David Sowell - Sarazen: The Story of a Golfing Legend and His Epic Moment

Sarazen

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sowell, David, 1948- author.

Title: Sarazen : the story of a golfing legend and his epic moment / David Sowell.

Description: Lanham : ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016035126 (print) | LCCN 2016039833 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442265554 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442265561 (electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Sarazen, Gene. | GolfersUnited StatesBiography. | GolfUnited StatesHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC GV964.S3 W69 2017 (print) | LCC GV964.S3 (ebook) | DDC 796.352 [B] dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035126

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For Domenic and Roseann

An inspiring couple

That day in 1935 when Bobby Jones putted out to complete his final round, you could feel the sense of disappointment in the crowd at the 18th green at Augusta National. Like the year before during its inaugural edition, it appeared that Joness tournament was again not going to meet the expectations generated by its tremendous hype.

It was the first Sunday in April, but the weather was more like the first Sunday in February. An hour after Jones finished his round, Craig Wood, the leader by three strokes, was exiting the 18th green and making his way to the clubhouse. A few minutes earlier Jones, who had been tending to his duties as the tournaments host in and around the clubhouse, decided to go back out on the course and follow the few remaining groups back to the home hole.

Of the handful of players still out on the course, none appeared to stand a chance of catching Wood. As Jones made his way back on to the course, many of the patrons began to make their way to the parking lot. Little did they know that in just a few minutes, the most famous shot in golf history would be struck.

The Great Depression had begun on Black Friday, back in October 1929. For the game of golf, it didnt start until Black Monday, November 17, 1930, when Jones, the greatest player the game had ever known, decided at age 28 to announce his retirement from competitive golf. At that moment, golf joined the rest of the country in a grim stall. The game languished there until February 1934, when it received a huge jolt of adrenaline. Albeit for just one tournament, Jones was coming out of retirement to play competitively again.

For most of the previous four years, Jones had been busy planning and building his dream course in Augusta. To showcase his creation, he was hosting the Augusta National Invitational Golf Tournament. Soon after announcing the plans for the early spring event, Jones decided he was going to make a one-time exception to his retirement and announced that he was not only going to host the tournament, but play in it as well.

For the next six weeks, the sports pages and the golf world were abuzz with anticipation. On the eve of the tournament, although he had not played a competitive round in almost four years, oddsmakers made him the favorite at six to one.

By his own admission, Jones had played more golf in retirement than he ever had during the years he played competitively. But for those who had put their hopes, and in some cases cash, on the second coming of Bobby Jones, his return to competition did not live up to their expectations. Joness play, although respectable, was not the world-beater brand of his glory days. He finished 10 strokes behind the winner, Horton Smith, in 13th place.

In the run-up to this second staging of the Augusta National Invitational Tournament in 1935, an event some had been calling the The Masters from its outset, Jones again announced he would come out of retirement to play in the tournament. The pre-tournament hype surrounding his entry was every bit as rousing as it had been the year before. And once again, he was listed as the favorite by bookmakers. Unfortunately Joness performance once again failed to meet expectations. In fact, it did not even match his showing the year before. When he tapped in for par at the 18th hole to complete his final round, he was 15 strokes behind the leader.

Had Jones delayed his departure from the clubhouse area by just a minute, he would have missed being in that very small number that witnessed the most epic shot in golf history. As he reached the top of a mound along the fairway of the par-five 15th hole, he paused. To his left, some fifty yards away, he could see the pairing of Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen and their caddies. Sarazen, some 235 yards from the pin, was beginning to address his second shot; Hagen and his caddie were standing about 20 yards to Sarazens left. A few moments later, Sarazen fired off his shot with a 4-wood. Years later Jones gave this account of that moment: His swing into the ball was so perfect and so free, you knew immediately it was going to be a gorgeous shot.

As Jones was working his way back out onto the back nine that fateful Sunday at Augusta, Grantland Rice, the countrys most noted sportswriter, was in the clubhouse with most of the rest of the press corps, enthralled with what was setting up to be one of the feel-good stories of the yearCraig Wood winning Joness tournament. Wood had suffered a heartbreaking setback the previous year in the first Augusta National Invitational, losing to Horton Smith by a stroke. What made this moment even sweeter was that this day was Wood and his wifes first wedding anniversary. Wanting the best pictures for this feel-good story, the press corps goaded the happy couple into posing for a photograph with the winners check.

Rice, no doubt, had a pretty good outline already mapped out in his head on how he would describe Woods victory to the millions of readers who would read his nationally syndicated column the next day. Many today consider Rices writing more than a little syrupy. But for his time, he was at the top of the sportswriters leaderboard. His most-quoted lines were from his poem Alumnus Football: For when the One Great Scorer comes, To mark against your name, He writesnot that you won or lostBut how you played the Game. And he was also known for nicknaming the great backfield of the 1924 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame in his account of their contest against Army in New York Citys Polo Grounds. Using a biblical reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, he wrote:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.