15 Strokes on a Par 3?

Brian Barnes took an incredible 12 strokes while putting from only three feet away from the cup at the 1968 French Open.   On the 8th green, the short-tempered Barnes missed an easy putt.   Then he tried to rake the ball in.   When that failed, he hit the ball back and forth while it was still moving.   Adding putts and penalty strokes, he scored a woeful 15 on the par 3 hole.

The great Harry Vardon consistently had the lowest stroke average during his long career, however, Vardon took one wasted stroke in the 1900 U.S. Open, when he whiffed a putt that was shorter than six inches.   He ended up winning the Open  in spite of his temporary case of the  ”yips.”

Putting Peculiarities

photo credit: Rob Inh00d     Without postal codes and marked only with the simple address “Misser of Short Putts, Prestwick,” the British Post Office delivered a letter to its rightful recipient Old Tom Morris, England's top golfer in the 1800s.   Morris suffered from the yips.

In his prime, Bobby Jones used a putting stance with his feet no more than two inches apart, heels touching.

Shortly after the 1987 season, after earning a career high of $285K, Mac O'Grady got the yips.   The next year he won $116K and then   $40K and in 1989 he moved to the 170th place with a total of   $30K.   His desperation in curing the yips led him to donate $30K to the UCLA Medical Center to study the problem.   A cure has yet to be found !

Crazy Shots

photo credit: eirikso     In the  1930's, the legendary trick-shot artist Joe Kirkwood used to tee a golf ball on the flat side of a Hershey's Kiss held between the teeth of an attractive female assistant.   After  smacking  his drive, he would kiss his assistant.

Playing the 13th hole at Carnoustie G.C. in Scotland, the Reverend A.R. Taylor saw his ball hit something in flight.   It was another golf ball driven from the 14th tee.   Unbelievably, each ball bounced directly back toward the player who hit it.

In 1977, William Collins tried to hit his ball over a grapefruit tree at the Eldorado C.C. in Palm Desert California.    After hitting it thin, the ball went into the tree only to be found later embedded in a grapefruit like a seed !

Bad Lies

photo credit: mhofstrand     Charlie Sifford still wants to forget about the day he sliced his shot into a crowd at the Quad Cities Open.   The ball landed right on top of a hot dog that had been dropped on the ground by a member of the gallery.   As Sifford walked to his ball there were plenty of howls from the crowd.   The embarrassed golfer wiped the mustard and ketchup from his ball and proceeded to take a drop  with a stroke penalty.

In 1973, at the 18th tee,  Ken Foster of Elie Golf Club in Scotland hit three wayward shots in a row.   The first shot went through a window in the clubhouse.   The second and third balls went through the exact same hole in the very same window!

Unbeaten Statistics

photo credit: gary.hisanaga     From 1962 to 1980, Jack Nicklaus finished third or better in the  41 of 76 major championships he entered.   This  is a 54%, top-three ratio over 19 years.   Thus far Nicklaus' record makes him the greatest golfer in history.

Between 1958 and 1978, Golf's “Big Three,” Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, won 12 Masters, 8 British Opens, 7 PGA Championships and 5 U.S. Opens.   Out of 84 majors, they won an astonishing 32 events  which amounted to a  .380 winning percentage.

Lee Trevino, the “Merry Mex,” in the span of 20 days, won three national titles in three different counties:   the U.S. Open, the Canadian Open and the British Open Championships.   Ever wonder why golf was so popular in those days?

Golfing Hero

photo credit: MissMessie     In 1988, LPGA member Mary Bea Porter was in the process of qualifying for a tournament at the Moon Valley CC. in Phoenix, AZ, when she noticed Jonathan Smucker, a three-year old, drowning in a nearby swimming pool.   Porter climbed a seven-foot fence, jumped in the pool, grabbed the child and began administering CPR until the paramedics  arrived on the scene.  

After several attempts, the paramedics revived young Jonathan and took him to a local hospital where he was released after making a full recovery.  

Meanwhile, Porter failed to qualify after resuming her round.   When the round was completed, the commissioners of the event gave her a special exemption to play in the tournament.   Although she did not win the event, she was the talk of the tournament.

Hogan & Player

photo credit: danperry.com     Ben Hogan was one of the most eccentric golfers on the PGA Tour.   He was renowned for his attention to  swing technique.   On many occasions his hands would  bleed after a long practice session.   His swing skills were known to every golfer the world over, especially his talent with the driver.  

In the 1953, during the four rounds of the British Open, his drives on the 18th hole were nearly identical.    The divots from his second shots were all within one square yard of each other.

Gary Player is regarded as the finest bunker player on tour.   In 1960, while giving a golf clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa, Player holed out five consecutive bunker shots and lipped out a sixth from 25 ft.

Simply Amazing

photo credit: Rob Inh00d     The quickest round ever recorded at the Old Course in St. Andrews was in a match between Jock Huchison and Joe Kirkwood in 1922.   They finished their hotly contested match in one hour and twenty minutes with Hutchison winning a 4-and-3 victory.   The average time it takes to play a round on the Old Course is four hours.

Think about this:   If new equipment is supposed to be lowering scores so drastically, why is it that English Pro, Alfred Edward Smith shot the lowest recorded 18-hole score on a regulation course, more than 50 years ago?   Smith recorded a 55, or 15 under par, on the Woolcombe course in 1936… a score that has yet to be beaten.   Do you still want (or need) that $499 driver?

Sarazen’s Best Shot

photo credit: dionhinchcliffe     The amazing double eagle on the 15th hole  during  The Masters at  Augusta National in 1935, was not Gene Sarazen's best shot. According to Sarazen, his best shot occurred at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio during the 1935 Ryder Cup match.

He was playing against Fred Robson when Sarazen's tee shot went over the green and into a refreshment stand.   “I found my ball in the middle of the stand in a crevice in the concrete,” Sarazen remembered.   “There were no free drops back then… A window toward the green was open, so I played the ball through the window and onto the green about eight feet from the hole.”   That, Sarazen exclaimed, was my greatest shot ever…”Robson Three putted and I sank my putt to win the hole.”

Cheating at the Game

photo credit: Dru Bloomfield – At Home in Scottsdale     A Duke University recent survey found that 95% of all amateurs break the rules of golf in almost every round they play.   Most of these incidents are “mental scapegoats.”   If a player, not seeing out of bounds markers, hits  his shot out of bounds  he will  tend not to take the penalty because  he “didn't know” about the out of Bounds markers.   It was found that protecting your self image is much more important than following the rules of the game.

The study confirmed that players rationalize cheating in order to preserve their own dignity and/or handicap, even if it means marking a 5 on  the scorecard, instead of a 6 in order to shoot a 99 instead of 100.   Have you ever cheated and if so how?

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