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PGA Championship 2017: Jordan Spieth chases golf immortality

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 12:43:36 +0000

He’s a PGA away from the career Grand Slam at age 24. What are his chances at Quail Hollow and where would his Slam rank in golf history?

By Jaime Diaz
At the 99th PGA Championship, Jordan Spieth for the first time will be playing for one of the transcendent prizes in golf: the career Grand Slam. Of course, the 24-year-old is quick to deny he’s thinking that way. Spieth insists his focus will be on simply winning the PGA, which, since his victory last month at the Open Championship, is now the only one of the four professional majors he hasn’t won. “I mean this,” he intoned last week at Firestone in explaining his mindset. “It’s just a major.”

Then again, Spieth, who because of his back-nine heroics at Royal Birkdale is occupying the same kind of attention in the golf public consciousness as he did when he won the first two majors in 2015, is floating on a cloud of confidence and well being. “Free rolling,” as his caddie, Michael Greller puts it. It’s the approximate state that three of the five greats who achieved the career Grand Slam were in the year they captured the final leg, given that Ben Hogan in 1953 and Tiger Woods in 2000 each won three major championships, while in 1966 Jack Nicklaus won two.

So while Spieth may insist that because he expects to play in “30” future PGAs, if he doesn’t win at Quail Hollow, “it’s not going to be a big-time bummer whatsoever because I know I have plenty of opportunities,” there’s a chance he may never have a freer roll. And for the record, the last three winners of the Grand Slam—Gary Player, Nicklaus and Woods—all completed the feat in their 20s. For that matter, golf’s first Grand Slammer, Gene Sarazen, won his first two majors at age 20, sooner even than Spieth. In the journey to the career Grand Slam, the time to take advantage of a head start is always now.

If all this sounds a bit over-caffeinated, it’s because career Grand Slams in golf are special. They are more rare than in tennis, where eight men (the latest Novak Djokavic) have done it. But more importantly, it can be sad to see great players fall one major short. Counting Spieth, 12 players have achieved three legs without getting the fourth. And those for whom valiant attempts at the final have been thwarted by bad luck or multiplying tension or both—especially Sam Snead with the U.S. Open, and Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson with the PGA—have ended up on a slightly lower tier of the pantheon. It looks like that has happened to Phil Mickelson in his quest for a U.S. Open, and that there is an increasing possibility of this happening to Rory McIlroy at Augusta National.

Not that the career Grand Slam is a perfect measure of greatness. Walter Hagen, who won 11 major championships, didn’t have a real shot at what evolved into the Grand Slam because the Masters wasn’t even played until he was well past his prime. And what of Bobby Jones’ “original” Grand Slam in 1930, winning the U.S. Open and Amateur and their British counterparts in one year, which has never been replicated by any golfer over an entire career? That feat, or the still unattained the calendar professional Grand Slam, or even the Tiger Slam of 2000-’01, would all have to be more exalted than the career Grand Slam.

In the journey to the career Grand Slam, the time to take advantage of a head start is always now.

Still, other than those one-offs, there’s a good argument that there’s no marker in golf better at historically differentiating the best from the rest than the career Grand Slam. It requires some special things. There’s the tennis analogy of the complete game in four different conditions – especially the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. (The PGA might be the favorite set up of the tour pros because it’s still U.S. Open light).

Then there’s overcoming the pressure of finally capturing the last leg, which builds the more years that go by. Even Spieth was attuned to this challenge, conceding that he would have to be careful not to make the PGA an obsession. “The con,” he said of being just one major away from the career Grand Slam, “and what makes it more difficult than just saying it’s another major, is that it’s one a year now instead of four a year that that focuses on, if that’s what the focus is.”

Clearly, getting the final leg is a validator. It means meeting the moment, demonstrating the rare ability to bring out your best golf when it means the most, when the pressure is highest, when the battle is hardest. It takes greatness.

