5. His carefully crafted brand, which earns him tens of millions of dollars every year, is popular among the rank-and-file millionaires of the PGA Tour. He became friends with many of the greats of the game. Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and the Top 15 Golfers from the 80s Ron Furlong September 24, 2010 David Cannon/Getty Images The 1980s were a turning point in golf. Thanks a lot, Johnny Miller. Obama | Watch Obama's swing in video and listen to top teachers' critiques | Ranking the Golfing Presidents, The pioneering black movie star, who won an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1963, always had a golf club with him on movie sets so that he could work on his grip and swing between takes. ", Churchill's never-say-die bulldog spirit during World War II defines Britain's national psyche. "I had a terrific desire to be a golf pro." $150. Harland (Colonel) Sanders | 1890-1980, Sanders was 65 when he started franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. A 9-iron or a wedge? Category:Lists of golfers contains lists of golfers sorted in several other ways: by nationality, by tour and by type of major championship won ( men's, women's or senior ). It read: "Tempo." But Shepard is the only person to have played golf on the moon. READ MORE: Hollywood's Top 100 Golfers | Photos: Hollywood's Top Golfers, Almost everybody dreams of having his own private golf course, wrote Golf Digest in 1988, but few can actually afford such grandiosity. Deliberate in life and in golf, he studied the game with rigor; his backswing, according to a friend, "seemed to last for minutes." July 13, 2010, Gary Player, Stewart Cink, and Colin M Brown of the R&A. Get back out there and win.' " A 16-handicapper, Leonard figures he'd be a lot better golfer if he had started a little sooner. It was the start of a lifelong love affair with the game. I remember with what artistry he juggled two, three, then four golf balls. I came within six inches, to be exact, of immortality." I have tried, but they simply cannot understand -- Since getting my own golf course, I have had a hard time finding an excuse why I can't play golf every day when I am in Austin. "My best round has been 85," he said. What follows is our opinion about which golfers, and in which order, constitute the 25 male golfers of all-time. 76 Year Old Golfers. DiMaggio also said that he had recently purchased clubs for his bride, Marilyn. 1970 PGA Tour. She won six Major titles too and was the first American captain for the inaugural Solheim Cup in 1990. There were years then when he was qualified to play in the Masters and didn't. I recall that he did wonderful tricks with a golf club. skip to products. Among his many victims were fellow golfers at swanky clubs around the country, especially the exclusive Palm Beach Country Club. Exiled from his homeland after his 1936 abdication of the throne (so he could marry Wallis Simpson -- a divorced, American "commoner"), the now-Duke consoled himself with golf. Today, he belongs to Hillcrest in L.A., where he plays 15 to 20 rounds a year. 71 Year Old Golfers. "I'd like it to be," he said. Per Data Golf, Thomas is losing strokes on approach from two key yardage buckets: 50-100 yards and over 200 yards. His pro-am brought together celebrities, athletes and even politicos -- only a man with his flair could get three presidents to play together, as he did in a 1995 fivesome that included Gerald Ford, George H.W. Forrest Fezler's nine-over-par score lost that Open by two strokes to bespectacled Hale Irwin, who hired a local schoolboy to caddie. "Trevino kept calling his shot and then hitting the shot," Huggan says. He drove his cart onto the deserted course, to a nearby par-3 tee, with his clubs and 50 balls. Certainly everything wasn't better. 10. And he was smart. Below is a list of male golfers, professional and amateurs, sorted alphabetically. Right now you can buy the same head design from ENDO but you wont see them in the bag of a Top 100 player: contracts are too lucrative today. By Bobby's lights, today's PGA Tour is crowded with fevered prospectors panning madly for fool's gold. There, his access to slow-motion tapes from CBS' cameras amounted to a doctorate in the golf swing. ", READ MORE: John Updike, Golfer | Bidding Updike Adieu | Updike: Never To Sleep, Always To Dream | Updike: Farrell's Caddie, The actor best known for his portrayal of Tarzan won five Olympic gold medals in swimming, and he was an excellent golfer. "I have an old set of hickories," Sandy Lyle says, not that he goes back to hickories. "Once, you had to be a worldbeater just to make a living at tournament golf. A natural left-hander who plays right-handed -- like Ben Hogan. Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots) | 1542-'87. Discover the most famous Golfers sorted by their popularity. Not really. The former five-star U.S. Army general was far and away the most avid of America's golfing presidents. For me, golf has been a kind of passport to relaxation and happiness." "Good pro. But perhaps his suspiciously consistent scores and his 9.8 Handicap Index were, like his career, to use his words, "one big lie. Jerry Barber is the oldest to ever compete in a PGA Tour tournament, setting the record when he played the 1994 Buick Invitational at the age of 77 years, 10 months, and nine days. Most other to lead in distance . Hope appeared on the cover of Golf Digest in 1979, was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1983, and in 1965 lent his name to the Desert Classic, played in Palm Springs. After a marathon run as a bridesmaid, the Englishman Chapman broke through last season at the age of 53 to win the Senior PGA and the U.S. Senior Open. Another time, Gretzky hit a Secret Service man while playing with President Ford -- and that guy was hiding in a tree. He is an English-born Scot, an Open, Masters and Players champion, who was the recipient of the second-best compliment ever paid a golfer. "Decent player, shot in the 80s." Last fall, while serving as an assistant captain for Fred Couples at the Presidents Cup, Jordan was still talking about the 86 he shot at Bethpage Black in the nationally televised Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge a few days before the Open last summer. ", READ MORE: Bing Crosby and Ray Bolger| Ranking the Golfing Presidents. ", Recalling a famous 3-wood shot Ballesteros hit 245 yards out of a steep bunker, over a tall lip, beyond a treacherous water hazard just short of an 18th green to halve a match at the '83 Ryder Cup ("the finest shot I've ever seen," Nicklaus said at the time), Chapman issues a challenge. Genius. Ironically, his final PGA Tour victory was at the same tournament, the 1994 MCI Heritage Golf Classic. And Dad practiced more than you do.". He won the city caddie championship at 17, and named the "Peanuts" character Schroeder after a pal from those caddie days. In his 1938 movie "Carefree" -- with fellow golfer Ginger Rogers -- Astaire hit balls while tap-dancing, an incredible routine (it's on YouTube, click here to view) that he devised on the first tee at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, where he played to a 10-handicap, and where he made an ace at the 13th. With a handful of notable names in serious jeopardy, who can you trust for your 3M Open Fantasy golf picks? Nike Air Max 90 G NRG. The misanthropic comedian, actor and writer lived next to Lakeside Golf Club, where he regularly broke 90 playing with his pal Oliver Hardy, drank heavily and provided entertainment for members by chasing ducks off his lawn in his pajamas. In 1922, Wodehouse and his wife wintered in Aiken, S.C., where he played every day, got down to a 16-handicap and even won an umbrella in a hotel tournament, writing: "I went through a field consisting of some of the fattest retired business-men in America like a devouring flame. Kipling invented snow golf -- in the Vermont winters, he would paint balls red and play to tin cans sunken into the snow. The decade's most celebrated golfer, though, . Almost including Raymond. The current generation says, Uh, I think it's going to jump a little. Tom Watson blossomed in the 1970s with 22 wins in a six year span starting in 1974 with the Western Open. She prevailed in 17 straight women's amateur titles, turned pro, and was the leading money-winner for four years in a row. In a 2006 interview with his mother for Parade Magazine, Sandler reminisced about his dad shooting in the 70s and making four holes-in-one. We all do it. Then with the same club he deliberately thinned a ball along the ground and it stopped right next to the stick. *. In Hollywood, Hepburn lived in a house off the 14th fairway at Bel-Air. The athletes of your youth were better than they are now. But he liked it. A native of Waxahachie, Texas, Nelson played between 1935-1946 and won 52 times, including five major championships. ", READ MORE: The Top 100 in Music | Photos: Top Golfers in the Music Industry. But Ike wasn't a bad golfer, and he managed plenty of decent scores. ", *Near the end of the decade, Trevino finally threw in a good round at the Masters, a 69. "I'd suggest that's a Golf Digest cover story.". ", "There have always been and always will be characters," Langer says. Nobody would think he is who he is, but that's who he is. A member of Hillcrest, Poitier no longer plays, but in the mid-1950s, according to one biography, he "indulged his mounting obsession with golf, leaving early in the morning and not returning until dusk." The most famous gangster in U.S. history wasn't much of an athlete, but he loved to play golf, sometimes twice a week at Burnham Woods, then a nine-hole course on Chicago's South Side. He looked odd in a golf shirt -- What shocked me was, the Colonel could flat hit it. "At my first Masters, I wore a pair of madras pants. Then I want you to make me the richest man in the world." "Ninety years. He promptly won the first of his three major titles in a heartbreakingly short career. 'This is different. "With witnesses, fortunately." Caught up in each other, they lost sight of Lou Graham and John Mahaffey. "I get out one of those old, softer golf balls," Lyle says, "and bash it around for a little while with my hickories. Where were they when I needed shoes?". Tiger Woods arrived already understanding how to play, obviously. "Hits a long ball when she hits it." His last victory was in 1975 at the Forst NBC New Orleans Open. "When Dad died, I realized two things: how short life really is and how much I'd let him down," Jack says. I lost a playoff to Arnold in the '71 Bob Hope at Bermuda Dunes [Palmer won the same tournament two years later for his final victory on tour], and I can tell you, there weren't many people on my side." 79 Year Old Golfers. 