More than any other player in history, Tiger Woods at his peak refuted the adage that no golfer gets it all. The image of that once-supreme completist from the century’s first decade remains indelible and continues to magnify light onto every part of the game — especially the elements that constitute greatness.

Those who can perceive and convey that last piece with the most precision are the elders in an ultra-exclusive fraternity that includes Woods as a junior member. So as Tiger embarked on his latest comeback — begun remarkably free of back pain and with correspondingly surprising success at the Hero World Challenge — Golf Digest sat down with five of the best: Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller and Nick Faldo.

All are multiple major winners — collectively their total is 41, the inverse of Woods’ 14. All are essentially retired from competition yet remain avidly connected to the current scene. All are close students of a figure who has transcended and brought scrupulous attention to the game they once mastered.

For them, Woods is both an illuminating prism and a mirror.

Our idea was to exploit a premise that has proved reliable since Woods first came to world renown as an amateur in the mid-1990s: The better the player, the better the take on Tiger.

To varying degrees, each Hall of Famer possessed some or even all of Woods’ myriad qualities and strengths. But to allow the interviews to form a more coordinated whole, the subject matter for each former player focused on the area he most closely compared with Woods.

With Nicklaus, it was the uncanny ability for making it happen. For Player, an indefatigable self-belief. For Trevino, an undying obsession for the game. For Miller, a nearly identical crucial head start as a youth. For Faldo, a relentless focus on majors.

The individual framing allowed each of our sages to pull from personal experience and observation. The result is wisdom and insight about what it takes to reach the very highest levels of golf — and through a more intimate understanding of five all-timers, a more refined appreciation of Woods.

Greatness in golf will remain fascinating and mysterious. The current question: When, if ever, will Tiger, now 42, achieve the kind of late-career climax — Nicklaus’ 1986 Masters at 46 the epitome — that provides each of our five elders such an enduring satisfaction? As 2018 develops, they’ll retain the most interest and empathy as a renewed Tiger — still very much a completist — chases his missing pieces.

NICK FALDO: The Journey to Thursday Morning

Tiger and I were similar in that we could almost be in the zone for four days. I had this ability to focus on golf. You hear the psychologists say you should bounce around, but I didn’t. Sometimes Fanny [caddie Sunesson] would go off on a subject, and I used to drag her back: “No, no, no. Just keep talking golf.”

The preparation time between majors is vital, and this is where I think Tiger was absolutely phenomenal. It’s the journey getting to Thursday morning of the US Open or whatever, and if you’re really smart and know more about the game, it starts the week before or two weeks before or, in the case of the Masters, months before. But you’ve got to start well, to be absolutely ready for Thursday morning. I remember reading that Arnold Palmer said he would take the intensity of 17 and 18 on Sunday of a major and bring that to Thursday. And that was a little jolt to me. I used to say to myself in the majors: Every shot is history on Thursday as well, so don’t waste them.

With Tiger, I think of the opening nine holes when he shot 40 at the 1997 Masters. [Faldo, the defending champion, was his playing partner in the first two rounds of Woods’ 12-stroke victory.] I wonder if that was one of his epiphanies where he said: ‘I’m never going to do that again. I’m never going to set myself up to get that far down. I’m going to find a way to prepare.’ And I think that’s what he did so brilliantly. How he could go out, win a tournament, disappear for three weeks and come back out in a major, and there was no wastage of shots or sloppiness. And the number of times you would say, How does he come out holing every putt?

Tiger knew he was different. Special. He hit a golf ball differently — full stop — than anybody else. Nobody could drive it like him, nobody could hit long irons like him, or the wedges and the putter. There wasn’t anybody ever who was that good in every department. And then he’d believe he was better prepared for Thursday than anyone else, and it became a pattern.

It’s true in other sports. With Tom Brady, I tune in to make sure I watch his first possession. I love Formula One racing. How come these guys will all qualify within tenths of a second, and then on the first lap of the race, Lewis Hamilton will be a full second ahead of everybody?

I birdied a lot of opening holes at the Open Championship. You psych yourself all week, and you visualise it, seeing yourself knock it out there, on the green, in, and off you go. Whereas some people stand up on the first tee, and they can’t see the fairway.

I’d like to do some of my career differently. I made mistakes working too hard at tournaments. I know I wore myself out, wore out my golfing batteries. But I said to myself, I don’t want to get to 45 and regret that I didn’t try hard enough. Because I know some golfers, I watched them get into their 40s, and they were lazy. And suddenly it’s gone. You’re an athlete given a window of opportunity. And while you’ve got your nerve, you’d better make the most of it. Because once your nerve starts to go, you ain’t getting that one back.

That last round at the 1996 Masters [overcoming Greg Norman’s six-stroke lead] was the best round mentally I ever had. The swing wasn’t quite right, and I had to mentally push myself through each shot. I would think to myself: ‘Are the wheels coming off?’ And I had to yell at myself: ‘No, they’re not! Come on, what are we going to do? OK, hit it, land it there, piece it together,’ and I’m going to do this in the swing, because I know if I do this, I’ll hang on to it. I had a little checklist I had to go through. I’d lost that 100 per cent self-belief, or whatever the percentage is where you’re Superman. Once it gets chinks, it becomes: ‘Oh, I got away with it.’ And then one day, you say all those things to yourself, and twang! — it goes sideways. And that’s the day when you go: ‘Oh, blimey.’

To go to a major with the intention of winning it and doing it, that gives me the greatest pride. I did that in three of them [1990 at the Masters and St Andrews, and 1992 at Muirfield were among Faldo’s six major victories]. With Tiger, I don’t know if he’s done 14 with the intention quite like that. It gives you that sense of power. You definitely feel everybody must be looking at you. The way you act probably [annoys] a lot of the players — has to. Because I’m sure that’s when you’re at your rudest. Because you’re so focused, you’re so engrossed.

Tiger was quite happy to come into a tournament with a horrendous spotlight on him. I was amazed how he could do that. I’ll never forget, I was on the range doing TV at Augusta. He came on the range, and you could feel the aura. Every player would turn and look. All the gallery, every eye was on him. He turned it into energy. I’m sure Ali had that.

Once you get everything right, it’s that wonderful feeling knowing that you’re going to do it. I had that once: walking down the first fairway at St Andrews, in 1990. They had put the flag just over the burn, into the breeze, and David [Leadbetter] came to tell me that balls were spinning back into the burn. So it’s a 9-iron, but I’m worried, so I’ll hit 8. And then I get a little more nervous and take out a 7. So I chip a 7, and I land it right in the back of the green, and I’ve got a 30-yard putt. And I said to myself, Just relax. You’re going to win.

You can say it now 30 years later, and people don’t think you’re an ass. But how cool a line is that to say to yourself? That is your ultimate. The millions of golf balls and the thousands of hours just to be able to say you know what to do and how to do it under the ultimate pressure, and you love it.

JOHNNY MILLER: The Father Influence

When Tiger came up, I saw a lot of my golf upbringing in him. I don’t know exactly how Earl worked, but I could tell he had that affirmation thing going big time with Tiger. I mean, he said, This guy’s going to be the greatest, and he probably said it a million times to Tiger. He also paid the price with Tiger with his time, doing a lot of things my father did. Everything was centred around his dad, right?

With Tiger, what I saw was the drive, even a stronger drive than I had. And he had the rarest of all abilities: If he needed to make the putt, somehow he could make it go in. Not many guys can actually make it, you know. I think of [Billy] Casper, Nicklaus — for a while, Trevino. It’s very rare to have a guy who actually improved his putting when it mattered the most. Tiger was definitely that way. I could do it with my ball-striking. But you still had to finish it off with the putts.

I think Earl had that sense that this guy is special, and I think it was a special relationship. Tiger wanted to please his dad and follow what his dad wanted to accomplish with him. Sometimes you hear some of the negative, but I think most of it was pretty amazing. I believe Tiger, if it wasn’t for Earl, would be just another guy. I really believe that.

When my dad started me out hitting balls into a canvas tarp in our basement when I was 5, you couldn’t use too much loft because it would hit the rafters. So I hit a lot of 5- and 6-irons. And I would wear out this dark-green canvas, making a little light green line where it would start to shred. I’d aim for that little stripe about 15 feet away, and I knew where a perfect 6-iron would hit. The thing that the basement did for me, is that it really got me to know what the sound and feel of a pure shot was. You could hear the strike, and you could feel no vibration. Trying to get that would really focus you.

I was very little. When I graduated from ninth grade, I was 5-feet-2, 105 lbs. I was a phenomenal putter. I’ll bet you when I was 12, I was in the top 10 in the world putting. I once had 16 putts for 18 holes [at San Francisco’s Lincoln Park]. On terrible greens, by the way.