That said, not all career Grand Slams were created equal. Here’s how I would rank them, counting down from least to most significant:

5. Gene Sarazen

E. Bacon/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Though he will always be a giant figure with seven major championships, Sarazen is golf’s greatest beneficiary of retroactive history. Not only did he win the 1935 Masters by getting into a playoff on the wings of holing a 4-wood from 235 yards on the 15th hole on Sunday, but the Masters was far from being considered a major championship, probably not reaching that status until Ben Hogan and Snead played off in 1954. There was no pressure on Sarazen because he didn’t even know he was making history.

4. Gary Player

Bill Stahl Jr./Pictorial Parade/Getty Images

Indisputably the game’s greatest international golfer, with nine majors included among his 159 victories worldwide, Player was ruthlessly efficient in clicking off the four majors in six-year period that ended with his victory at the 1965 U.S. Open at Bellerive, in the only time he would win that championship. It’s quite possible that no one ever wanted the achievement more. “I was aware of the Grand Slam in 1953 because Hogan was my hero in golf,” Player said by phone last week, “and I knew when he won at Carnoustie he had the four.”

The prize was in his head when he won his first major at the 1959 Open Championship, and soon he became determined to beat rivals Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus to the mark. Though he hadn’t won a major since the 1962 PGA, he was primed at Bellerive. “I was squatting with 325 pounds, the fittest I ever was in my life,” Player said. He was going to a church in St. Louis every day and praying for courage. He wore the same black shirt every day, washing in the sink of his hotel room each night. When he got to the course, he devoted a few minutes to standing before the scoreboard, which had past winners’ names, and envisioned his own. “I saw Gary Player, winner, 1965, and Gary Player winner of the Grand Slam, ” he said. “I don’t know if any golfer ever, ever, was as focused as I was that week on winning.”

And if Player had lost the playoff to Kel Nagel, does he think he might have suffered the same frustrating fate in the U.S. Open as Snead? “Oh, no. I would have won it, absolutely no doubt,” he said. Of such minds are career Grand Slam winners made.

3. Jack Nicklaus

Bob Thomas/Getty Images

The man who would go on to win the equivalent of three career Grand Slams achieved his first one as a forgone conclusion, he was clearly so good. But even Nicklaus confesses an early setback in 1963 at Lytham, where he bogeyed the final two holes to lose by one, created a crisis of confidence in his ability to win the Open Championship. With three legs of the Slam completed, he finished second at St. Andrews in 1964, and still wondered if his high ball flight would always hold him back on the windy linksland.

He seemed to find the key at Muirfield in 1966, but with a three-stroke lead with seven to play, he three-putted from seven feet, missing a 15-inch putt. “I experienced one of the most severe mental jolts I’ve ever suffered on a golf course,” Nicklaus confessed in his autobiography. “Jittery is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings.” He bogeyed two of the next three holes, but then, as Spieth did at Birkdale, found a way at the 11th hour to go from negative to positive and eeked out a one-stroke win.

Realizing he had won the Slam, Nicklaus was overcome at the trophy presentation. He wrote: “Being about to receive something that even I, never much of a self-doubter, had genuinely doubted would ever be mine, was extremely emotional.” From that point, the Open Championship became the major where Nicklaus most consistently contended.

2. Ben Hogan

Bettmann

True, the professional Grand Slam hadn’t yet become a thing when Hogan won his fourth leg at Carnoustie in 1953 at age 40. In fact, Hogan, who hadn’t won the first of his nine majors until he was 34, wasn’t thinking career Grand Slam when he made his first trip to the Open Championship. He had gone because friends had urged him to “for the good of the game,” and for “the challenge.” Once there, he became engaged with a monastic purpose that entranced the Scots, keeping legs battered by his car accident functioning through long, soaking baths, mastering the nuances of the small British ball and stoically executing with near perfection. His victory remains perhaps golf’s supreme example of a one-shot, do-or-die, all-or-nothing, surgical strike that culminated in a glorious mission accomplished. It earned Hogan a ticker-tape parade when he returned to the U.S., and turned out to be his final major-championship victory.

