The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta (7 page)

Elder registered at the tournament office—he would be contestant number 68—and was assigned a locker where he changed. He went to hit a few balls on the practice range and then onto the course where he played six holes in the late afternoon. Elder wouldn’t talk on this day, but Henry Brown, his caddie, would. A thirty-six-year-old cab driver in Augusta, Brown began caddying at age thirteen and had carried the bags for Pete Cooper, Al Mengert, Art Wall, and Robert De Vicenzo, including the 1968 tournament in which De Vicenzo’s signing of an incorrect scorecard—his playing competitor Tommy Aaron had written a “4” on the scorecard under the 17th hole when he actually made a “3”—gave Bob Goalby a one-shot victory instead of a playoff between the two. “I can walk this course backwards,” said a confident Brown. “I know every blade of grass on it. I am No. 1.” Brown was also an accomplished player with a low-handicap and the same cross-handed swing Elder once employed. “He’s a fellow I think probably could beat me,” joked Elder, who had already invited him to his celebrity pro-am the following month. “I think I might switch over and carry the bag for him.”

Tuesday morning, Elder played a full practice round with John Mahaffey and Lu Liang-Huan of Taiwan. Since his first trip around the course six months earlier, he had put new irons in the bag. “I couldn’t get it up in the air,” said Elder. “I changed to Lil’ David
Slingers, and I also bent my irons so I can get them up in the air.” Slingers were irons marketed more to high handicappers who had trouble getting the ball aloft. The heads were offset with a thin top edge and a more rounded, weighty bottom sole. They were also supposed to be shank-proof.

Elder didn’t change his game, though. “I still cut the ball. I haven’t changed to a draw,” he said. “There are several holes that you must draw the ball but I felt it would be too great a sacrifice to try to hook. When I try to hook, I have a tendency to hit over the top of the ball and duck hook it.” That was the miss he dreaded, so much so that Elder used a double-overlapping grip—two fingers of his right hand over two fingers of his left hand—to prevent turning his hands over too much.

Elder reported shooting a 71 in his Tuesday practice round, three-putting the 18th for bogey. He then ate lunch before his scheduled 3:00 p.m. press conference. At exactly the same time, another significant moment in American sports was occurring 700 miles north of Augusta.

It was major league baseball’s opening day, and when the first pitch was thrown at 2:00 p.m. inside Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, another racial barrier in American sports would fall. Frank Robinson debuted as the Cleveland Indians’ player-manager—the first black manager in baseball history. Like Elder’s Masters appearance, the anticipation for this moment had been building since Robinson was hired the previous October immediately after the 1974 season. There was a thirty-minute pre-game ceremony in front of 56,204 fans. Jackie Robinson’s widow Rachel took part in the festivities, saying she wished her late husband, who died of a heart attack in October 1972, could experience the moment. At age 39, Frank Robinson, the only player to win the MVP award in both leagues, was just a year younger than Elder, but already in his twentieth major league season. Facing the New York Yankees, he penciled himself in the second spot in the batting order as a designated hitter. In the bottom of the
first inning on a 2–2 count after fouling off three pitches by Doc Medich, Robinson connected on a fastball, sending a low screamer just over the left-field wall for home run number 575 in his career. Elder would love to rise to his occasion in such fashion. Behind a complete game from Gaylord Perry, the Indians won 5–3.

Elder didn’t see or desire the comparisons to Frank Robinson, or Hank Aaron, or Arthur Ashe, or Jackie Robinson. Asked about the symbolism of the moment, he proclaimed, “I really don’t feel like a great man in history. And that’s the way I would like it to be. I don’t think they’re looking for me to be any kind of saint. I am playing for Lee and Rose Elder and nobody else, just like I always have.”

In the packed press center for his question-and-answer session, he was visibly nervous and edgy, leaning forward with arms folded on a table and nursing a cigarette. Normally, he smoked two-plus packs a day but was trying to scale back for this week. Having to answer the same questions which had been posed over and over the previous year didn’t help.

