Category Archives: people

An Arnold Palmer Reminisce

Arnold Palmer’s passing is the biggest golf story of the year. There are articles today in every newspaper about who he was and what he meant to the game. I won’t go over any of that. This post is about my personal recollections.

A number of years ago I posted my story about the one time I met him, when I was eleven years old, getting his autograph. That was the start.

The Golden Age of Sport was whenever you were between the ages of about nine and fourteen. You’re old enough to know what’s going on, and young enough to still have heroes. That’s exactly where I was during Palmer’s rise, and he was my hero. I reveled in his victories. When he lost the 1966 U.S. Open I was despondent for days.

All my friends I golfed with liked him best. Really — who else was there to have as a favorite compared to the likes of Arnold Palmer?

Yes, he was charismatic. Yes, he was telegenic. But he was more than that. We learned (eventually) to admire Jack Nicklaus. We respected Gary Player. But Arnie was one of us. He never hid himself from us. The more attention he got from his fans, the more he thrived. The phenomenon of Arnie’s Army has never been duplicated — no other golfer has ever commanded than kind of attention. For a while there was Jack’s Pack, but it never got off the ground like the Army did.

In an time when most Tour pros had an idiosynchratic, home-grown golf swing that was recognizable two fairways away, Palmer’s was the the most recognizable and the most exciting. He didn’t swing at the ball, he attacked it, forcing it go where he wanted. Though a long hitter, he wasn’t that long, but he was very straight. The shots he took that looked like gambles generally weren’t. He knew he could pull it off and he did.

In the really 1960s Palmer won many times each year. It was said once that your tournament wasn’t a real success unless Arnie won it. How he won was exciting, too. It seems no other golfer could withstand his onslaught once he put his mind to winning.

But if that’s all there had been, he wouldn’t have been The King. It was his touch with people. A nicer man never walked the Earth. His warmth and charisma touched people on a personal level. His fondness for people was genuine. Given his status, he could have been anything he wanted, but in the end he never retreated from treating everyone he met with courtesy and respect, as if it were his honor to have met you.

We’ve had lots of good golfers over the years. But there has been only one Arnold Palmer. Long live The King.

Christy O’Connor (1924-2016)

Christy O’Connor, a legendary Irish professional golfer, died on May 14 at age 92. He became known as Christy O’Connor Senior when his nephew of the same name began competing in the early 1970s.

O’Connor Senior turned pro in 1948. He won twice in 1953, then annually on the European Tour or in other events until 1972, and five more times from 1974 to 1980.

He represented Ireland in the Canada Cup fifteen times, including thirteen years in a row from 1955 to 1969. He played in ten Ryder Cups, from 1955 to 1973, a record until broken by Nick Faldo in 1997.

His highest finish in a major championship was second in the Open Championship, the only one of the four modern majors he ever competed in, in 1965.

Once, when playing a practice round for the Open at Royal Troon, he missed the green hitting into the 123-yard 8th hole. A gallery member commented that a professional golfer should be able to hit even a small a target such as that.

O’Connor’s reply was to empty his bag of golf balls and hit one onto the green with each club in his bag except his putter.

Manuel de la Torre (1921-2016)

A legendary instructor passed away on April 24. Spanish-born player and coach Manuel de la Torre, based in Wisconsin, taught that the golfer should think about how the club moves and not about how the body moves.

Manuel de la Torre

If the club moves correctly, the result will be a good shot. There are many ways the body can move to get the club to move correctly.

Once a golfer understands what the club is supposed to do, that player’s unconscious mind will take over and guide the body to produce that result.

See him explain this concept here.

de la Torre was an accomplished golfer, finishing as runner-up in the 1942 NCAA final. He won the Wisconsin State Open five times and the Wisconsin PGA Professional Championship five times. He had top ten finishes in PGA Tour events, too.

He was inducted into both the World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame and the PGA Hall of Fame.

He loved teaching, and kept his fees low to expand his reach. He famously charged juniors just $3 a lesson. He often said, “I’d rather make $1,000 teaching 50 people than $1,000 teaching 10.”

The book, Understanding the Golf Swing, explains his golfing philosophy.

Jack Fleck (1921-2014)

The man who defeated Ben Hogan in the 1955 U.S. Open died today at the age of 92 in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

pg_jack_check

Fleck was an outstanding ball striker, but an indifferent putter. He came to the Olympic Club confident and knowledgable, having played many rounds there. He was one stroke off the lead going into the Saturday 36-hole final.

With several holes to go for Fleck, Hogan was in the clubhouse with a two-stroke lead. On the 72nd hole, Fleck need a birdie 3 to tie Hogan. He got it, to get into a playoff the next day.

Fleck had a one-stroke lead on the final hole when Hogan slipped hitting his drive, and ended up with a double bogey 6, securing the victory for Fleck.

Fleck, who began and ended his career as a teaching pro, did not receive the adulation a National Open championship normally received, one, because he beat Hogan, and two, he was an unknown.

He got a set of Ben Hogan irons just before the Open, with the blessing of Hogan himself.

Fleck won only two more tournaments on the PGA Tour.

His autobiography, The Jack Fleck Story, describes the payoff shot by shot.

Dr. Frank Jobe (1925-2014)

You know who this guy is. He is the one who invented Tommy John surgery to repair the elbow of baseball pitchers. John, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, had a useless left elbow until Jobe took an unneeded ligament from John’s right wrist and grafted it in place in John’s left elbow. After healing as complete, John went to win 146 more major league baseball games.