1. Tiger Woods

Getty Images

Until further notice, his is the most brilliantly dominating career Grand Slam. Its Himalayan peaks remain prominent on golf’s landscape: the 1997 Masters (by 12 strokes), the 2000 U.S. Open (by 15 strokes) and the 2000 Open Championship (by eight strokes). But it was the 1999 PGA at Medinah where Woods’ seemingly inevitable ascendance could have been stalled, and the tricky, seven-foot, left-to-right par putt he made on the 71st hole to maintain a one-stroke lead over Sergio Garcia may go down as the most important putt of Woods’ career. Any pain Woods suffered in his few close loses in majors for the first 12 years of his career was negligible, but losing at Medinah probably would have left a mark. With appropriate theater, Woods closed out his first Grand Slam with a triumphant march up the 18th at St. Andrews.

If Spieth can claim a fourth leg at Quail Hollow, where would his Grand Slam rank? Third best, behind Woods and Hogan.

Spieth, as the sixth holder, would be the youngest, by eight months. He’s been more stalwart than opportunist, having led or been tied for the lead in 15 of the 70 major championship rounds he has played. But other than his first major win, a wire-to wire job at the 2015 Masters, Spieth’s victories have been tight ones in which, for all his magic with the short game and putter, his tee-to-green play has lacked the majesty of Woods or Nicklaus or Hogan. He’s also lost the lead late at two Masters, leaving more scar tissue at an early age than Woods, Nicklaus or Player experienced.

Then again, Spieth’s combination of passionate competitiveness and personal charm is reminiscent of Jones, and engenders a similar degree of public devotion. If he could close out the Slam in Charlotte, his resultant popularity would lift golf and his persona into Jones/Palmer/Woods territory.

It would also install him firmly on the game’s throne at an early age. Nicklaus and especially Woods showed such a position can be a self-perpetuating mental edge. As good as being No. 1 in the world is, it’s better—through an early career Grand Slam—to have proved you’re the best when it matters most.

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How Jordan Spieth’s Grand Slam pursuit stacks up to the 5 who have done it—and the 5 who came closest

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 12:39:41 +0000

By Alex Myers
The modern career Grand Slam in men’s golf is something that has only been achieved by five golfers: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. If you didn’t know this by now, you certainly will have it memorized within 30 minutes of watching this year’s PGA Championship. That’s because most all of the attention will be on Jordan Spieth as he attempts to become the youngest player to join this elite group. How does Spieth’s pursuit of history compare with those who came before him? Here’s a look back at the five who did it — and the five others who came close, but never (“haven’t” in the case of one) quite got there.

THE “BIG” FIVE

Gene Sarazen
Major titles: 7 — PGA Championship (3), U.S. Open (2), Masters (1), British Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 2
The Squire’s “shot heard ‘round the world” at the 1935 Masters – an albatross on the 15th hole during the final round – also made him the first player to complete the modern Grand Slam. He nearly did it as quickly as possible considering the inaugural Masters was played just the year before. Not that he realized what he had done. The concept of a modern Grand Slam has been traced to Arnold Palmer trying to win the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship the same year after he began 1960 with wins at the Masters and U.S. Open. So really, all the players on these lists who came before Palmer didn’t have the added pressure of knowing they were trying to complete the modern career Grand Slam.

Ben Hogan
Major titles: 9 – U.S. Open (4), Masters (2), PGA Championship (2), British Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 1
Hogan won at Carnoustie in 1953, which was his only trip to the British Open. The victory was part of a historic campaign in which he also won the Masters and U.S. Open. Hogan might have just won the entire Grand Slam in one year, but that year’s British Open overlapped with the PGA Championship. Tiger Woods is the only other male golfer to win three modern majors in the same season.

Gary Player
Major titles: 9 – Masters (3), British Open (3), PGA Championship (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 3
Player completed the slam at 29 by winning an 18-hole playoff over Kel Nagle at Bellerive Country Club. The South African, who remains the only international golfer to pull off the feat, would win five more majors, but this was his final U.S. Open title.