But I loved the game, everything about it. My dad, he made me like a little pro, had me practise how I put my hat on, how I tipped my hat, how I put my glove on, and how I squinted my eyes and gritted my teeth. Sort of a little Hogan. He always talked about psyche. And he had a blackboard with certain things he wanted me to do because I was small and I needed to be strong — push-ups, squeeze grips, pull-ups.

He would work the midnight-to-8am shift so that he could sleep while I was in school. After school, he’d take me to San Francisco Golf Club, where I was taking lessons [from John Geertsen], and the club sort of adopted me. They averaged only 20 players a day, so in the afternoon no one was even out there, so I could hit as many balls as I wanted. Even on approaches into the greens, I could hit eight balls, fixing my divots.

If I hit a bad shot, my dad didn’t really focus on the bad at all. It was just: ‘OK, one more shot.’ It was always one more, no matter how many balls I had hit. It was: ‘OK, let’s see you hit another one,’ never: ‘OK, let’s go home.’ I don’t think he ever said: ‘Let’s go home.’

He was a smart guy, and he was teaching the best he could. He’d give me 10 things to try, and eight of them were just way out there. But I would analyse why each one was not a good idea. And then one of the ideas was really good, and one was fantastic. Like when I was 10 or 11, he had me carry a left-handed 5-iron. So I became quite good left-handed, about a 6-handicap. Now coaches recommend swinging left-handed as a training aid. It wasn’t boring, because he was super creative.

I was a good little fighter. My dad was a boxing fan, and he taught me how to box. I didn’t get in that many fights, but I never lost a fight. The fight would last only 30 or 40 seconds, but that’s the way you settled disagreements back then. When he taught me how to box, that gave me confidence, too.

When I was a young player, I didn’t even know what a bad stretch was. Never played bad. Never. It’s not like I would shoot a bad round and then a real good round. It was just always good. I was a plus-2 when I was 16 years old on the Lake Course at Olympic Club.

I do think you need a start like I did to get a head start. All my friends would work as hard as I did, but they were always a little behind me. They didn’t have their father involved. That can work negatively if the guy is overbearing. But my dad was always about affirmations — “You’re doing great. You’re on the right track. Keep doing those exercises. You’re going to be a champion.” Over and over. He’d call me Champ — that affirmation of potential. Actually, not just potential, because I knew when I was nine years old that I was going to be a champion golfer. Something inside me said: ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re going to be a champion, like your dad said.’ So that affirmation of greatness or being successful from your father is the strongest affirmation there is for a boy.

JACK NICKLAUS: Making It Happen

When you say: ‘Making it happen,’ I think the key to that, and what Tiger and I both understood, is knowing what was happening.

I go back to some of the mistakes that I made. I look at the 39 I shot on the last nine holes of the US Open at Cherry Hills in 1960. At Pebble Beach in 1963, I came to the last hole tied with Billy Casper but three-putted from 22 feet by being too aggressive with the first putt and then missed the comebacker. As good as Casper was, my chances of beating him in a playoff were higher than making that 22-footer. Later that summer, down the stretch at Royal Lytham, I lost by one after bogeying the last two holes by not being smart.

Those are things you learn from, how to assess a situation and learn who you are and what you can do. And you gain confidence when those lessons teach you how to choose the correct course. Ultimately you become that golfer.

If I had a putt on the 18th to make, that I needed to make, more often than not I made it. Inside 10 feet, more than likely I made that putt. With Tiger, the same thing. Think of Tiger at the [2003] Presidents Cup in South Africa in sudden death with Ernie Els. Particularly the second putt, the one in the dark. I mean, that was just … he made it happen.

In those situations, I always stood over a putt, and I’d say: ‘I need … I HAVE to make this putt. Period. I gotta make it.’ And more often than not, that made me focus more, and I made it. And once you do that a couple of times, you say: ‘Well, what should I say this time: Gee, I’d LIKE to make it? No. I HAVE to make it.’ Once you find something you tell yourself that works, you continue to do that thing until it proves it doesn’t. For me, it kept working most of the time.

I got nervous all the time, as nervous as the next guy. It’s just that I caught myself before it became destructive. You might be thinking: ‘Gosh, I’m worried about missing it.’ When you get that out of your system, you eliminate all the negatives.

I don’t know how much is innate. I mean, I started winning when I was 10, 11 years old. I was out playing with [wife] Barbara at Lost Tree on the sixth hole one time, a par 5, and Barbara hit three fairway woods up there and made 4. And I had a 25-footer for 4, and I made it. And she says: ‘You can’t ever let me win one?’ I said: ‘I’m sorry, it’s what I do. I’m like the scorpion and the frog. It’s my nature.’

Why, I don’t know. I wish I could answer that question, but I can’t — I just don’t know. It was not an accident. No, I worked very hard for that. But no, I never tried to figure it out. How does Jack Nicklaus know who Jack Nicklaus is? Whatever I had to do, I just went ahead and did it.

Sure, I could have gone the other way. Why didn’t I? Because I didn’t want to [chuckles]. I didn’t want to be a bad player. I didn’t want to lose tournaments. I wanted to learn why I made mistakes. I think Tiger does much the same thing.

My dad loved playing all sports, and so did I. I’ve played tennis all my life. I played basketball in a rec league until I was 40. I’d take the kids to football practice, and I’d throw to them in passing drills. Playing all those sports taught you a lot about yourself and about what you can do and what you can’t do. Especially when you’re dealing with team sports, you’re working with your teammates and seeing them make mistakes and their strengths. And you relate those things right back to yourself and how to make yourself better. Did what I learned from team sports help me to learn to rise to the occasion in golf? Absolutely.

Tiger was always a guy who once he got ahead, he was able to gain the ability to just bury everybody. And I never really thought about burying the field. All I ever thought about was, I got my lead, now how do I not do something stupid to lose my lead? The 1965 Masters [where Nicklaus won by nine], it just happened. And the 1980 PGA [Nicklaus won by seven at Oak Hill], I was playing terrible.

I try to subdue my emotion in competition. When I was a kid, I’d find myself getting excited when I did something good, and I’d lose my focus and wouldn’t get back down for a hole or two. I said, I can’t do that. So I was one of those guys who didn’t pump himself up by getting excited. I had to control it so I could continue to do something good.

The game is unpredictable, and it’s different every day. I don’t think I ever had two problems to solve in a round that were exactly the same, ever. You always have to figure out: ‘How do I really make this happen?’ I trusted my instinct. I always felt like any time I played a tournament, any place in a round, if I didn’t like how I was swinging, I would change it. I go back and look at a lot of times I did that, and who knows why I did it, but I just said: ‘This is not what I want to be doing. I need to make an adjustment, and I need to make it now, and I’ve got to do it without destroying myself to do it.’

GARY PLAYER: Bound for Great Things

Tiger had advantages physically and in his early exposure to the game that I didn’t have. It put him on the road to being the greatest golfer who ever lived. But the thing where we were equal, or I might have even had more of, was drive. Man, I was driven. There is never enough success for me.

One of the first things I noticed about Tiger is his strong belief in his destiny. He carried himself with a peaceful but powerful sense that he was bound for great things. I understand that feeling. It was vital to my inner view of myself, especially when I knew others might not have shared it. But that only made me more determined.

When I was 15, I broke my neck showing off for some other boys by jumping headfirst into what I thought was a pit of soft leaves and grass, and hit the bottom. I had to stay inactive for nearly a year. I had been playing golf for only a year, but I was already consumed by the game. During my convalescence, I would be alone in the house and stand in front of a mirror, saying over and over: ‘You’re the greatest golfer in the world.’ It was absurd, but something told me that mattered. Later, I learned from reading and befriending Norman Vincent Peale. He once wrote: ‘If you want something and you go for it, you will be astonished at the values you will find.’

My parents, Harry and Muriel, always encouraged us. I’m sure it gave me the belief that what I could conceive, I could achieve. It’s the greatest gift you can give a child.

My older brother, Ian, was a tremendous influence on me. I remember at 8 or 9 trying to run a five-mile course with him, but I fell down less than halfway, exhausted. I cried: ‘Ian, I can’t make it.’ He yanked me to my feet and very sternly told me: ‘You can do anything you want to. Remember that. There’s no room for can’t in this life.’ Then he kicked me on the backside to emphasise the point. Ever since, if I’ve ever been tempted to say I can’t, I feel that kick again.

A golfer’s true greatness is revealed not when he’s playing his best, but when he’s not and still manages to win. For all his talent, Tiger has shown even more will, and so often when he was fighting his swing he still found a way. There were many times in tournaments when I was lost, hitting absolute rubbish, but I would get the ball on the green and make the key putts. How does that happen? Desire. Tiger has always had more of that than the players he’s beaten. You feel as if he cares more than anyone else. I was told that when I played, I gave that impression.

