert Trent Jones (no relation) design a new hole. He created a two-tiered, kidney-shaped green to the right of the creek, which was dammed and turned into a pond. Three bunkers surrounded the putting surface that sloped severely from back right down to the water. “It was the damndest green I’d ever seen in my life,” says Curtis Strange.

“I never felt comfortable on the 16th tee for some reason,” Weiskopf admits. “I didn’t like the pin front right and didn’t like it top right. I was a versatile player. It’s not that I couldn’t cut the ball to those pins. It’s not that I couldn’t draw a shot to a certain pin, hit it low and skip it up, or hit it high and hold it.”

On this day, the hole location was back left, in the same spot when Weiskopf hit it in the water in 1974’s final round. Weiskopf’s tee shot was never in danger this time. “Be the right distance honey,” commanded Schultz as the ball flew right over the flagstick, landing fifteen feet behind the hole. Weiskopf trickled the putt down the hill, and when it fell in the hole he clinched his fist and punched a soft upper cut into the air. Schultz retrieved the ball from the hole. A little revenge on the par three pulled him back into a tie for the lead with Nicklaus.

Weiskopf couldn’t convert a fifteen-foot birdie putt on the 17th before he headed to the difficult 18th. As usual, he left the driver in the bag. “18 was only difficult because I had to lay up,” he says. “I didn’t like where the bunkers were located. I didn’t mind laying up, but I liked to drive the ball.”

He pulled out a 3-wood, then put it back and took the 1-iron. Weiskopf found the middle of the fairway and then hit a towering
7-iron hole high just twelve feet away. He hit every green in regulation on the second nine. There had been only two birdies on the final hole, but he smoothly rolled his in. Weiskopf bent his knees and held his putter firmly with both hands to the sky, as if not wanting to let go of the moment. He smiled from ear to ear. He made seven birdies and one bogey for a 66, including a career-best 32 on the second nine, a stretch of holes on which he’d struggled compared to the first nine throughout his career.

“When you are in the position that I was, a great round puts you back in it,” he said. “It’s the saving round. It’s the single most important round of the tournament. Five or six shots is nothing with the caliber of players we have today. I didn’t say, ‘Gee Whiz, Jack’s won the golf tournament.’

“I knew I had to play a super round of golf today if I was to get back into the golf tournament. I played more aggressively today. I had my concentration and desire going.” Under toughening conditions, Weiskopf’s six-under 66 was the only score in the last eleven pairings under par. “Tom played a helluva round,” said Nicklaus.

Weiskopf’s 66 wasn’t the lowest round of the day—that was Miller’s 65. In one day, Weiskopf had picked up seven shots on Nicklaus; Miller eight. Miller vaulted up the leaderboard from a tie for 27th to 3rd; Weiskopf from a tie for 5th to outright possession of the lead.

“At the start of the week, it was between Nicklaus and Weiskopf,” said Miller. “I was just a remote third. I think I’ll play well tomorrow. He (Nicklaus) had better not make a mistake. I’m certainly not going to choke. I could blow him right out of the box.”

Asked about Miller’s round, Nicklaus said, “No, there’s one other guy (Weiskopf) who’s four shots ahead of that boy.”

Weiskopf was a leader in the Masters for the first time after any round. It was his second 54-hole lead in a major—he won the 1973 British Open wire-to-wire—but he was just eight of twenty in converting final round leads on Tour (and just one of the last six).

“There’s two pretty good golfers behind me,” said Weiskopf.

For once, the pre-tournament chatter might live up to its hype after all. All one had to do was look at the leaderboard.