Jack Nicklaus
Major titles: 18 – Masters (6), PGA Championship (5), U.S. Open (4), British Open (3)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 3
Just one year after Gary Player became the third golfer to complete the slam, Nicklaus made it a foursome at the 1966 British Open at Muirfield. Nicklaus would complete the slam two more times in his illustrious career.

Tiger Woods
Major titles: 14 – Masters (4), PGA Championship (4), U.S. Open (3), British Open (3)
Attempts needed to complete Grand Slam: 1
Woods completed the career slam during his legendary 2000 campaign with an eight-shot victory at St. Andrews. He would also win that year’s PGA Championship and the 2001 Masters to make him the only player to hold all four major trophies at the same time. Although Tiger didn’t technically pull off the calendar slam, the feat was dubbed the “Tiger Slam.”

RELATED: Assessing Jordan Spieth’s Grand Slam chances

Keystone

THE “CLOSE” FIVE

(Note: We’re not counting Walter Hagen, who racked up 11 majors — 5 PGAs, 4 British Opens and 2 U.S. Opens — but never won the Masters, because he was well past his prime when the Masters was founded in 1934. And of course, Masters co-founder Bobby Jones, who won what were considered the four biggest golf tournaments at the time — the original Grand Slam of the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Amateur and British Open — in 1930, doesn’t make either of these lists at no fault of his own. When Jones retired, he had 13 major titles on his resume, but now he’s only credited with seven. Again, we’re talking about the modern Grand Slam.)

Tom Watson
Major titles: 8 – British Open (5), Masters (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 24
Closest call(s): T-2 at 1978 PGA Championship
Four years before his lone U.S. Open win is when Watson actually had his best shot at winning the PGA, so he wasn’t in position to complete the slam yet. However, that doesn’t make what happened any less painful as Watson blew a five-shot lead after 54 holes and lost in a playoff to John Mahaffey. Of his 24 attempts at the PGA after winning his third major, his best finish was a solo fifth in 1993.

RANKING: Which current players perform the best in the four majors?

Arnold Palmer
Major titles: 7 – Masters (4), British Open (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 34
Closest call(s): T-2 at 1964, 1968, and 1970 PGA Championships
The King never quite ruled all four major championships, coming up just short of claiming the Wanamaker Trophy on three occasions. He came the closest at the 1968 PGA at San Antonio’s Pecan Valley Golf Club when he slashed a 3-wood from the rough to about eight feet on the final hole, but missed the putt. Julius Boros, 48, won by a shot to become the oldest major champ ever — a record that still stands.

Sam Snead
Major titles: 7 – Masters (3), PGA Championship (3), British Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 23
Closest call(s): Four runner-ups at U.S. Open
Snead’s most heartbreaking losses at the U.S. Open came before he had secured titles in the other three majors. In 1937, he triple bogeyed the final hole when par would have won, and 10 years later, he missed a two-footer to lose to Lew Worsham in a playoff. But Snead also nearly completed the slam in his first chance, finishing T-2 at the 1949 U.S. Open after he had won that year’s Masters.

Lee Trevino
Major titles: 6 – U.S. Open (2), British Open (2), PGA Championship (2)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 16
Closest call(s): None
Trevino made it clear he was never a big fan of either Augusta National’s co-founder, Cliff Roberts, or the course itself. And it showed. In 20 career starts at the Masters, Trevino never finished better than T-10, and he even skipped the event four times during his prime.

Byron Nelson
Major titles: 6 – Masters (2), PGA Championship (2), U.S. Open (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam: 1
Closest call(s): None
Nelson never won the British Open because he basically never played in it. After finishing fifth in his debut in 1937, Nelson only competed in the event one more time — his only time after winning the other three majors — in 1955, when he finished T-32. This wasn’t that unusual at the time. As mentioned, Hogan only played in one British Open, and Arnold Palmer is largely credited for making the event popular with American players.

