Unplayable Lies: (The Only Golf Book You'll Ever Need)

by Dan Jenkins

  They are quick to recognize that I’m a country club guy—my golf shirt isn’t faded.

  One of the first things they ask is if my private club has good food. Like, you know, Fritos, Cheetos, Oreos, Moon Pies, Dr Pepper.

  This is where I take time to explain that there are two kinds of country clubs. There’s mine, which has age, and there is the other one, where every man plays golf in short pants, dainty anklets, and a cell phone.

  The golf courses are distinctly different.

  Old Money is 6,200 yards, par 76, with fourteen blind shots. The front nine is in New York, the back nine in Connecticut. It was designed by Alister Donald Blair-Tilly, who routed it on a tablecloth the night he arrived in town, which was a month after he was rescued from the Titanic.

  New Money is 7,800 yards, par 70, and was designed by Frank (Dog) Legg, who once drove tractors for Pete Dye and Tom Fazio. It weaves around a deep, man-made rock quarry. A stretch of three holes is laid out along the shores of a newly discovered Great Lake. Other holes demand long carries over vast regions of sand where the occasional Bedouin warrior may be sighted.

  Old Money’s clubhouse looks like a combination of Manderley before the fire and Twelve Oaks before Ashley Wilkes went off to fight in the War of Northern Aggression.

  New Money’s clubhouse looks like the world’s largest Taco Bell. It includes guest suites and an indoor beach volleyball court for tall young mistresses, and the Meditation Temple leads directly to the windsurfing cove and Formula One track.

  Old Money’s most famous hole is the short 12th, the “Swinging Casket.” At twilight the member can stand on the 12th tee and gaze wistfully at the green light on the end of Daisy’s dock.

  New Money’s favorite hole is the incredibly long 15th because it allows the member plenty of time between shots to check his text messages and make calls to say, “I’m shorting Italy.”

  Old Money’s oldest member is still supported by the money he inherited from his great-grandfather who invented the washing machine, the electric toaster, and the ice cube.

  You are not allowed to join Old Money if you’ve ever held a job.

  New Money’s oldest member invented the hedge fund.

  The wife of Old Money’s oldest member, Merger, is an elegant, gray-haired lady who as a young girl once sat on the lap of both Churchill and Hitler.

  The wife of New Money’s newest member, Georgette, is twenty-seven and currently involved in redecorating their second homes in Aspen, Zurich, London, Beverly Hills, and Prague.

  One of Old Money’s most popular members, Three-Hyphen Pembroke, died recently but is survived by his popular fifth wife, the sixty-one-year-old Babs, a former receptionist, who has been rebuilt to resemble a Playboy centerfold, and will continue to resemble a Playboy centerfold unless she coughs, sneezes, or smiles, in which case she will turn into Quasimodo and spend the rest of her life clinging to a gargoyle.

  Most of the members at Old Money play with a set of autographed Bobby Cruickshank woods and a set of autographed Wiffy Cox irons. Their choice of a golf ball is the Spalding Kro-Flite or the bramble White Flyer.

  The latest fancy of New Money members is the USS Nimitz driver, the Boeing 367 spoon, and a set of Exxon irons powered by compressed natural gas.

  Old Money members putt with a rusted Wright & Dixon blade.

  New Money members putt with what appears to be a tenor saxophone attached to the end of a drain pipe.

  Old Money members never wear wristwatches—they don’t have to be anywhere or do anything.

  A New Money member’s bulging gold Rolex lost time momentarily the other day and caused a brownout in a major American city.

  Old Money members don’t really follow the PGA Tour, but most of them are certain that Denny Shute could give this chap Rory McIlroy two up a side.

  New Money’s members don’t follow the PGA Tour either, but a couple of them have heard of Rory McIlroy and would like to interest him in an investment opportunity.

  Old Money will always have money.

  Three members at New Money are in the process of asking the Federal Reserve for a free drop from an unplayable lie.

  BEN, JACK, AND TIGER

  SINCE THE COMING—AND staying—of Tiger Woods, there are friends, associates, and readers who have kept asking me to compare Tiger with Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus, two other guys who stacked up major championships like can goods.