3. I couldn't tell a soul." Come on!' And when you're bit, that's it.' You make all this money on tour, but how many tournaments have you won? Do you think anyone today would do that? Thankfully, virtually all of today's kids are as respectful as they can be toward the game of golf. 'Look at what the modern equipment has done to the great old golf courses," Price says. "Give a Mark McGwire or a Sammy Sosa or a Barry Bonds a titanium baseball bat that's 2 or 3 times the diameter of the old wooden one and is 2 inches longer and weighs less. His last major and last PGA Tour victory was the 1984 PGA. After turning to golf at the age of 24, and would become America's first female golf celebrity in the 1940s. Gates took up the game in the early 1990s and was featured in ads for Callaway's Big Bertha driver in 1998. After taking up the game at 13, the Prince of Wales was an always snappily attired single-digit player, who became captain of many British golf clubs, including the R&A in 1922 (as his grandfather, King Edward VII, had before him, and as would his brother, the future King George VI). List of American Solheim Cup golfers. He had to have a truck come in and practically take the plane apart to remove it from the course." But he has never played on television, even in his friend Bob Hope's tournament or for pal Clint Eastwood at the AT&T at Pebble Beach. I had an eagle, and I couldn't tell anybody. Palmer was the American captain. For the rest of the decade, an avid golf fan was defined as anyone who could tell Johnny Miller from John Mahaffey from Ben Crenshaw from Bill Rogers from Jerry Pate. Billy Casper won the most tournaments, four, and there were six first-time winners. By my scoring, the president shot a three-mulligan 86 or a two-mulligan 88. Katharine Hepburn | 1907-2003 The four-time Oscar winner started playing golf at age 5 during summers spent at the family retreat at Fenwick in Old Saybrook, in her native Connecticut, where there was a nine-hole course (it's still there). September 22, 1973, Ryder Cup Jack Burke, Jr., Billy Casper, Tom Weiskopf, Homero Blancas, Tommy Aaron, Gay Brewer, J. C. Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Lou Graham, Juan Chi Chi Rodriguez, Arnold Palmer, and Dave Hill, July 23, 1995 Past Champions of the British Open. "Arnold was the greatest of all," Floyd says, "the one who kicked off everything, really. The Detroit native and Motown legend was introduced to the game by Ronnie White when both were part of the Miracles. "He was very good. Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias | 1911-'56, The Babe could seemingly dominate any sport of her choosing. After Eisenhower's very public embrace of golf during his presidency -- and the criticism Ike attracted for devoting so much time to what was considered a rich man's sport -- Kennedy took great care to avoid being noticed or photographed when he played, teeing off on quiet summer evenings, with minimum security, often avoiding the first or 10th tees, rarely completing 18 holes. Before the new golf ball and the age of titanium? Trevino and J.C. Snead, Sam's nephew, went to the practice tee at Muirfield. Distinctive putting style of Hubert Green. "Well, I guess everyone thinks their own generation was the best generation," Nicklaus says. I sort of kicked myself in the rear end, got to work again and won the British Open." He was right." The Chairman of the Board loved the game, lent his name to celebrity pro-ams in the Palm Springs area and once hired Ben Hogan to be the teaching pro at his Palm Springs club. Second to only Brad Pitt on Forbes' current ranking of the most powerful actors, Smith is an avid but very private golfer. I didn't make it, but I came damn close. Nicknamed The Great One while becoming the greatest ever hockey player, the 11-handicapper would never use the word great to describe his golf ability. The powers that be should have seen that coming and tapped it back. Arnold Palmer shows his flair in 1973, the year he earned the last of his 62 PGA Tour victories. *. The opening line: "Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.". Anyway, we start with. 4. But it was on the small Canadian island of Campobello, two miles off the cost of Maine, where the Roosevelts summered for decades, that FDR first learned the game, as a teenager, on a rudimentary course where sheep grazed. On Sept. 5, 1905, while honeymooning in Scotland, FDR played the Old Course at St. Andrews. Irons: PTx Pro 6 - PW w/ Recoil 780 ES Smacwrap. He was a regular in the Bing Crosby pro-am and the pro-am at Dinah Shore's LPGA tournament in Palm Springs. To me, that showed a decent consideration, to the public. Wright set a record for most wins in a season which still stands today with . Every decade has its best players. Gene Sarazen won seven majors. "What you mean is, what have we lost? I kicked him. When he was in his early 20s and already the richest man in America, Hughes was leading the life of a playboy in Hollywood. Our take focuses on PGA Tour wins and major titles in the decade. In 1998, Johnny Miller was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Then he carved a little wedge miles away up in the air, seemingly into the clouds, and it came down two feet from that stick. What else is there? In 1904, having graduated from Harvard, FDR won the club championship. ", "With their caps turned around backward and their facial hair," Irwin adds. READ MORE: Hollywood's Top 100 Golfers | Photos: Hollywood's Top Golfers | Photos: Connery teeing it up. 4. Neither would give. For golfers, Murray's resonating high point is unquestionably his creation of Carl, the demented greenkeeper he portrayed with such oafish lan in the 1980 cult classic "Caddyshack." 