Phil Mickelson
Major titles: 5 – Masters (3), British Open (1), PGA Championship (1)
Attempts to complete Grand Slam:
Closest call(s): Has a record SIX runner-ups at the U.S. Open
Mickelson’s numerous close calls at the national championship have been well documented, but the one that hurts the most came at Winged Foot in 2006. With a one-shot lead on the 72nd hole, Mickelson made a double bogey, handing the title to Geoff Ogilvy. Mickelson’s Grand Slam hopes remain alive, but at 47, he’s running out of chances. That’s what made his decision to skip the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills for his daughter’s high school graduation such a big story.

And now there are two golfers in their primes, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, who are just one major away from completing the career Grand Slam. So far, McIlroy, 28, is 0-for-3 at the Masters since winning the third leg at the 2014 British Open, but he’s finished in the top 10 in each try, and he has the benefit of trying to complete the task on the same course each year — a place where he was the 54-hole leader in 2011 when he was just 21.

Spieth, who just turned 24, will face a rotating target of tracks at the PGA starting with the 2017 edition at Quail Hollow, but he’ll have even longer to finish this feat than McIlroy. Not that either should need much time if they’re going to do it. The five guys who have completed the career Grand Slam needed an average of just two attempts to get it done. Regardless, throw in an aging Mickelson and we’ve now got three of the four majors where the career Grand Slam will be a big topic of conversation. And it could be a fun thing to talk about for years to come — well, fun to talk about for everyone other than the three trying to achieve it.

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It’s golf before love for Sergio Garcia, this week at least

Kent Gray — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 18:24:54 +0000

By Kent Gray at Royal Birkdale

The opening line of questioning was the same for Sergio Garcia as it had been at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic in the New Year.

With your wedding coming up El Niño, is there any chance you might have nervously taken your eyes off the big prize at Royal Birkdale by any chance?

As it was in February, the 37-year-old shrugged off the whacky assumption that tying the knot with former Golf Channel reporter Angela Akins next week might somehow rob him of his golf mojo on the eve of the 146th Open Championship.

“No, [my mind] it’s on The Open, don’t worry,” Garcia ensured his friends in the media. “It’s going to be where it has to be this week. Angela has been doing a great job of getting everything ready for the wedding.

“Obviously we’re really excited for next week. But we have something that we’re also extremely excited about this week, and we want to be here giving everything we have and hopefully, like I said before, with a chance on Sunday, it would be great.”

History will show that Garcia also brushed off the prying relationship questions in Dubai, coolly holding off the Iceman, Henrik Stenson, to win the Desert Classic by three shots. By April, he was Masters champion and there seems now no reason why he can’t add a Claret Jug to his Green Jacket.

RELATED CONTENT: Sergio seals wire-to-wire Desert Classic victory

This will be the Spaniard’s 21st Open, his third on the famed Southport links and he comes into the week having not missed a cut all year and finishing second in his last start at the BMW International Open in Germany.

So, does winning the Masters make it that little bit easier to claim golf’s oldest major trophy?

“I don’t know, they’re all kind of – I don’t know how you say it – rhetorical questions. It’s difficult to say because obviously winning the Masters was amazing and it does give you a little bit of extra confidence, and I’ve been having a very solid year. So all of those things are great. But every week is different, and you don’t know how you’re going to feel when you go out there on the course.

“So obviously I am excited about it. I am confident about my possibilities, but I can’t tell you if I’m going to be right up there on Sunday with a chance. I’m hoping that I will be but unfortunately it doesn’t work like that every week.”

Okay then, which would you cherish more, the sports coat or the Claret Jug?

“At the moment the Green Jacket means more, because I have it, but everybody knows how much I love The Open Championship. And I would love to at least have one of them before I kind of hang up the boots.

“So definitely it’s something that I would like to achieve. And we’re going to give it a shot this week. But that’s like saying, who do you love more, your dad or your mom? So it’s a difficult question to answer.”