Tiger has hit so many amazing shots under pressure. Often, with some players more than others, pressure can destroy performance. But I’ve found it’s amazing how the intense pressure of the crucial moment, when something special is required, produced the best shots of my career. I don’t know if you can say it’s luck if you continuously did that. Talent, maybe?

Obviously I’m pulling for Tiger — I am a big Tiger Woods fan. But I think we could look back and say that his downfall was striving for too much perfection. He was on the way to being the best player the world had ever known. He wins the US Open by 15 shots, and shortly after he’s having lessons and changing his swing. There is always a limit, and I don’t think he could have gotten better. I pursued better technique my whole career — my only regret is a lost chance to learn from Ben Hogan — and it’s a capricious thing that often doesn’t lead to improvement. Golf is such a very, very intricate game, and there is a limitation.

LEE TREVINO: A Reason for Everything

Tiger, like me, is obsessed with golf. People have to understand that he made himself what he is. He wasn’t born with that. Superstars make themselves that way.

When you want to be the best, you gotta do something extra. You can’t just do the same thing that everybody else is doing. All the great ones do that. I outpractised them. The better I did it, the more I’d like to see it, and the more I practised.

The secret is, everything that you do, there’s a reason. The good players figure out the why. Why that ball’s doing that. And why you can do this. Most people don’t do that.

I played a hook with a pretty swing until I came back from the Marine Corps and saw Ben Hogan hitting fades at Shady Oaks. After that, I figured out a way to play to avoid the left side. See, I play with two flags. I aim at this flag, but I hit it at that one. I’ll stand here, and I’ll go like this [simulates his open stance]. I’m looking right at the target. I don’t have to do this [looking more over his left shoulder from a square stance]. And then I played a block fade. You have to, if you’re aiming left. It’s in your mind, it’s in your make-up, it’s in your body. Putted the same way. Copied Jack Nicklaus, the greatest putter I’ve ever seen.

You have to respond to the target. During the swing, I look for the target in my subconscious mind. You can’t think when you swing. The more you think, the worse you’ll play. What’s happened, unfortunately, and I mean no disrespect by this, is that people who are teaching are getting way too crazy with too many little movements and muscles. You can’t let too many people mess with you. Mr Palmer had it right when he said: ‘Swing your swing.’

Tiger outsmarted himself. He didn’t realise that if he just maintained, he would still be winning everything. Instead, he wanted to do something else. He got bored. He wasn’t satisfied winning by 15. He wasn’t satisfied by winning 30 per cent of his tournaments. It was too easy for him. He was actually too good, and it got in his way.

Here’s what Butch Harmon told me. I said: ‘Tiger?’ He said: ‘Lee, I can’t teach him anymore. He knows more than I do about the swing. You can’t believe what he knows about this thing.’

Because Tiger dissected it like me. He knows why it happens this way when you do a certain thing. But like Butch said: ‘There are some guys that want somebody watching over them.’

I didn’t. Jack told me one time: ‘You’re the smartest golfer I ever met.’ That was the best compliment I’ve ever had. Ever had.

You never stop dreaming it. I love the art of it. I love the people. And still being able to go out and perform. With Tiger, it’s even more so. It would be very easy for him to say: ‘I don’t even want to mess with it.’ I mean, his retirement fund alone has got more money than AT&T. So no, he loves the sport, he loves competition, he loves to win, he loves to play well. That’s his whole thing. If Tiger does not hurt anymore, I think he’ll play until he’s 50, and then he’ll play the majors on the Champions Tour.

One of the greatest feelings in the world is when you’re out of pain. When my L-5 nerve was completely trapped, I was in that bed upstairs for three months. Wasn’t able to even put my pants on. I could not move. Then [after a 2004 procedure to implant a spinal spacer], no pain. It was like cutting me loose with 31 flavours. Tiger is going to be the same thing. He lost his body, but he didn’t lose his talent. And the longer he goes with no pain, the more confidence he’s going to build. And then he’s going to get up one day and say: ‘I’m back, baby!’

The post Speaking to the best — from Nicklaus to Faldo: What made Tiger Woods great? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Michael Bamberger
A small group of golf fans and autograph-collectors were on one side of a flimsy metal chain-link fence and Lee Trevino was on the other. This was near the driving range at the Old Course on Monday afternoon. The fence started to topple over, in Trevino’s direction. The brief, sudden roar that announces unfolding chaos went up. A security guard went running over.

“Mr Trevino, Mr Trevino, are you all right?”

Mr Trevino was busy just then. The 82-year-old golfing icon, activating his big bottom and short arms and bare hands — the tools of his profession, along with his mind — was holding the fence up while telling the people on the other side to pull as he pushed. Order was restored in no time. Trevino resumed signing.

Trevino has been struck by lightning. He has been broke and rich and broke and rich. He has been through periods where he was at odds with certain business partners, with his back, with the lords of Augusta. He could handle a falling fence and a group of polite, exuberant fans without batting an eye. He was handling everything.

“I watch you,” Trevino told the American golfer Brian Harman. “I see everything you’re doing.”

It was not meant as a literal truth. It was meant to convey: I’m current in this game, and the things I know will last forever. That was Harman’s take.

The left-handed golfer chatted with Trevino for a few minutes at the driving range. Harman was asking how closed you could get with your lead foot without getting too closed. Trevino talked about the relationship between the front foot and the back. Trevino has a PhD in the yin and the yang of golf. It was the first time Harman had spent time with him.

“Here’s a legend, on the range,” Harman said later. “To have a chance to talk to Lee Trevino and not do it, that would be just wrong. He has the gift for making the golf swing simple. Sometimes you get so stuck in the TrackMan numbers, and all the numbers, you lose that the golf swing is more art than science.” For Trevino, Harman said, golf was more art than science. He hopes it is for him too.

What Trevino did in his one-of-a-kind golfing life, he did by himself. (He won two US Opens, two Open Championships, two PGA Championships and scores of other events.) What he knows about golf, he figured out for himself. Whatever doors he opened in this world, through his skill at golf and savant-like understanding of it, he opened himself. Some of us are always drawn to golfers like that. Lee Elder. Moe Norman. Carlos Franco. Larry Nelson. Earl Woods, in his own way, had those qualities. He didn’t become an elite golfer, but his youngest son did.

Lee Trevino. David Cannon

About the only thing Trevino seems to need in his at-large golfing life is an audience to validate him. Jack Nicklaus never needed an audience. Neither did Ben Hogan or Mickey Wright or Woods. Arnold Palmer did. Seve Ballesteros did. Phil Mickelson does, even though he declined to play in Monday’s outing. Lee Trevino did and Lee Trevino does.

He doesn’t have that many opportunities to show off what he knows to the tiny population of the world that will understand what he’s talking about. Monday was one of those opportunities. He was on the course for about four hours, warming up, playing, hanging out, and he seemed completely, uniquely alive.

Regarding the validation thing: That’s OK. If we were all the same, the world would be a dull place. It’s the very thing that keeps Trevino young. He was playing in the four-hole exhibition for former champions on Monday afternoon. Nicklaus, his contemporary and foil, was not. “Come join us on 17 and 18 and I’ll ride in with you,” Trevino told Nicklaus as they gathered on the 1st tee. Yes, filling in as a 1st-tee starter. Trevino’s foursome included Woods, Rory McIlroy and Georgia Hall, the English golfer who won the 2018 Women’s British Open. They played the 1st and 2nd holes and when they arrived at the 17th tee, Nicklaus was there. There was a lot of talk and a lot of laughing. Trevino did a killing imitation of Nicklaus over a putt and Nicklaus laying sod over a long-ago pitch shot. Nicklaus was giggling. Woods was cracking up. Hall was trying to understand it.

But the most telling thing was this: Trevino bragging about his sand wedge, with 17 degrees of bounce (half that is more typical)! “For soft sand,” Trevino said. Like, in case he got into the Road Hole bunker. All his life, Trevino collected golf clubs like they were friends, and he put the exact clubs in play he needed for each round. His youngest son, Daniel, carried them in a small, plain black bag on Monday.

Lee Trevino with Tiger Woods at St Andrews. Harry How

A crowd had assembled in front of the Jigger Inn, there to see Tiger and Rory — and Trevino. Adam Scott came out of the Old Course Hotel to watch. He sees all of Tiger and Rory he needs to see. He was there to watch Trevino, walking, waggling, swinging. Pontificating. Trevino’s gait remains nearly perfect. When he walks into a golf ball and positions his feet, he looks completely at home. Nicklaus’ mind is still incredibly sharp, but playing even four flat, short holes for public consumption holds no interest for him and walking can be a struggle. Whatever Trevino is doing, it’s working.

