Read Online Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont by Adam Lazarus - Free Book Online
Authors: Adam Lazarus
Tags: United States, History, Sports & Recreation, Pennsylvania, Sports, Palmer; Arnold;, Golfers, Golf, Golf - General, Oakmont (Allegheny County), Golf courses, 1929-
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advantage of it.”
Nicklaus did exactly that. The Golden Bear sank the eagle putt and returned to even par for the day.
“That got him all pumped up,” added Goalby. “Now watch him go on and win it. I don’t care what anybody else shoots.”
ON A COURSE LIKE OAKMONT, Goalby’s prediction sounded reasonable. When the world’s best player can make up two shots with a single swing, other legitimate contenders begin to seem irrelevant. There was, however, one very special man in the field, in addition to Arnold Palmer, who possessed the temerity and grit to topple Nicklaus. Even though visibly gaunt due to a recent battle with cancer, Gary Player did not tremble before Oakmont, Nicklaus, or anyone else.
For fifteen years Player, the indomitable, five-foot-seven South African-a a brash-talking health addict who dressed in black, supposedly to absorb maximum energies from the sun—conquered golf tournaments across the world. The son of a miner who worked twelve hundred feet under the earth’s crust, Player grew up in Johannesburg yearning for a life in the great outdoors. He dropped out of school at age fifteen, turned pro two years later, and adopted the grueling Hogan ethic of endless practice to tame a lashing, homemade swing.
Like Hogan, Player fought a crippling hook during his early career; established British players who observed gave him no chance for success. But Player improved with astonishing rapidity and, helped financially by his future father-in-law, traveled the world in search of fame and lucre. By the age of twenty-three, he had won sixteen tournaments in England, Australia, the United States, Egypt, and South Africa, including the 1959 British Open at Muirfield. He was also a runner-up to Tommy Bolt at the 1958 U.S. Open in Tulsa.
Although Player mainly competed abroad, wins in the Masters and the PGA Championship in 1961 and 1962 made him a bona fide superstar in America as well. In 1965, he won the U.S. Open at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis and became the youngest man, at age twenty-nine, to capture the “Career Grand Slam.” (Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan were the only others to have won each of the four major championships; Nicklaus would do so in 1966 at age twenty-five, and Tiger Woods in 2000 at age twenty-four.)
Player saved his best golf for the grandest stage: critical moments of major championships. He fought off Palmer in a classic final-round duel at Augusta in 1961 to win his first Green Jacket. The next year, late in the third round of the 1962 PGA Championship, he nearly gave away a two-stroke lead. With his tee shot buried in deep rough on the eighteen at Donald Ross’s Aronimink Golf Club, Player grabbed a two-iron and hit “the best iron shot of my life” under a tree and onto the green. He two-putted from sixty feet to save par and, the next day, holed a string of clutch par putts to win the title. And during the final round of the 1968 British Open, paired with Jack Nicklaus, Player edged out the Golden Bear, Billy Casper, and Bob Charles to take his second British Open title.
By the middle of the decade, Palmer, Player, and Nicklaus had established themselves as the most dominant golfers in the world. From 1960 to 1966, the Masters title went solely to one of these three men; they combined to win eight of the other major championships during that stretch. Boosted by the catalytic role of television in popularizing golf, they hosted their own TV show as golf’s “Big Three,” replacing the Big Three of the preceding era, Hogan, Nelson, and Snead. Sports fans across the country knew each member of the trio by first name alone.
Each man had his own distinct public image within the Big Three. Nicklaus’s quiet, cold demeanor, combined with his consistently dominant play, rendered him robotic: respected, not beloved. Nicklaus was the perfect adversary for Palmer; warm, approachable, and with a knack for the sensational (or horrendous) shot, Palmer took fans on a
Nicklaus did exactly that. The Golden Bear sank the eagle putt and returned to even par for the day.
“That got him all pumped up,” added Goalby. “Now watch him go on and win it. I don’t care what anybody else shoots.”
ON A COURSE LIKE OAKMONT, Goalby’s prediction sounded reasonable. When the world’s best player can make up two shots with a single swing, other legitimate contenders begin to seem irrelevant. There was, however, one very special man in the field, in addition to Arnold Palmer, who possessed the temerity and grit to topple Nicklaus. Even though visibly gaunt due to a recent battle with cancer, Gary Player did not tremble before Oakmont, Nicklaus, or anyone else.
For fifteen years Player, the indomitable, five-foot-seven South African-a a brash-talking health addict who dressed in black, supposedly to absorb maximum energies from the sun—conquered golf tournaments across the world. The son of a miner who worked twelve hundred feet under the earth’s crust, Player grew up in Johannesburg yearning for a life in the great outdoors. He dropped out of school at age fifteen, turned pro two years later, and adopted the grueling Hogan ethic of endless practice to tame a lashing, homemade swing.
Like Hogan, Player fought a crippling hook during his early career; established British players who observed gave him no chance for success. But Player improved with astonishing rapidity and, helped financially by his future father-in-law, traveled the world in search of fame and lucre. By the age of twenty-three, he had won sixteen tournaments in England, Australia, the United States, Egypt, and South Africa, including the 1959 British Open at Muirfield. He was also a runner-up to Tommy Bolt at the 1958 U.S. Open in Tulsa.
Although Player mainly competed abroad, wins in the Masters and the PGA Championship in 1961 and 1962 made him a bona fide superstar in America as well. In 1965, he won the U.S. Open at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis and became the youngest man, at age twenty-nine, to capture the “Career Grand Slam.” (Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan were the only others to have won each of the four major championships; Nicklaus would do so in 1966 at age twenty-five, and Tiger Woods in 2000 at age twenty-four.)
Player saved his best golf for the grandest stage: critical moments of major championships. He fought off Palmer in a classic final-round duel at Augusta in 1961 to win his first Green Jacket. The next year, late in the third round of the 1962 PGA Championship, he nearly gave away a two-stroke lead. With his tee shot buried in deep rough on the eighteen at Donald Ross’s Aronimink Golf Club, Player grabbed a two-iron and hit “the best iron shot of my life” under a tree and onto the green. He two-putted from sixty feet to save par and, the next day, holed a string of clutch par putts to win the title. And during the final round of the 1968 British Open, paired with Jack Nicklaus, Player edged out the Golden Bear, Billy Casper, and Bob Charles to take his second British Open title.
By the middle of the decade, Palmer, Player, and Nicklaus had established themselves as the most dominant golfers in the world. From 1960 to 1966, the Masters title went solely to one of these three men; they combined to win eight of the other major championships during that stretch. Boosted by the catalytic role of television in popularizing golf, they hosted their own TV show as golf’s “Big Three,” replacing the Big Three of the preceding era, Hogan, Nelson, and Snead. Sports fans across the country knew each member of the trio by first name alone.
Each man had his own distinct public image within the Big Three. Nicklaus’s quiet, cold demeanor, combined with his consistently dominant play, rendered him robotic: respected, not beloved. Nicklaus was the perfect adversary for Palmer; warm, approachable, and with a knack for the sensational (or horrendous) shot, Palmer took fans on a
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