Garcia has 10 top 10 finishes in The Open and has placed no worse than T6 in the past three years. That included a runner-up medal at Royal Liverpool to Rory McIlroy in 2014, his second near miss after losing a four-hole playoff to Padraig Harrington at Carnoustie in 2007.

“I‘ve always said that one of the things that — obviously loving the tournament, itself, and I get so pumped up with the crowds and the kind of golf we have to play here, it obviously helps out. That consistency is one of my greatest attributes throughout my career. Of course I could have won more, but I think the consistency I’ve had for the last 18 or 19 years, is not that easy to do. And I think some people overlook that.

“So that’s pretty much [what Garcia is looking for], more of the same that I’ve been able to do in a lot of majors and at The Open. Hopefully I can make that even better this week.

“I think Birkdale, it’s a great golf course. I think it’s a tough — probably one of the toughest, other than Carnoustie and maybe Muirfield, one of the toughest Open venues we play.

“So obviously all depending on weather. But it is a solid golf course and I’ve managed to play the ’98 and 2008, I think it was. So it is a golf course that I like. But we’ll see how it plays throughout the week.” — Kent Gray travelled to The Open with Etihad Airways

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The head-scratching continues for Rory McIlroy as he misses the cut at the Scottish Open

Golf Digest Middle East — Sat, 15 Jul 2017 06:48:10 +0000

By John Huggan

This is getting to be a habit—and not in a good way. For the third time in Rory McIlroy’s last four starts, the Irishman’s golf will not be on public display on a tournament weekend.

Adding a second-round 71 to the opening 74 he shot over the Dundonald Links, the four-time major champion missed the cut at the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open. As a result, the 2014 Open champion at Hoylake will arrive next week at at Royal Birkdale seriously short of competitive practice and, more importantly, a long way short of his best form.

Not surprisingly, McIlroy’s participation in Scotland ended badly, and typically, given his well-chronicled putting woes. Needing a birdie on the par-5 ninth hole (his 18th) the World No. 4 pulled his approach well left of the green, where it struck a spectator. The pitch-and-run that followed was decent enough, expiring roughly six feet from the cup. The putt, however, can only be described as horrendous. Badly pulled right off the putter face, the ball missed the hole by a good two inches on the left.

“I knew what that last putt meant,” McIlroy sighed. “I knew the cut was going from one under to even and back again. I just pulled the whatever off it. It was a terrible putt.”

The bigger picture isn’t much more encouraging. Having missed a good chunk of the early season due to injury, the last thing McIlroy needed right now is to miss even more competitive practice.

“I haven’t had enough tournament rounds this year with the injury,” he acknowledged. “I’ve missed a lot of events. So it’s been tough. And I’ve been playing catch-up all year. I just haven’t played enough. I’d love to have played more.”

But, as ever, he was keen to look on the positives of the past two days rather than the negatives.

“I’m frustrated, but at the same time I thought I saw some good signs out there,” he insisted. “My putting improved this week, compared to last week. My wedge play, too. But there is still room for improvement. It’s not that bad though. I shot one under par today. I’m close without me being able to put my finger on anything specific. It’s not like I’m shooting 76s and 77s. It’s all around even par. But that isn’t good enough these days.

“I’m waiting for something, some sort of spark to go right. The last couple of weeks have not been like that. I just have to keep plugging away and hope it turns round next week.”

Still, for all his obvious disappointment, McIlroy is surely correct to say he not far from producing better form. His immediate problem, however, is that his mistakes are bigger than they should be. Take his play on the 430-yard par-4 13th. Having made double bogey there on Thursday, McIlroy repeated the feat a day later, needing two shots to escape a greenside bunker.

“I shot three under on the front nine today and felt pretty good,” he said. “But the 13th hurt me. There was so much sand in that bunker. I told myself I had to hit it really hard. And I couldn’t have hit it any harder. But it still didn’t come out.”