On the range and by the practice green, an international parade of golfers and golf people — Harman, Jon Rahm of Spain, Sungjae Im of South Korea, the notably international golf instructors Dave Phillips and Pete Cowan — were hanging on Trevino’s every word. Shot after shot after shot was on the face. He hooked putts. He sliced putts. His putting stroke looks like a golf swing, not something produced by a machine. It’s hard to think of a golfer who putts like that today. Tiger released the clubhead, but Trevino released the body.

Trevino, forever, has been able to turn on and off his showman switch like you’re silencing your phone. When he feels the need, Trevino can be a storyteller, a comedian, a golf historian, a charmer. He wrapped up his day, the public portion of it, by telling a film crew about the charms of the R&A museum here, the scores of early Open winners, the numbers of holes they played, his love of history. It was extraordinary. The day was giving him what he needed. But here’s the more significant thing. He was giving us what we need: pure golf, at the place where it all began. He jump-started this week. He gave us what golf, the actual game, desperately needs.

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R&A snubs Greg Norman for Open Championship celebrations
Tiger takes a stroll around St Andrews
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Hovland reassures all weekend golfers with horrendous shank
Record prize money at 150th Open Championship

The post Open Championship 2022: Lee Trevino, the last pure golfer, steals the show on the Old Course at St Andrews appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Jack Nicklaus leaves Younger Hall after receiving the Freedom of St Andrews, with his wife Barbara prior to the 150th Open at St Andrews Old Course. Oisin Keniry/R&A

By John Huggan

In Britain, the natives have long been accomplished in the arts of both pomp and circumstance. Ceremony too, as was the case when the University of St Andrews and the Royal Burgh of St. Andrews Community Council hosted a wee get-together on Tuesday to give out five honorary degrees and make Jack Nicklaus — already Dr Nicklaus in their academic eyes — an honorary citizen of the Auld Grey Toon.

Watched by a packed audience in the Younger Hall on North Street — which included PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, USGA executive director Mike Whan and Augusta National president Fred Ridley among others — Catriona Matthew, Jose Maria Olazabal, Sandy Lyle, Lee Trevino and Bob Charles all emerged as ‘Doctors of Law’. Previous recipients include Gary Player, Colin Montgomerie, Seve Ballesteros, Peter Alliss, Nick Faldo, Peter Thomson, Charlie Sifford, Renee Powell, Tom Watson, Padraig Harrington, Arnold Palmer and Paul Lawrie.

All of which added another unforgettable chapter to the story of the place where, 64 years earlier, Bobby Jones had famously accepted the Freedom of St Andrews. He, Benjamin Franklin and now Nicklaus (with the modern equivalent) are the only three Americans so honoured.

This time was just as emotional, especially for 82-year-old Nicklaus. Back at the Home of Golf for the first time in 17 years, the 18-time major champion — two of which he won at the Old Course — was at times unable to continue. Just as he had done back in 1966, when he completed the career Grand Slam with victory in the Open Championship at Muirfield, the Golden Bear took refuge in the same phrase: “Do you mind if I just pause and enjoy this for a minute?”

No one did. One of the great things about the greatest game in the land where it began is the deep affection the Scots have always had for the truly great American players. As Nicklaus has more than once noted, he, Jones, Palmer and Ben Hogan have almost enjoyed more popularity in Scotland than in the United States.

Nicklaus was typically modest during his short address, drawing on a quote from the late, great American journalist Grantland Rice that ends with the line that even the most famous are “replaced by others and soon forgotten.” There was also time to remember the four shots Jack expended in Hell Bunker en route to a quintuple-bogey 10 on the Old Course’s par-5 14th hole during the 1995 Open. “I don’t want to go to hell again,” he said with a smile.

No one in the room was having any of that, of course. As Nicklaus wound up by thanking the people of St Andrews, “for remembering me and allowing me to be one of you”, everyone rose in what turned into a prolonged ovation. All of which again evoked memories of 1958, when a nearly disabled Jones noted that he “could take out of my life everything except my experiences at St Andrews and I would still have a rich, full life.” The only thing missing this time was a poignant rendition of the old Scottish song, “Will ye no come back again?”

Earlier, the graduation rituals — immaculately hosted by University Principal and Vice-Chancellor Sally Mapstone — provoked only occasional emotion from the recipients, although Olazabal was moved to tears by the presentation read by the university’s head of development operations, Louise Taylor.

Lee Trevino during a procession after Jack Nicklaus has been made an Honorary Citizen of St. Andrews. Ross Parker

There were laughs too. How could there not be with Trevino in the room? After telling the next man up, Charles, to get comfortable in his seat as he was going to talk “for a while”, the two-time Open champion made a typically witty speech. Inevitably, he found space for an old favourite among his many jokes.

“I have trouble getting to sleep,” he said. “Because I can’t wait to get up and hear what I have to say in the morning.”

And of course, the Merry Mex was moved to pay tribute to Nicklaus, an old friend as well as rival. Back when the Senior Tour first came into being, Trevino sent a dozen red roses to Barbara Nicklaus every week she kept husband Jack at home and “off the tour”. In 1990 that added up to 31 dozen flowers.

In conclusion though, even Trevino was serious. This is a man who has travelled further than perhaps any other golfer. Humble does not begin to describe his start in life. The first paragraph of his history in the programme says it all:

“Lee Buck Trevino was born in a three-room shack with no plumbing on a cotton farm in Garland, Texas, in December 1939 and raised by his mother, Juanita, and grandfather, Joe, a gravedigger. At the age of three he was picking cotton, at six helping irrigate the cemetery at night. The family moved to falls next to the then Glen Lakes GC, where Trevino learned to play on a makeshift three-hole dirt course in the caddie yard.”

“This is the greatest honour I’ve ever had,” he said. “This place is truly special.”

As was this ceremony. “No sport celebrates its heroes better than golf,” was Olazabal’s verdict. “And no country does it better than Scotland.”

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The post Open Championship 2022: ‘No country does it better than Scotland’ as Jack Nicklaus receives honour at emotional ceremony in St Andrews appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
For modern golf fans, the name “Mr. Lu” is likely to elicit little reaction. But for those of an older generation, it carries a certain visage: a slender golfer wearing a bright blue porkpie hat winning over fans as he modestly tipped the hat to acknowledge their applause while nearly pulling off a monumental upset in a major championship.

Taiwan’s Lu Liang-Huan, who died on March 15 of unspecified causes at age 85, finished second to Lee Trevino at Royal Birkdale during the 1971 Open Championship. IMG’s Mark McCormack is credited with dubbing him “Mr. Lu” during a BBC broadcast, and the story behind the hat became its own interesting tale: he bought it a few days earlier to protect himself from the sun after learning of the surprisingly warm sunny forecast for the week in England.

Lu, playing in the Open for only the second time, was in the hunt with Trevino down to the final hole, where he hit his drive into the left rough on the par 5. With his feet in a fairway bunker below his ball, Lu choked up on a 5-wood and took a big swing with his second shot, falling backward after hitting it. The ball hooked into the crowd, and hit Lillian Tipping, a spectator, in the head before bouncing back into the fairway. Tipping would be taken to the hospital with a concussion, and Lu was distraught over what happened. Amazingly, Lu got up and down for birdie, but Trevino birdied the hole, too, to pull out a one-shot win.

That night, Lu went to the hospital to check on Tipping, only to learn she’d been discharged. Tipping eventually reached out to Lu the following week at the French Open, sending him daily messages encouraging him to play well. He would go on to win the event, the first Asian golfer to win on the then European Tour. Lu later treated Tipping and her husband to a trip to Chinese Taipei and they kept in touch for years.

Lu’s golf exploits include a decades-long career on the Asian Tour and Japan Tour, where he was an eight-time winner. He represented Taiwan several times in the World Cup, and was part of the country’s lone win in 1972 playing alongside Hsieh Min-Nan. Lu play in three more Open Championships after Birkdale, finishing T-5 in 1974 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. He also competed in four Masters.

Lu first played the game while in elementary school in Taiwan, making his own clubs out of bamboo and whacking guavas as balls. He caddied as a youth to help make money for his family and eventually became an accomplished player, winning the inaugural Hong Kong Open in 1959.

We are saddened to learn of the passing of 2-time Hong Kong Open champion Lu Liang-huan at the age of 85. Mr Lu won the inaugural HK Open in 1959 before becoming our resident pro from 1962 to 1964. His 2nd victory at Fanling came in 1974. Our thoughts are with his family. pic.twitter.com/7EdEcfz1lz

— Hong Kong Golf Club (@hkgolfclub) March 18, 2022

Interestingly, Lu and Trevino had known each other prior to Birkdale. Lu served in the Chinese Air Force and played golf against Trevino in Okinawa in 1959 when Trevino was in the Marine Corp. “I remember playing him in Taiwan one day and he beat me something like 8 and 7,” Trevino said during the week at Birkdale. “He has called me ‘Bird’ ever since because I used to fly the ball past his short drives.”