“I haven’t been playing well,” he said in explaining his recent reluctance to grant one-on-one interviews. “I just started to hit the ball well last week, and I wanted to work on my game. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I knew that if I stopped and answered questions from each of you, I’d have no chance to practice at all. But if I win Sunday, I’ll be here, and I’ll be very happy to answer any questions. And I’ll give everybody an individual interview.”

If Elder felt a circus atmosphere at the course, it wasn’t much calmer off the grounds. Elder had dozens of people with him—family, friends (including football great Jim Brown), and colleagues with the Lee Elder Scholarship Fund. He rented two houses and booked five rooms at a local motel, both to accommodate his clan and throw off anyone who wanted to do him harm. He joked that real pressure was finding tickets for friends and associates. “I think they had a graduated scale depending on who you were,” says Gary Koch, who never received the opportunity to buy more than eight
in any of his years as a competitor. “How well you had performed in the game kind of dictated how many tickets you were allowed.” Nicklaus and Palmer got their share. Elder had requested sixty-nine, but the club allowed him to purchase only twenty-five, still far more than the club usually gave players. But Elder felt the pressure. “I have to play well to keep from embarrassing other people by embarrassing myself,” he said.

To those within the inner circle of the professional golf tour, Lee Elder’s trip to Augusta National may not have seemed that big a deal. They had all played with him, changed shoes in the locker room with him, eaten dinner with him, and traded stories with him. He had been a presence on Tour for eight years and had played in nine major championships. For those outside the golf beltway, his opening tee shot on Thursday had become a very big deal.

THE FIELD OF
seventy-six for the 1975 Masters was the smallest in seven years. It was supposed to be seventy-seven, but Donald Swaelens, from Belgium, withdrew prior to coming to the tournament after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A veteran of the European professional circuit, the thirty-nine-year-old was set to make his first Masters appearance after finishing tied for 7th at the 1974 British Open. Instead, Swaelens’s condition worsened, and he passed away two weeks later in Brussels.

In all, competing were fifty-three American professionals, seven American amateurs, and sixteen foreign professionals. The Masters Tournament made a distinction between Americans and non-Americans at the time. Even foreign players who didn’t meet one of the thirteen qualification criteria could be invited at the club’s discretion. Eight different countries outside the United States were represented—South Africa (four), Australia (three), England (three), Japan (two), Argentina (one), Mexico (one), New Zealand (one), and Taiwan (one). Every foreign professional would be paired with an American in the opening round.

“It may be the most prestigious tournament,” said Trevino, “but it has the weakest field of any tournament we play in this country. With all those old Masters champions and foreign players invited every year, there aren’t as many strong contenders.”

That made experience even more important. Because it’s played at the same venue every year, experience outweighed almost every other factor. Outside the first and second Masters, no one had ever won in his first attempt. Even the greats had only modest success: Byron Nelson tied for 9th in 1935, Sam Snead 18th in 1937, Ben Hogan tied for 25th in 1938, Arnold Palmer tied for 10th in 1955, Gary Player tied for 24th in 1957, and Jack Nicklaus missed the cut in 1959. Since the inaugural Masters in 1934, only twelve players had ever finished in the top-five in their first appearance. This year fifteen players were competing in their first Masters, including Lee Elder, who at age forty was the oldest among them.

Because of those pre-requisites, the same names tended to pop up on the Masters leaderboard. For the better players, it may have been the easiest major to win. For almost the previous decade and a half, the three most frequent names were Nicklaus, Palmer, and Player. They had played the golf course enough and figured out how to adapt their games. The trio had won ten of the previous seventeen Masters. They had been labeled the Big Three.

Palmer wasn’t necessarily a high-ball hitter, but he attacked the golf course with such venom that it didn’t matter. Now forty-five, the last of his four Masters wins had come eleven years earlier. He hadn’t won on Tour in more than two years. Possibly due to a renewed effort to give up smoking in January, a light had instead been lit in his game. A bogey on the 71st hole at Hawaii cost him a shot at a victory (he finished 3rd) as did a poor final round at Jacksonville. Four days before the start of the Masters, he fired a 66 in Greensboro—the lowest round of the day in windy weather and on fast greens. “I’ve had putting troubles the last couple of years,” said Palmer. “Right now, I can say that my tee-to-green game is the best
it has been in some time. How well I do this week depends on my putting.”