  I’ve been resisting the task, but it has occurred to me that I am surely the last remaining sportswriter who covered all three idols at their peak. If this qualifies me to take up the matter, it also qualifies me to be old.

  Among the readers, there are those afflicted with the political correctness disease who think Tiger Woods should be rated the greatest of all time simply because he is a “person of color” who invaded “a white man’s sport” and won a lot of tournaments. I choose to judge him on more equal footing, which is to say as a shot maker and competitor.

  To begin with, there are stats to consider when appraising the three of them.

  Nicklaus won his eighteen of the modern professional majors over twenty-four years. Woods won his fourteen majors over sixteen years, but it’s hard to say whether he’s all done or not. Hogan won his ten majors, counting the wartime U.S. Open, over eight years of competition, from ’42 through ’53. In the midst of that, Ben missed three years due to the war, and another year recovering from the car crash. It has to be said that Hogan’s career actually started in 1940, after he’d spent five years building a game that would keep him from missing cuts and borrowing money to stay on the Tour.

  In contrast to Hogan’s hardships, struggles, and interruptions, Nicklaus and Woods got out of the box quickly, right out of amateur golf. Each won eight majors in his first eight years as a pro.

  Throughout Nicklaus’s entire career, he missed only one major because of physical problems. That was the Masters of 1983, when he withdrew after 36 with a back pain. Woods has missed six—the British Open and PGA of 2008 (knee rehab), the U.S. Open and British Open of 2011 (life rehab), and the Masters and U.S. Open in 2014 (disc surgery). Hogan missed so many opportunities to win majors due to the war, the Greyhound bus, and the aftermath, it’s impossible to count them accurately. I can make a case for twenty-five at the very least.

  Hogan and Nicklaus played persimmon woods, steel shafts, and the wound ball. Tiger plays metal woods, composite shafts, and a self-correcting rock for a golf ball.

  Hogan also putted a “dirty” ball. Under the rules of his day, you couldn’t lift and clean on the greens. Big factor. Huge. I might add that he played on courses where the maintenance was less than exquisite.

  But it’s still a human that swings the club, isn’t it?

  Judge their “name” competitors for yourself.

  Among others, Hogan competed against Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Lloyd Mangrum, Jimmy Demaret, Cary Middlecoff, Jackie Burke, Tommy Bolt, Craig Wood, Henry Picard, Paul Runyan, Horton Smith, Bobby Locke, and Julius Boros.

  Among others, Nicklaus competed against Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Billy Casper, Tom Weiskopf, Raymond Floyd, Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Ben Crenshaw, and Lanny Wadkins.

  Among others, Tiger competed against Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Payne Stewart, Sergio García, Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh, David Duval, Retief Goosen, José María Olazábal, Jim Furyk, Davis Love III, Angel Cabrera, and Rory McIlroy.

  Nicklaus won ten of his eighteen majors on three courses—Augusta National, St. Andrews, Baltusrol. Tiger won eight of his fourteen on three courses—Augusta National, St. Andrews, Medinah. Hogan won his ten majors on nine different courses. Ben’s five Opens came at Ridgemoor, Riviera, Merion, Oakland Hills, and Oakmont.

  Nicklaus came from behind in the last round to win eight of his eighteen majors. Hogan came from behind on the last day to win five of his ten. Tiger has yet to come from behind to win a major. In all fourteen of Tiger’s victories, he was the front-ru
nner. Is this a plus or minus where Tiger is concerned? You decide.

  It’s not breaking news that none of the three was Jimmy Demaret when it came to handling fandom. Or Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, or even Phil Mickelson. Demaret wisecracked his way through life, and won with a grin. So did Trevino. Palmer and Mickelson crashed and burned in public, but balanced it out with winning, and at various times wore their hearts outside their shirts. Fans like this.

  Hogan and Nicklaus gave thoughtful and enlightening interviews about their wins and losses. They provided sensible answers to intelligent questions. Tiger’s interviews—to we of the print press, anyhow—have been brief and the flip side of absorbing. Maybe he has nothing to reveal, really. Everything seems to be mechanical with him.

  I never saw Ben or Jack blame anything but themselves for a loss, as bitter as it might have been. I never saw either of them sling or slam a golf club in anger and frustration. They came from an age when you held it in.