C.T. Pan, the 2021 Olympic bronze medalist from Chinese Taipei, took to Facebook this week to remember Lu.

“Not only did he have high-end golf skills, but because of his sharpness and coolness, Mr. Lu is the teacher I looked up to most in my childhood,” Pan wrote. “Thank you teacher Lu for your contributions to golf. May you rest in peace.”

The post Affectionately known as ‘Mr. Lu,’ 1971 Open runner-up Lu Liang-Huan, dies at 85 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Alex Myers
In the first of a four-part series revisiting the inaugural two seasons of Local Knowledge, we look at some of the unique characters highlighted in our episodes.

From trailblazers to folk heroes to singular personalities, these figures have made for some of our favourite subjects. Whether they racked up major championships or controversial headlines—and in some cases, both—all of them were compelling stories.

We start with Babe Didrikson Zaharias, arguably the most dominant athlete—not just golfer—the world has ever seen. Then we move to Jan Stephenson (At the 5:50 mark in the episode), who followed in the Babe’s footsteps on the LPGA Tour, but took a much different path.

Parts of our Moe Norman episode follow (10:15) before stories about Lee Trevino, Ben Hogan and Phil Mickelson from Golf Digest’s Guy Yocom (14:20). And we finish with current three-time defending world long drive champ Kyle Berkshire (19:50), who is leading a power charge that could be coming to the PGA Tour soon. Please have a listen:

The post Our latest podcast examines some of golf’s most compelling characters appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
The Ryder Cup affords golf fans the unique opportunity to watch a generation’s best players join forces. The results aren’t always positive—looking at you, Mickelson/Woods 2004—but when the pieces fit just right and the putts start to fall, magic happens. Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal projected an air of impassioned invincibility. Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth exuded a youthful bravado. Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari made golf look impossibly easy and irresistibly enjoyable.

Those power duos inspired a thought experiment: Say you’re the captain of an all-time Ryder Cup team. Ages do not matter, nor do physical concerns like distance or equipment. You can choose any two Americans and any two Europeans to play together, regardless of era. Who would you take? (And no, you can’t use Seve more than once). Our answers are as follows.

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Ryder Cup Rewatchables: Henrik Stenson’s Cup Clinching Putt in 2006

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Seve Ballesteros/Ian Poulter

Their competitiveness alone would be enough to kill a horse. Ballesteros, part of the European “Famous Five” that played a role in elevating the Ryder Cup to the massive institution it is today, endeared himself to his teammates and incensed his opponents with his hard-nosed, combative style and his sheer unwillingness to lose. Poulter hasn’t matched Ballesteros’ record in golf tournaments not named the Ryder Cup, but the Englishman has emerged as a spiritual offspring of sorts, serving as the emotional spark for the six teams he’s played on and compiling a 14-6-2 overall record with a 5-0-1 singles mark. There’d be fist pumps and guttural yells, belly laughs and probably an awkward moment of contention with the Americans. It’d be delicious.

Paul Azinger/Justin Thomas

The American answer to the above pair. Azinger and Ballesteros clashed in the 1989 and 1991 Ryder Cup, with the Spaniard accusing the Floridian of lying after a particularly testy face-off at Kiawah Island. Azinger refused to back down from Ballesteros, beating him 1 up on European soil in the first singles match in ’89 but losing both his matches alongside Chip Beck to the Ballesteros/Olazabal powerhouse in ’91. Azinger’s overall record is a pedestrian 5-7-3, but this is less about wanting to win and more about wanting to watch him and Seve go at it. Thomas, on the other hand, is off to a 4-1-0 start in his Ryder Cup career after he was a rare bright spot for the Americans in Paris. He relished the chance to face Rory McIlroy in the first singles match and beat him, too. There’s not a more competitive player on this year’s American side and his fiery tendencies should play well in the many Ryder Cups in his future.

Bernhard Langer/Henrik Stenson

Two stone-cold ball-striking assassins. Langer, another Famous Fiver, played on 10 Ryder Cup teams and ranks third all-time in points won with 24—despite his Ryder Cup career being most closely associated with his missed five-footer at Kiawah in 1991. Stenson, known affectionately as the Ice Man, has gone 10-7-2 in his five Ryder Cup appearances. Think of this duo as the anti-Ballesteros/Poulter; while those guys are making miraculous up-and-down pars and infuriating their opponents with their celebrations, Langer/Stenson would wear you out with fairways and greens, and hardly smile as they polish off a 4-and-3 victory.

Tiger Woods/Jack Nicklaus

Who wouldn’t want to watch the consensus best and second-best players of all-time—we’ll let you decide the order—tee it up together? Nicklaus and Woods are two different men with two different styles of competing, but it’s what they share that makes this such a tantalizing what-if: prodigious length, flawless execution under pressure and a propensity for making huge putts in massive moments. Give prime Jack Nicklaus 2021 equipment and we’re willing to bet he could keep up with early 2000s Tiger Woods, who was the longest player on the planet. No U.S. captain could ever quite figure out a perfect partner for Woods—he’s an awful 9-19-1 in non-singles matches—but something tells us he and the Golden Bear would click just fine. Real recognize real, as the kids say.

Arnold Palmer/Phil Mickelson

Palmer became universally loved for his daring style, legendary kindness and an ability to naturally mingle with fans. No one is Palmer, but when it comes to fan adoration and go-for-broke style, Mickelson is about as close as we’ve got. Palmer’s Ryder Cup career came mostly during the non-competitive years of the 1960s and 1970s, so we’d love to see how he’d react to the spirited dynamic now that continental Europe is involved. The galleries following this one would be good for a few holes, because even the most hostile European crowd wouldn’t be able to root against Lefty and The King. Damn, that has a nice ring to it.

Jordan Spieth/Lee Trevino

They’d simply never shut up, and it’d be hilarious to witness. Spieth’s constant narration of his round and his Michael! shouts to his caddie would pair beautifully with Trevino’s aimless musings and classic one-liners. Plus, Trevino’s ball-striking combined with Spieth’s short-game magic could produce an unrivaled foursomes duo. They’re also both from Texas, albeit from vastly different backgrounds—Spieth grew up at the country club, Trevino working on the cotton fields. Something tells us these two would have loved playing with each other.

Tommy Fleetwood/Francesco Molinari

Stuart Franklin

They were already good pals going into the 2018 Ryder Cup, but they left it joined as one: Moliwood. The two won all four matches rather easily in Paris—including three over Tiger—and could not have enjoyed themselves more in the process. Yes, we know, the point of this exercise is to pair two players of different eras … but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. #MoliwoodForever.

Anthony Kim/Patrick Reed

You could put Anthony Kim with anyone and they’d probably make it on this list. That’s how much we miss AK, who was so perfectly in his element at the only Ryder Cup he played, in 2008, when he went 2-1-1 and crushed Sergio Garcia in singles. He was Captain America before Captain America, so to speak. And while Reed’s Ryder Cup reputation has taken a hit with a poor performance in Paris (and his blabbering afterwards), early career Patrick Reed was an absolutely all-time Ryder Cup character. Pairing a 23-year-old AK and a 23-year-old P-Reed would be a whole mess of chaotic brashness in the best way possible. If only.

The post 8 all-time pairings we wish we could have seen appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

”These young guys out here now, they’re always checkin` things. Checkin` those little yardage books, checkin` their gloves, checkin` the wind, checkin` whatever they`re checkin`. Heck, when I started playing out here in 1967, if you took four hours to play a round of golf, that was a lot. Now, that`s fast.”

And that was before players like Bryson DeChambeau started checking for things like air density. So, yeah, the pace of play hasn’t improved. On any professional tour. Or at your local muni.

That’s why one video of Trevino that recently surfaced got so much traction on Golf Twitter the past few days. It’s a clip of the six-time major champ at the 1975 Masters, and let’s just say he doesn’t take a lot of time checking anything before nearly making an ace on the par-3 12th. Check it out:

Lee Trevino preshot routine pic.twitter.com/j9kq8SWDUk https://t.co/tjpzFRPtI5

— robmillertime (@robmillertime) August 17, 2020

Just a little spit on the hands, pull a club, step into the shot and BAM! And keep in mind, with water and swirling winds that’s one of the scariest tee shots in golf. During the final round. Trevino played it like it was the No. 18 handicap hole during a Monday practice round with the sun going down. Impressive.

Trevino famously didn’t have a great record at Augusta National—nor did he like the place much, even skipping the event three times in his prime. But this birdie helped produce a T-10, matching his best-ever finish in the tournament. More importantly, it serves as a reminder that we could all pick up the pace on the course.