So it is on to Birkdale.

“If I go down there and shoot even par in the first two rounds, I’m not going to be too far off the lead,” was McIlroy’s parting shot. “I’m not that far away. I’m just the wrong side of something good. I just have to stay patient. I know I’m saying the same things every week at the moment, but hopefully next week I can say I stayed patient and it all worked out. Birkdale will be a tougher test, but I’m more than capable of going there and shooting a score in the 60s and getting myself into contention.”

There was maybe one little piece of good news for the beleaguered Irishman. The weather forecast for the west coast of Scotland over the weekend is best described as “bleak.” So a wee trip south to Lancashire might just prove more beneficial than battling wind and rain for two days.

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Golf Channel’s latest film to focus on Johnny Miller, Seve Ballesteros, and one “groovy” era

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 09:39:02 +0000

Open Championship 1976 at Royal Birkdale Golf Club, in Southport, England, held 7th – 10th July 1976. Pictured, 1st tee final round, Johnny Miller and Seve Ballesteros. 10th July 1976. (R&A Championships)

By Alex Myers

As Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner puts it, the two principals were right out of Hollywood casting.” And now more than four decades later, it makes sense that Seve Ballesteros and Johnny Miller will be the two main characters of a new film.

Summer of ’76, Golf Channel’s latest full-length documentary, will focus on the 1976 Open Championship at Birkdale. But as Lerner, the film’s writer and co-producer with Israel DeHerrera (lead producer of Arnie and Jack), notes, it’s more of a period piece.

“I’ve always been in love with that time,” Lerner said of the mid-to-late 70s. “Guys we know as legends were at the height of their powers. Even Arnie was still a badass. He flew around the world that year. The stars were originals — with original swings. Trevino. Hubert Green. Lanny Wadkins. These guys were tough as nails. It was just a cool period.”

The film will debut July 18 at 9 p.m. ET, the same week of this year’s Open when the game’s oldest major championship returns to Royal Birkdale, the site of that final-round clash between Ballesteros and Miller. Although it wasn’t a duel on the level of Henrik Stenson vs. Phil Mickelson in 2016 – Miller wound up pulling away from Ballesteros and Jack Nicklaus by shooting 66 to win by six shots — it will be remembered for being Miller’s last flash of a historically dominant run – and the coming out party for a 19-year-old Seve.

“Obviously, it’s an important event to me, but it’s just as important that Seve was introduced to the golfing world,” Miller said. “Surely, they didn’t think he was ready to win an Open Championship. It was cool for me to play with him on Saturday and Sunday. I didn’t know him from Adam and we didn’t talk much, but he just played with a sort of joyful exuberance.”

Seve and Johnny also played with an artistry that both Lerner and Miller believe isn’t as prevalent with today’s tour pros. Both point to advances in equipment as the biggest difference. With clubs made from wood and steel and soft golf balls, there was more of a premium on accuracy and shaping shots. And Miller says golfers needed to use their hands and to be more creative to navigate courses that were often unkempt. With prize money that’s not nearly on today’s level, being a tour pro was also a far different lifestyle. Miller earned just 7,500 pounds for his 1976 Open victory, the equivalent of $43,000 today.

“There were a lot more homemade swings then and guys have better teachers now. I think the game is in a good place, but I don’t think it’s as real as it once was,” Miller said. “We’d show up to a tournament sometimes and play on a real piece of junk. And we had to pay for range balls and to enter the tournament. Imagine tour pros taking out their wallet to pay for range balls? Guys were struggling to pay the bills. There weren’t many guys who got rich.”

But there were plenty of guys with distinct style, which will be a focus of Summer of 76. Miller, for one, claims to have “made the white belt famous” and played better once he began dressing flashier, and Lerner says an examination of the era’s “groovy” fashion, along with its prevailing soundtrack takes up a good portion of the film.

“It’s a chance to take a ride back in time,” Lerner said. “To put the windows down, crank the music, and have fun.”

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