Palmer flew down to Augusta late Sunday afternoon in his private plane. On Monday, he enjoyed a steak sandwich and ginger ale in the grill room before starting his first practice round of the week by himself. Eventually joined by Bert Yancey, Palmer bogeyed the 1st hole, but consecutive birdies at the 2nd and the 3rd had the patrons cheering before the tournament had even started. Was it possible Palmer had one more charge left in him? “The Masters has always had a special meaning for me. Winning this year would mean a great deal to me,” he said.

Player wasn’t a high-ball hitter either, but his grit, determination, course management, and self-belief were an ideal combination for the major championships. The South African was the first international champion of the Masters in 1961. In 1974, Player was one behind Dave Stockton after 54 holes, but birdies at the 6th and 9th gave him a two-shot lead with nine to play. The likes of Nicklaus, Weiskopf, Irwin, and Stockton put pressure on him, but each made crucial mistakes on the closing nine. Player hit a 9-iron to within inches on the 71st hole for birdie and wrapped up his eighth major title with a par on the 18th. “Gary’s game was designed around majors,” says Johnny Miller. “He normally didn’t have the horsepower to beat me or Nicklaus or Weiskopf on a normal course—the top players who were on. But on pressure-packed major courses, he could win. Other guys would get nervous. He was bull doggy and never gave up.”

“My goal is to become recognized as the No. 1 player in the world,” said Player. “I feel it will be measured by your performance in the major tournaments.” That meant de-throning Jack Nicklaus. Back-to-back Masters titles would help his case. Only one man had accomplished that: Jack Nicklaus.

Tuesday, Player suffered an allergic reaction to some shrimp he ate at the turn and had to retire after eleven holes due to swelling and a rash on the right side of his body. A cortisone shot from a
doctor on-site helped, but of more concern to Player was his lack of competitive golf. He did not come to the United States until two weeks earlier after having taken two months off from tournament golf. “I can’t put golf before my family,” said Player. “I don’t regret the nice long holiday.” He planned three trips to the States in 1975—all around the majors—and never spent more than five weeks away from home. He would have preferred two more starts before Masters week, and now he was forced to take the rest of the day off.

While Nicklaus and other experienced champions were favored, truth be told any number of players had their chances. Recent winners in odd-numbered years had been Gay Brewer (1967), George Archer (1969), Charles Coody (1971), and Tommy Aaron (1973)—all accomplished veteran players but none considered a contender at the beginning of those weeks.

In fact, the last eight Masters had been won by eight different players. Would someone like Miller or Weiskopf be the ninth?

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TUESDAY, APRIL 8

A
s a young boy growing up in southeastern Virginia, Curtis Strange didn’t need the Sunday edition of the
Augusta Chronicle-Herald
to learn about the Masters. He had already been educated by his Granddaddy, Clarence Ball, who had attended the tournament many times and always brought back a trinket and a story. Later, images from Augusta mesmerized him on the small black-and-white television in the golf shop his father Tom owned. “Who didn’t watch it as a kid?” says Strange. “Especially back then when golf wasn’t on TV that much. When it came on, people stopped in the golf shop and watched it.”

Tom Strange was a very good golfer, good enough to win five Virginia State Opens and qualify for six U.S. Opens. Just as it was for Bobby Jones and most other American golfers born in the first half of the twentieth century, the U.S. Open was the most important title to win. Still, when Tom Strange played in the championship, his dream was to finish in the top sixteen—that would earn him a Masters invitation. It never came.

Tom Strange died of cancer in 1969. He was just thirty-nine years old; Curtis was fourteen. It took a long time for his passion for
golf to return, but eventually it did. Strange earned a golf scholarship to Wake Forest University, and as a freshman at the 1974 NCAA Championship at Carlton Oaks Country Club in San Diego, Strange found himself in the last group with Florida’s Gary Koch. On the par-five 18th hole, Wake Forest and Florida were tied for the team championship, and Strange trailed Koch by one for the individual championship. Strange coolly hit a 1-iron to seven feet and made the eagle putt, clinching both titles.