The post Golf Twitter is loving this old clip of Lee Trevino at the Masters—and for good reason appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Just as with the previous posts, I’ve relied on the knowledge of an able historian to help me navigate this difficult question. My guru on this journey was Laurie Rae, Senior Curator at the R&A. Mr. Rae gave generously of his time to help winnow 148 Opens down to the “best” 15. The wisdom is all his, the perceived errors in ranking all mine. Let’s begin!

15. 1954, Peter Thomson, Royal Birkdale

If there are two historical golfers who merit more attention than they get, they are Peter Thomson and Bobby Locke. Rae didn’t want to use the word “forgotten,” but I will. At least in America, Thomson and Locke don’t get the credit they deserve, possibly because neither took home an American major and possibly because they missed the early peak of televised golf. But for a period in the 1950s, they were dominant at the Open, winning eight of 10 claret jugs between 1949 and 1958. The ’54 Open saw Thomson claim the first of his five, and become the first Australian to capture the championship. He and Locke were among those who fought it out in the final round at Royal Birkdale, and though I couldn’t find footage of Thomson’s sand recovery on 16, I did find this delightful newsreel showing the action of the final holes:

14. 1937, Henry Cotton, Carnoustie

Cotton’s triumph in 1934 was critical because it broke a streak of eight straight American wins, but his victory in ’37 was even more important in that he defeated the entirety of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, all of whom had stuck around to play at Carnoustie after their 8-4 win in late June. Cotton’s brilliant final-round 71 came in torrential conditions, and he later said that it was one of the finest rounds of his career. With that result, he overcame a three-shot 54-hole deficit to defeat among others Byron Nelson. According to Rae, the Englishman’s win “maintained British interest in the championship itself.”

13. 1992, Nick Faldo, Muirfield

Photo by Getty Images

As Rae noted, Faldo was in the prime of his prime, going for his fifth major in six years. He had won the Irish Open, and at the start of this Open, he looked fundamentally unstoppable. He set a 36-hole record, beat his own 54-hole record and came into the final round leading by four shots. It looked like a coronation, but it was not—a miserable stretch from 11 to 14 saw him lose three shots, American John Cook catching him and taking the lead on 16. For Faldo, this “dominant” Open now became about resilience. Pulling himself together, he birdied two of the final four holes and squeaked out a one-shot win—a testament to perseverance and even acceptance in the face of what must have been massive disappointment, and the greatest of his three Opens.

12. 1927, Bobby Jones, Old Course at St. Andrews

Photo by Topical Press Agency

In 1921, a younger, more impetuous Bobby Jones became so angry at his play in the third round at St. Andrews that he tore up his scorecard and withdrew after 11 holes. He then insulted the Old Course, and the St. Andrews press fired back, writing “Master Bobby is just a boy, and an ordinary boy at that.” This, then, was a kind of comeback story, because in the interval, Jones had come to love both the course and the town. And as fate would have it, they loved him back. When he won by six shots, he was carried off the green by a jubilant crowd, and even asked that his trophy be kept in Scotland with the R&A. By 1958, Jones had become just the second American “Freeman of the City” in St. Andrews, an honor he shared with none other than Ben Franklin. At that ceremony, Jones said of the Old Course that, “the more you study it, the more you love it, and the more you love it, the more you study it.”

11. 1953, Ben Hogan, Carnoustie

What do you call it when the greatest golfer of his generation comes over for the first and only time in his life, had just a week to prepare for the links style, improved in every round and won by four strokes? You call it Ben Hogan being Ben Hogan. The win capped an incredible year in major championships that also saw him capture the Masters and U.S. Open. He remains the only golfer to ever win those three events in the same year.

10. 1984, Seve Ballesteros, Old Course at St. Andrews

I’ll be honest: I’m in this one for the little dance Seve did when he sunk his putt on the 72nd hole. But historically, it merits top-10 status for the incredible drama at the end. Tom Watson, heading into the final round tied for the lead, had one of his greatest chances to win what would have been his record-tying sixth Open. With two holes to play, Watson and Seve were tied. Seve had a putt to take the lead on 18, while Watson was struggling to make his par on the road hole. The drama can best be seen starting at the 44:30 mark here:

Seve’s putt instigated a two-shot swing, perhaps one of the most famous in major championship golf, and added his name to the list of legendary winners at the Home of Golf.

9. 1896, Harry Vardon, Muirfield

This was the first of Vardon’s record six Open Championship wins, and though Rae said that every one of them was noteworthy enough to merit inclusion on the list, this one stood out because of how Vardon out-duelled his great rival J.H. Taylor over a 36-hole playoff. While the tournament’s final round came on a Thursday, the playoff wasn’t played until Saturday, since both Vardon and Taylor had to play a different 36-hole tournament on the Friday. Taylor won that one, but Vardon beat him at Muirfield. Taylor would win again, though, and in fact there was a 21-year period where Vardon, Taylor and James Braid won 16 championships between them. “They were the superstars of the Open,” Rae said.

8. 1868, Tom Morris Jr., Prestwick

At the time, Tom Morris Jr. (if you’re wondering, yes, I was slightly disappointed that Rae didn’t call him “Young Tom Morris”) was the youngest player in Open Championship history at 17. Prestwick was a 12-hole course, and the three rounds of the championship were all held on a single day. Morris Jr. set a record when he shot 51 on his first round, which was then bested by his father, who shot a 50 in the second round to take a one-shot lead. In the final round, though, Morris Jr. struck back, carding a 49 to beat his dad by three shots and win his first Open (which came with a massive £6 prize). This was the first of four straight Opens victories for Young Tom. As Rae pointed out, his story is all the more poignant because of his untimely death—Morris Jr. died on Christmas Day 1875 at age 24 from a pulmonary haemorrhage. “There were often very few competitors at this time,” Rae said, “but the golf was no less impressive and the champions no less dominant than they are today.” Morris Jr. remains the youngest Open winner in history, and his father is still the oldest.

7. 1972, Lee Trevino, Muirfield

In terms of the greatest shots in Open history, Trevino’s chip on 17 on Sunday ranks near the top. He had bungled the par 5 up to that point, and had hole out for par while Tony Jacklin, tied for the lead, had a 15-footer for birdie. It looked very much like Jacklin would head to the final hole with at least a one-shot edge. “I really felt, on the 17th, like I’d broken him,” Jacklin would later say. But in one of the great feats of match-play-within-stroke-play golf, Trevino turned the tables. Watch it play out, including Jacklin’s subsequent putts, starting at the 3:45 mark:

For Jacklin, who had watched Trevino hole out twice the day before, the loss was unbearable. Later, he said, “I was never the same again after that. I didn’t ever get my head around it—it definitely knocked the stuffing out of me somehow.” Jacklin had already won the Open in 1969, luckily, and would go on to transform the European Ryder Cup team as its captain, but what shows the emotional swings of better than that moment, which gave Trevino his second straight claret jug?

6. 1961, Arnold Palmer, Royal Troon

Photo by Bob Thomas

The impact here was more wide-ranging than any drama on the course, in which Palmer beat Dai Rees by a shot. What really mattered was that Palmer was the first American champion since Hogan in 1953, and his win did more to increase the status of the Open in America than anything before. According to Rae, a figure as beloved as Palmer, who believed so much in the history and importance of the Open as the oldest of the majors—this was his second trip over, having finished runner-up in ’60—and who wanted to win it so badly, fundamentally changed how the tournament was viewed in the eyes of American professionals. Many had stopped making the trip due to travel concerns, the low prize money and various other reasons. Palmer’s victory completely changed the perception. You can see it in the results—the long American dry spell was over, and in the 60 Opens that started with his win, Americans have won more than half. In his unique way, Palmer made it matter again.

5. 1970, Jack Nicklaus, Old Course at St. Andrews

It seems like the great ones always manage to get a win at St. Andrews, and for Nicklaus, this was the first of two. Interestingly, Doug Sanders only needed a par on the 18th hole to pull out the victory, but he missed a three-foot putt after being distracted by something in his eye line. Despite Sanders’s disappointment, he battled hard in the 18-hole playoff. It came down to the 18th hole, when Nicklaus took off his yellow sweater and hit one of the most famous shots of his career—a drive that actually flew over the green, travelling about 360 yards in total.

He chipped close from there, made his birdie putt and beat Sanders by one. At the end of this video, you can see Nicklaus, thrilled beyond self-control when his winning putt caught the right and edge and fell, actually threw his putter in the air, which nearly managed to hit Sanders as it fell.