The real name of the procedure is “ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction while using the palmaris longus tendon.” Let’s just stick with Tommy John surgery.

But this is a golf blog, so where’s the connection? Jobe did pioneering work in the role of different body parts in the golf swing. You can look them up at PubMed, a clearing house for medical journals.

He also wrote a book of exercises for golfers, titled, 30 Exercises for Better Golf. Golf is an athletic event. You need to have the right muscles developed to play it well, and to play it injury-free. This book tells you how to do that.

Golf is hard on the back. It’s hard on the elbows and shoulders, too. As we age, we loose flexibility, especially in trunk rotation, which causes us to lose power, which causes us to try to make up for it harmful ways. Keep the golf muscles strong and flexible, and the effects of aging are diminished.

All these are good reasons to be prepare for golf by being in shape for it.

I have read all the golf exercise books I can find, but this one is by far the best. Get it, use it. And thank Dr. Jobe for helping us stay healthy.

 

Jim Flick (1930-2012)

Jim Flick, one of golf’s most respected, loved, and influential instructors, died on November 5th of pancreatic cancer. He was 82 years old.

Flick was a competitive golfer in his youth, and was Arnold Palmer’s roommate at Wake Forest in the early 1950s. After a brief try on the professional tour, Flick turned to teaching.

In his career he taught at the Golf Digest Schools, teaming with Bob Toski and co-authoring two books with Toski, How to Become a Complete Golfer, and How to Feel a Real Golf Swing. Flick’s book On Golf is a best-seller.

Later, Flick teamed with Jack Nicklaus to run the Nicklaus-Flick golf schools.

In addition to teaching amateur golfers, Flick was instrumental in turning Tom Lehman from a journeyman on the mini-tours to a major champion.

Flick’s conception of golf was to put away science and play more by feel. This video shows that teaching in action.

Fick was honored by Golf World magazine as one of the top ten golf teachers of the 20th century.

Happy 100th Birthday, Ben Hogan

For those of you in the Ben Hogan fan club, today is your day. It is the 100th anniversary of the Master’s birth, in Stephenville, Texas (about 60 miles SW of Fort Worth). Hogan is the ultimate self-made player, winner of five U.S. Opens (the Hale in 1942 counts), numerous other major titles and PGA titles, and probably the most iconic golfer of all time.

There is so much to be said about him, that I don’t know where to begin, and you probably know all of it, anyway. I’ll just let some famous pictures do the talking.

Hitting a 1-iron into the 72nd green at Merion in 1950. Photo by Hy Peskin.

This is how it’s done.

 

The Hogan downswing from the Wonderful World of Golf episode in 1965 where he hit every fairway and every green.

 

Ben Hogan (1912-1997)

See this video of his swing on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5s7o2HFbh4

Ben Hogan biographies:
Ben Hogan: An American Life, by James Dodson
Hogan, by Curt Sampson

See also:
Miracle at Merion, by David Barrett
and
Afternoons with Mr. Hogan by Jody Vasquez

For the 85 photos that were used as models for the Anthony Ravielli drawings in Five Lessons,
The Fundamentals of Hogan, by David Leadbetter

and finally,
Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf, by Ben Hogan

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

The Worst Golfer Ever to Win a Major

No pro wants to be known as “The Best Golfer Never to Have Won a Major.” Who that is doesn’t get mentioned lately, but who is the worst golfer ever to win a major never does. Leave it to me to bring it up.

Don’t get me wrong. Anyone who has ever won a major championship is a fantastic golfer and deserves all the credit he gets, or got. But they’re not all Ben Hogan. I’m just asking who is the farthest away from the Jones/Hogan/Nicklaus/Woods line of major winners.

First, we have to know what a major championship is. The four majors played today are not very often, but rightly, referred to as the “modern majors.” Back before the first Masters in 1934, we had the Western Open, played in Chicago, and run by the Western Golf Association, a rival to the United States Golf Association. There was also the North & South, played at Pinehurst. Both of these tournaments were considered majors well into the 1930s. I’m not sure when the Masters became a major, but it didn’t start out that way. Since we can only evaluate golfers in the context of their time, I’ll include the winners of the Western and North & South up through 1945.

We also need to know when to start our examination. The British Open dates back to 1860. I wouldn’t know how to evaluate the 1865 winner, Andrew Strath, for example, who inserted himself in the middle of a 12-year period from 1860 to 1872 when the only winners were Tom Morris (Old and Young) and Willie Park. Strath, for whom the Strath Bunker on #11 at the Old Course is named, has to have been pretty good. The other five tournaments had later starts, but I’m going to wait until 1919, the first year following the close of WW I, to begin the study.

I could write a long essay, but since this is a blog post, I have to get right to the point. You can look up each of these tournaments on Wikipedia to look at the list of winners and draw your own conclusions. These are mine.

Post-WWII:
British Open — Ben Curtis (2003)
United States Open — Orville Moody (1969)
PGA — Shaun Micheel (2003)
The Masters — Larry Mize (1987)

All Time:
British Open — Alf Perry (1935)
United States Open — Sam Parks, Jr. (1935)
PGA — Tom Creavy (1931)
The Masters — Larry Mize (1987)
Western Open — Abe Espinosa (1928)
North & South — Pat O’Hara (1922)

Worst Golfer Ever To Win a Major — Sam Parks, Jr. The 1935 U.S. Open, played on his home course, the Oakmont Country Club, was his only professional victory.