  Tiger has done his share of slinging and slamming in public, but I suspect there’s a reason. Winning majors came so easy for him in the beginning that when it suddenly stopped—as in the six-year lull from 2009 through 2014—something had to be blamed other than himself.

  He has evidently enjoyed firing people. As I type, he’s looking for his fourth swing coach, he’s on his third caddie, and his second agent. Meanwhile, he’s found other excuses for a dearth of majors: the knee, ankle, elbow, wrist, and disc.

  I might add Tiger’s six years without a major is longer than Jack or Ben ever went once they were established.

  Hogan never had a guru, incidentally. Thought I’d throw this out there.

  The eras bring up distinctions. Hogan came along when style and accuracy were the fashion. Fairways and greens were more important than putting. Nicklaus ushered in power golf, and was overwhelmingly long. Not just that. Jack was the first to be dominantly long AND straight. Tiger and technology have taken power to another level, and his competitors have followed. Hit it anywhere, find it, wedge it to the green, make the putt, see you on the next tee.

  Nicklaus and Tiger are the two greatest putters in human history. Jack made more clutch putts that he needed, in the heat of majors, than anyone else who ever lived, until Tiger in his first ten years. Tiger sinking putts from ten to twelve feet to save pars, almost as if he took them for granted, became the game’s most reliable rerun. It was golf’s I Love Lucy. But give him credit for this. He’s been the best “reader” of greens any of us has ever seen. Ninety percent of those putts went right in the throat.

  Both Woods and Nicklaus were physically stronger than Hogan, and thus were longer not only off the tee but all through the bag. Strength also made them more accomplished at getting out of the rough. Not that they saw the kind of rough Ben did. On the regular Tour today the rough brings to mind chiffon.

  In Hogan’s day, shot making was vital. Ben never won a major with his putter. Jack, partly. Jack’s long and straight tee shots, and his superb long-iron and mid-iron play entered in, then he sank putts.

  I can think of only two majors Tiger didn’t win on the greens. They would be the British Open at St. Andrews in 2000 and the British Open at Hoylake in 2006. His shot making highlighted the week.

  There’s no question that luck has been kinder to Tiger than it was to Hogan or Nicklaus. No player ever hit more shots into unknown terrain, for so many years, and yet was left with so many openings to the green.

  To break it all down:

  Driving for length with accuracy, Nicklaus.

  Driving for sheer accuracy, Hogan.

  Fairway woods, Hogan.

  Long irons, Nicklaus.

  Mid-irons, Nicklaus.

  Short irons, Hogan.

  Pitching wedge, Hogan.

  Course management, Hogan, Nicklaus.

  Bunker play, Tiger, Hogan.

  Chipping, Tiger.

  Rescue shots, Tiger.

  Putter, Tiger.

  Finally, in my infinite wisdom, I have to say that if I wanted one of the three of them to put a drive in the fairway for me, and the second shot on the green for me—for my life—Ben Hogan would have to hit them.

  PC OVERDOSE

  HOW UTTERLY TASTELESS it was for so many sportswriters to refer to Ben Hogan as Bantam Ben, the Wee Ice Mon, and The Hawk. The ugly insinuations were obvious—Ben Hogan was shorter and weighed less than some people, and though handsome, he was not as good-looking as Errol Flynn.

  I can only imagine how a politically correct correspondent at the 1953 British Open at Carnoustie would have written about Hogan’s masterful victory. His piece may have gone like this:

  “Differently sized Ben Hogan, the vertically challenged American who fancies refrigerated items and birds of the wing, finished a golf tournament today with a 72-hole score that was in variance with the rest of the field.

  “Among other golfers on the scene who chose to accept a form of gratuity for their efforts were Mr. Tony Cerda of Argentina, which is as good as any other country despite occasions of domestic turmoil, Mr. Dai Rees of Wales, whose name is as it reads and not to be mistaken for a deficiency in his spelling skills, and Mr. Peter Thomson of Australia, a fertile continent that is isolated on four sides by water, through no fault of its own.

  “No golfer actually lost the event, and while this tournament was no more important than any other, the trophy was awarded to Mr. Hogan on the basis of the general opinion that fewer of his golf shots wound up in the Firth of Tay, the burns, the moist ditches, or any of the taller growth regions of the Carnoustie golf course, a public facility in the normal scheme of things.”