4. 2016, Henrik Stenson, Royal Troon

“Some of the finest links golf you’d ever seen,” Rae said, and really, what more needs adding to this incredible fight between Stenson and Mickelson? It ended with Mickelson cooling off, just slightly, but Stenson never did, tying Johnny Miller’s major record (for a winner) with a final-round 63, and set a cumulative Open record with his 72-hole score in relation to par of 20 under. In many ways, it was also the best possible result—Mickelson had already won his Open in 2013, and Stenson was a player who deserved a major, but was starting to look like he might never get one. To win the Open, as a European, felt appropriate, and secured Stenson’s legacy. Plus, there was that record-setting final putt:

3. 2000, Tiger Woods, Old Course at St. Andrews

It seems like every major has its quintessential Transcendent Tiger year, in which the GOAT demolishes the field in ways that defy belief. The Masters in 1997, the U.S. Open in 2000, and maybe, at a stretch, the 2006 PGA. For the Open Championship, it was back in the greatest year of his great career, 2000. This was the “Millennium Open,” at the most famous course in the world, and 239,000 spectators watched him post a then-Open record 19 under, beating his nearest opponent by eight strokes and securing the career Grand Slam at the age of 24, the youngest to achieve the feat. Rae reminded me of an incredible facet of his performance: In 72 holes of superb course management, he didn’t find a single bunker. Remarkable anywhere, but especially at St. Andrews. And it’s also worth remembering that coming on the heels of his crushing Pebble Beach win, it legitimately seemed like Tiger might never lose again. This was a kind of dominance we’d never seen before, and haven’t since.

hoto by JONATHAN UTZ

2. 2019, Shane Lowry, Royal Portrush

Call it recency bias, and in fact I implied as much to Rae when he ranked it second on his list. I made a small note to adjust the ranking later—the privileges of a writer/dictator—but the more I thought about his argument, the more sense it made. The Open, more than any other major, is about history, and the significance of holding the first Open in Northern Ireland since 1951 is about as historical as it gets. In the interlude, that country fell into decades of religious and political conflict, and the symbolism of the R&A returning to Royal Portrush was enormous. To pull off a safe event, embraced by the people, and for an Irish golfer to win … well, it didn’t matter that the final day lacked drama. “It made your heartbeat quicker to witness it,” Rae told me, and in the end, I agree with him—the historical importance is unmatched.

1. Tom Watson, 1977, Turnberry

Students of the game knew No. 1 without having to scroll down, or else would have been enraged to find anything else in the top spot. “The Duel in the Sun” between Watson and Jack Nicklaus was simply one of the greatest golf spectacles ever, and one that, to quote Rae, “will forever be spoken about.” It was about the great rivalry between the two men, it was about the sportsmanship on display, and, of course, it was about the golf. “It went beyond natural chronology,” Rae said. “It was legendary.”

Watson, 27, and Nicklaus, 37, matched each other score for score in the first three rounds at Turnberry, hosting the Open for the first time, pulling away together where by the end, they were 10 shots better than anyone else in the field. In the closing stretch, where Watson birdied four of the final six holes for the dramatic victory, but perhaps it’s best summarized by a quote from that final-round Saturday, when Watson turned to Nicklaus and said, “this is what it’s all about isn’t it?”

“You bet it is,” Nicklaus replied.

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By Dave Shedloski
Not long before Jack Nicklaus won the 1986 Masters, the crowning achievement to his unparalleled career in major championships, Lee Trevino was begging anyone who would listen to him to not agitate the Golden Bear about his latest victory drought.

“Leave him alone,” Trevino was quoted as saying. “Please, leave him alone. When the Bear is asleep you don’t wake him up. You wake him up and get clawed to pieces.”

Trevino’s warning came to mind Wednesday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Justin Rose, the No. 2 player in the world, was asked about the ongoing frustrations Rory McIlroy was encountering the last few years and, in particular, the last two months when the four-time major champion has posted top-five finishes in each of his last four starts but remains without a victory since he won this event a year ago with a lightning-in-a-can (of iced tea and lemonade) final-round 64.

That win, by the way, ended an 18-month drought for the native of Northern Ireland, whom Rose said can make winning look easy. Of course, that’s when winning came easy. But with a mere two titles in 30 months, the only thing that comes easy for McIlroy right now are moral victories. “Little personal wins,” he called them.

Like it or not, little wins are things you take away from losses.

“The great thing about Rory – when you’re competing against him not the great thing – but when he’s questioned the kind of somehow snaps into gear and proves a lot of people wrong,” said Rose, who played with McIlroy in that final round last year here at Bay Hill Club. “He’s done that through his career a couple of times. So, I’m going to be careful about saying too much.”

What great player isn’t questioned when he appears to not be fulfilling his promise or when he has encountered a slump? Hasn’t Dustin Johnson, who recently reclaimed the world No. 1 ranking, faced the question constantly because he owns just one major title and a slew of inexplicable near-misses? Isn’t that Jordan Spieth’s burden after a winless 2018 and sub-par start to this season? Isn’t a question mark permanently affixed to the career of Greg Norman?

For his part, McIlroy, one of the most earnest interview subjects in the game, won’t be cowed into taking the bait of admitting any frustration. The word was uttered several times Wednesday on the eve of the 40th anniversary of this event at Palmer’s Bay Hill, but never by the Ulsterman.

“Obviously, the ultimate goal is to win tournaments, yes, but that’s, there’s little mini goals that you need to set yourself within those weeks, and for the most part every time I’ve teed it up this week I’ve achieved those,” he said. “But it’s tough to win on tour. It’s the nature of what we do. We’re playing in a very competitive environment with the best players in the world, and you sometimes feel like you’ll play well and you just didn’t play well enough or someone will play better. So, I’m very happy with where everything is.

“It’s about trying to take the little personal wins,” he continued. “Leaving the golf course whether it be in Mexico or Riviera or Torrey Pines, I left happy. Even though I didn’t win the golf tournament, I left happy with where my game was when I left and was in the frame of mind that it was step in the right direction. So that’s all I can really do.”

In his last start, at the WGC-Mexico Championship, McIlroy, ranked No. 6 in the world, missed some early opportunities to apply heat to Johnson, the eventual winner, but he finished with a flourish to shoot 16-under 268, a score that would have won at Club de Golf Chapultepec in 2017 and gotten him in a playoff last year. Instead, he lost by three.

“He’s obviously got that type of game that when he wins it looks so easy that you think, ‘Why aren’t you doing this week in week out?’ But we all know that golf isn’t that way,” Rose said of his Ryder Cup teammate. “There’s many aspects that go into winning it’s not just looking comfortable on the golf course or swinging the club beautifully, you got to make putts here and there and he ran into D.J. obviously in Mexico. … Clearly, he’s played well enough to win a golf tournament, it’s just you run into the wrong guy on the wrong week. So, he’s doing a lot of good things. If I was Rory I would basically be telling myself to be patient and keep focusing on what I’m doing and keep creating the chances, but one win in 12 months is not going to be acceptable for Rory, for sure.”

It’s particularly not acceptable for a guy who broke the U.S. Open scoring record in 2011 and won by a record eight strokes in the 2012 PGA Championship. He added the 2014 Open Championship and the PGA as part of three straight victories that summer. Since then, he enjoyed an epic playoff burst to capture the FedEx Cup title in 2016, capped by a victory in the Tour Championship, but since then all he has is one feel-good moment last March that appeared to augur a big year.

Instead, he got outplayed by Patrick Reed the following months to add to his string of disappointments at the Masters – “four,” he pointed out, obviously keeping track of his best chances at Augusta National – and ended up in a second-place logjam in the Open at Carnoustie two strokes behind Francesco Molinari.

Since the start of 2018, McIlroy is 0-for-8 playing in the final group of the final round. Granted, he trailed in most of them, but of his 13 stroke-play victories on the PGA Tour, seven came from trailing after 54 holes. Same for many of his nine European Tour titles.

With another Masters approaching and his quest for the career grand slam still unfulfilled, McIlroy has to assess whether he would rather have a win before the year’s first major or be content with more tournaments simply being in contention.

“I think I just go back to like good golf is good golf,” he replied. “So probably getting in, having chances to win. Obviously, the more chances you have, the more chances you’re going to have of getting over that line. If I just keep the form that I’m on, I would be happy with that.”

Most people would be. But does one of this era’s most talented golfer want to feel happy or does he want to feel fulfilled?

“Yeah, again, if I’m on this path, which I think I am, to becoming a better golfer and a better player,” he said, “and having a better mindset and trying to come to terms better with perceived losses, whether they be second place, third place, fourth place, if someone were to tell me you have to go through 12 or 18 months or 24 months of this but come out the other side of it and you will have those five-win seasons, six-win seasons, these 12, 18, 24 months will have been worth it.