35. But outside the Augusta National clubhouse, under a spreading oak, Snead reached out for a questioner's sleeve and pulled him close enough to whisper in his ear, "If Hogan could win another Open putting sidesaddle, he wouldn't do it. "Money corrupts desire," Tom Watson says. He won the 1970 Masters, beating Gene Littler in a playoff. Rockefeller built a 12-hole course on his Tarrytown estate, outside New York City, where he would play with friends and colleagues, the likes of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford. Barber shot 77 and 71 in his first two rounds of the tournament and his 4-over score resulted in him being . She was a longtime member at Riviera and would often work on her short game at the par-3 Armand Hammer course. That Woods might have turned away from his own genius to join the crowd in pursuit of a grail. Watson would go on to win eight major championships, 39 PGA Tour titles, was Player of the Year six times, three times in the 1970s. I remember much laughter at what Mr. Fields said and did. A caption to one of these photos in a book by Churchill's son, Randolph, says: "He fails to keep his head down and foozles his drive. "Canadian Open, quite a few years ago, I never had played in front of a lot of people," he told Golf Digest's Bob Verdi in 1998. 01 of 12 John Shippen Bettmann/Getty Images The Golden Age of Male Golfers: 1940s Through 1970s. In 1958, she took a monthlong golf trip to Scotland with fifth husband, golf pal and film producer James Hill, and, one foggy and rainy day, she birdied the 18th at Gleneagles, in front of a crowd of 500, for a round of 87 -- the first time she ever broke 90. Eric Cohen reveals his golf best bets and top players for the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities. A golfer to the end, Ike made his only hole-in-one at the age of 77, the year before he died. "Go to PGA National," he says, "walk into that bunker and have a look for yourself. THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED, DISTRIBUTED, TRANSMITTED, CACHED OR OTHERWISE USED, EXCEPT WITH THE PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION OF DISCOVERY GOLF, INC. 2023 DISCOVERY GOLF, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. He favored a white silk shirt, monogrammed. ", 60. "I tell jokes to pay my green fees," said the one-time 4-handicapper who played in the British Amateur. No, he hasn't yet eclipsed Jack Nicklaus' record for most major victories. Bobby Jones won four U.S. By now a firm believer in spiritualism, fairies and the afterlife, he made a deal with his son, Kingsley, who was leaving to fight in World War I: If anything should happen to him, they would meet again on the fourth green. Casper was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1978. Green was recently inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. In 1953, the "Hogan Slam" was one of his best achievements where he won all 3 Majors in a single calendar year. Crosby started an annual golf get-together for pros and entertainer friends that came to be known as the Crosby Clambake. Expensive, too. The international pop singer-songwriter-producer, film actor, celebrity-product pitchman and 6-handicapper at Lakeside, where he became a member in 2009, attached his name to a PGA Tour event in 2008 -- the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas. List is the only player from the last decade to have led the tour in driving distance for the year and never won on tour. Amateur at Pebble Beach but failed to qualify. It must also be said that not every American player looked at the internationals and saw prize money leaving the country. All of a sudden I go birdie, eagle, birdie, par to make the cut on the number. Connery visited golf courses all over the world while filming and became an R&A member. The Heisman Trophy-winner and Pro Football Hall of Fame running back started playing golf when he was 40, and by the summer of 1994 his Handicap Index was down to 12.4. I'm certain this was truer back in the '70s than it is today.". Of course then, the match was played to a tie. Alas, the cancer returned. Like the greatest generation did, allow them to become their own instructors. Casper started winning on the PGA Tour in the mid-1950s, and his excellent play continued all the way into his 40s. The perpetrator of the largest fraud in Wall Street history, "Bernie" isn't getting to play much these days after beginning a 150-year prison term in 2009 for his breathtaking Ponzi scheme that went undetected for two decades and defrauded clients of an estimated $65 billion.

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