  LORD BYRON

  IT HAS LONG been accepted as fact and entered into worldly lore that Byron Nelson won eleven tournaments in a row and eighteen for the season in the sunny year of 1945, when the war was finally—and elatedly—coming to an end.

  These two records were said to be impossible to break, ever. They would last longer than the game of golf itself, or the end of the world, whichever came first.

  But here am I, all these years later, armed with nothing but a screen, a keyboard, and a mouse, to break both of those records.

  The fact of the matter is, as politicians love to say, I actually credit Byron Nelson with thirteen wins in a row and twenty for the year of 1945. These two added competitions were “unofficial,” but the money was spendable.

  They weren’t anything Byron bragged about, or wished the record books would correct, but when I’d bring them up with him in relaxed conversation, he’d smile knowingly.

  The first one took place after the fourteenth tournament on the ’45 Tour. It was a 72-hole match between Byron Nelson and Sam Snead for the “World Championship of Golf.”

  The Nelson-Snead match was held over two days, May 26 and 27, when the Tour was in a two-month lull, or what some called a hiatus if they could say it and spell it correctly.

  Byron and Sam were chosen as the combatants by Fred Corcoran, director of the PGA Tour back then, for an obvious reason. They had combined to win twelve of the fourteen Tour events so far in ’45. Eight for Nelson, four for Snead.

  Earlier in the year Snead had won the L.A. Open and at Gulfport, Pensacola, and Jacksonville. Byron had won at Phoenix, Corpus Christi, and New Orleans before his streak began. By the time of the match the streak was in progress. Nelson had won five in a row—the Miami Four Ball with Jug McSpaden, and the tournaments in Charlotte, Greensboro, Durham, and Atlanta.

  The first 36 holes were played at Fresh Meadow Country Club in Flushing, New York, on Long Island, a course that had been host to the 1930 PGA Championship and the 1932 U.S. Open, and was a good neighbor to Trylon and Perisphere during the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

  When Nelson missed a short putt on the last green, Snead edged him by a stroke, shooting 73-70–143 to Byron’s 73-71–144.

  The second 36 holes the next day were conducted at match play at Essex County Country Club in West Orange, New Jersey, which had nothing to
recommend it other than age, beauty, and the names A. W. Tillinghast and Donald Ross among its designers.

  On a rainy day Byron whipped it around in six under par through 33 holes to beat Sam, 4 and 3. They split the prize money of ten grand in war bonds, but the press chose to add up their 72-hole scores. They conceded Byron and Sam pars on the last three holes of the match at Essex, giving Byron 69-69 and Sam 74-69. For the two days, then, they proclaimed Nelson the winner of the “World Championship” with a total of 282 to Snead’s 286.

  “Sam wanted to steal my five-iron,” Byron once recalled. “I hit a lot of good shots with it in that match. It was my safety valve. I could hit it straight and anywhere from 130 to 180 yards. It was my favorite club. The three-iron was my other favorite. In the match I hit my three-iron 200 yards in the rain and reached the fifth hole in two, and sank a 30-foot putt for an eagle. On the next hole I hit my five-iron 170 yards to seven feet and made a birdie. That put me five up and Sam never could catch me.”

  The Tour resumed in the middle of June, and Byron went on with his streak by winning the Montreal Open, the Philadelphia Inquirer Invitational, the Chicago Victory Open, the PGA Championship in Dayton, Ohio, the All American Open at Tam O’Shanter in Chicago, and the Canadian Open in Toronto.

  That gave him his eleventh in a row, or twelfth by my count.

  The “official” streak ended in Memphis on August 19—where Nelson finished tied for fourth—but history overlooks the Spring Lake Pro-Member on the New Jersey shore that came a week before Memphis. It was a 36-hole tournament with a strong field of forty-five touring pros. Byron shot 69-71–140 to win it by one stroke over Sam Snead and Herman Barron.

  Granted it was only 36 holes, and granted it was “unofficial,” but the $2,200 he collected was more than the first-place money in all but five stops on the tour. When you count the “World Championship” and the Spring Lake Pro-Member to Nelson’s eighteen other victories that year—he won four more times after Memphis—you come up with twenty wins.