“So again, it’s trying to get away from being results-oriented and be more focused on the process and on the present and just trying to be better,” he added. “I feel like I’m on that path to improvement and becoming a better golfer and I can feel I’m a better golfer right now than I was a couple of years ago. I might have won more a couple of years ago, but I feel like I’m putting things in place to get to a point where I’ll get back to those four-win, five-win, six-win seasons. But you can’t just turn it on like that.

“If I keep working on these things and keep doing the right things, hopefully, sooner or later, I’ll turn all these good finishes into a win.”

The Masters would be the best place to start, but, frankly, anywhere would be a good place to start. And any time now.

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By Dave Shedloski
AKRON, Ohio — Goodbye iconic water tower. Goodbye chicken wraps and crunchy cream pies. Goodbye Arnold Palmer Bridge. Goodbye Monster.

Today’s final round of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational is the PGA Tour’s farewell sojourn over the South Course at Firestone Country Club, which annually has hosted a professional golf tournament since 1954 when the Rubber City Open was elevated to an official tour event and moved to the facility that tire magnate Harvey S. Firestone built for his employees. Sure, the PGA Tour Champions will continue the tradition next year with the Senior Players Championship, but Firestone always has been a traditional home for the game’s top players, whether it was hosting the PGA Championship, the American Golf Classic, the World Series of Golf or 19 editions of this WGC event.

The tournament moves to TPC Southwind in Memphis next year, sponsored by FedEx, which pours an exorbitant amount of money into the FedEx Cup and wanted a WGC event.

“It’s a sentimental favorite,” said Paul Casey, who has nine top-25 finishes in his previous 13 appearances in this event. “It’s easy to like it here. We’ve made friends here. The whole community is wrapped up in it. There’s a nice familiarity that’s been built up through the decades here, and you can’t minimize how that makes a tournament special.”

Tommy Bolt won the first tournament played at Firestone, and four years later, as the reigning U.S. Open champion, he played a bit of gamesmanship on a young and unsuspecting Jack Nicklaus, who as an 18-year-old amateur was making his debut in a tour event.

“I remember Tommy putting his arm around me walking down the first hole. ‘Don’t you worry, Jackie boy, old Tommy will take care of you.’ He was giving me the business right off the bat,” Nicklaus recalled. “I missed six three-foot putts on the front nine, little short things. He got rid of me fast on that front nine. It’s part of the education of a golfer.”

After beginning the third round just one shot off the lead, Nicklaus slid to a 76. But he rallied with a 68 the last day to finish at seven-under 277, tied for 15th place. He would go on to win at Firestone seven times, including the 1975 PGA Championship.

“This has been a pretty special place for me,” the Golden Bear said in 2013 after visiting Firestone to receive the annual Ambassador of Golf Award that year from Northern Ohio Golf Charities. “I have so many great memories of Firestone and all the years I played here. I loved coming up here. I loved playing the golf course. It suited my eye. It suited my game. I always said, ‘I don’t care what’s going on. I’m going to get to Firestone, and I’ll be able to play well there.’ ”

Bettmann
Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus walk up a fairway in a practice round at the Firestone Country Club during a tournament in the 1960s.

Like Nicklaus, Tiger Woods first saw Firestone when he was an amateur, playing casual rounds on the South and North Courses—the facility has 54 holes—with his father, Earl. And like Nicklaus, Woods always seemed capable of raising his game when he arrived, winning on the South Course eight times, a tour record he shares with himself (at Bay Hill and Torrey Pines) and Sam Snead (at Greensboro). The last of his 79 tour titles came on these grounds in 2013 when he equaled the course record of 61 for a second time.

“It’s always been one of my favorite golf courses on the entire tour, and it’s unfortunate that it is leaving,” said Woods, who climbed from 696th in the world at the start of the year to 50th after the Open Championship to squeak into the field. “This has been one of the very few tournaments that is kind of a small-town atmosphere. It’s a very simple, straightforward golf course, which we don’t see very often anymore. This is away from the stadium golf that we seem to play a lot now on tour. As far as the future of this event, I know it has to move, and it has to go forward and off to Memphis, but it’s one of the reasons why I tried so hard to get in this event, is because it does mean something special to me.”

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Winners at Firestone through the years have included many of the game’s biggest names: Nicklaus, Woods, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Tom Weiskopf, Nick Price, Greg Norman, Curtis Strange, Jose Maria Olazabal, Phil Mickelson, David Duval, Adam Scott, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy.

It has seen the ridiculous and the sublime. “Ridiculous” was the first word Palmer used to describe the long par-5 16th hole on the South Course, created in 1959 when Robert Trent Jones redesigned Bert Way’s truculent layout for the 1960 PGA Championship, won by Jay Hebert. Palmer was in the hunt until he suffered a quadruple-bogey 8 in the third round after hitting into the new pond in front of the green. Later he called it “a monster,” and the name stuck. Last year, a bridge near the 16th green was dedicated in honor of the late Palmer.

Ridiculous was the 8-iron Woods used to airmail the ninth green in the second round of the ’06 tournament. His ball ricocheted off the cart path, over the clubhouse roof and into a loading area, where it was picked up by a staff worker delivering crunchy cream pies. After a frantic search, Woods was allowed a free drop—the clubhouse was not deemed out of bounds—and saved par.

Andy Lyons/Getty Images
The water town at Firestone has become an iconic part of the Akron, Ohio, course.

Even more ridiculous was the melee that unfolded in the 1994 edition, played on the North Course, when an impatient John Daly hit into the group in front of him the final day. One of the players ahead was club pro Jeff Roth, whose father confronted Daly after the round and ended up scuffling with him.

The sublime includes the ridiculous 262 aggregate total Olazabal posted in 1990, well before the advent of the Pro V1 and grasp of trampoline effect. (His win in ’94 makes him the only man to win official events on each course.) Only Woods has bettered the mark, submitting a commanding 259 total to win by 11 strokes in 2000, punctuated by the “shot in the dark,” the 8-iron he struck in the gloaming that fell out of the sky and magically appeared two feet from the hole.

“Being there in person, it was inconceivable that someone could actually hit a golf ball and hit it on the green, find the green, much less land it within a foot of the cup,” CBS golf anchor Jim Nantz said recently. “Of the great shots Tiger hit all time, that would have to be on that pretty special list.”

Nicklaus also authored a memorable shot at Firestone. He blasted a 9-iron over a maple tree from 137 yards to the back of the 16th green to save par in the ’75 PGA. He called it “your basic miracle par,” and one of the biggest gambles he ever took in a major championship. Former PGA champion Bob Rosburg, working for ABC Sports, sized up Nicklaus’ prospects and uttered the words, “he’s got no shot,” that became his catch-phrase over his broadcasting career.

Because of Firestone’s long run and the fact that it hosted multiple events some years—in 1974 there were three events on the South Course: the World Series of Golf, CBS Golf Classic and American Golf Classic—it is believed that no facility, not even Augusta National Golf Club, has been televised more.

In all, there have been 88 tournaments here. Only three tour venues have had a longer consecutive run than Firestone’s 65 years—Augusta National, home of the Masters Tournament, Pebble Beach Golf Links and Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth.

CBS golf producer Lance Barrow first came to Firestone in 1976 as a runner working for broadcaster Pat Summerall, and he couldn’t believe he was seeing the iconic water tower in person.

“I remember watching the CBS Golf Classic as a kid and then coming here and seeing it for real, and thinking that might be one of the great landmarks in golf,” Barrow said. “I couldn’t believe that I was actually here to watch them play golf. It’s probably one of the most recognisable golf courses in America. Later I loved listening to guys like [producer] Frank Chirkinian and [director] Chuck Will talking about all the years they did the CBS Golf Classic. You saw Nelson, you saw Hogan, you saw Snead, Sarazen, Palmer, Nicklaus. That was cool. It was like being in a history class.

Harry How
Tiger smiles as he receives an ovation for his win on the 18th green during at the 2005 NEC Invitational, one of his eight victories at Firestone.

“Tournaments come and go, but this is one where you look back and say I was fortunate to do that tournament, to see the players who have played here and who won here,” he added. “You come back to a place over and over and you get to know people. You invest a lot of your life in one place.”

Sadness. It’s a genuine reaction players express, Mickelson and McIlroy among them, when they ponder the end of a tradition at Firestone. And that’s the crux of it. It’s not an annual tournament. It’s a tradition—perhaps not the haughty “tradition unlike any other” that Nantz says of the Masters, but a tradition rich and warm and meaningful in its own right.

“Yeah, this is our last go-around for a while,” Woods said wistfully after Saturday’s third round and thinking of his final walk on the sylvan property. “This is one of the great classic golf courses. Leish [Marc Leishman] and I were talking about it today—all it is is about a month away from [being able to] host whatever major championship you want. Just dry it out, maybe grow in the fairway here and there, and you have a major. That’s what this golf course has been over the years and we’re going to miss playing it.”

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