The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta (11 page)
Authors: Gil Capps
“That 64 by Weiskopf at Greensboro in the wind may be one of the greatest rounds ever,” said Jim Colbert. Weiskopf agreed the next day, “I really think it was the best round I’ve ever played. A lot of players told me they think it’s better than Miller’s 61 (at Tucson).” Arnold Palmer and others felt the greens were running as fast as those at Augusta National. “The fastest I can remember on the tour,” said Weiskopf.
The weather remained chilly and breezy all week, but Weiskopf continued his stellar play, leading wire to wire. In the final round, he eagled the par-five 9th by making a fifty-foot putt and cruised home
for the title. “There’s nothing like a win to boost your confidence,” said Weiskopf of his first victory anywhere in fifteen months. “I really played as good for four rounds from tee to green as I have ever played. There wasn’t a single part of my game that I felt was weak.
“It has taken me three hard months of work to get my swing back to where it was in 1973. I’m hitting the same type of shots. I’m pretty satisfied with my mental attitude. I’m patient, and my concentration is excellent.”
Only Art Wall had followed a win with another the next week in the Masters, having done so in 1959 at the Azalea Open, but Weiskopf was undeterred. “There’s no reason I can’t go into that final hole at Augusta with a chance to win,” he said. “I’ve got a good chance to win at Augusta and a better chance than 90 percent of the field. I’m confident it will happen some year. It’s just a matter of time until I do.”
Suddenly, Weiskopf was back and interloping in the Nicklaus–Miller conversation. “We surely weren’t enemies,” says Miller of his relationship with Weiskopf. “We were interesting rivals. He was so in love with Jack Nicklaus. He actually didn’t like me because I was threatening Jack Nicklaus. To him that was like, ‘What are you kidding me? How many majors have you won? You don’t deserve to be on the same golf course with Jack Nicklaus.’ He was sort of a tough guy. I liked Tom, but he really didn’t like me.”
The dynamic between Weiskopf and Nicklaus was a little different. Miller had been hearing the “next Nicklaus” talk for a year. Weiskopf, who was from the same state as Nicklaus, went to the same university, and lived in his hometown, had been hearing it for more than ten years.
Nearly three years younger than Nicklaus, Weiskopf grew up in northern Ohio. He enrolled at Ohio State in August 1960 and remembers seeing Nicklaus there for the first time. Although never teammates with him because freshmen were ineligible to play varsity sports until 1972, Weiskopf went to the range and saw the team’s junior star warming up. “I wasn’t even that good then,” says Weiskopf,
who was seventeen at the time. “I thought, ‘I’d like to play like that guy’.” Weiskopf never met Nicklaus that day. He just watched.
A few years later, he was playing like that guy. A long hitter who could blast majestic, controlled shots, Weiskopf quickly drew comparisons to his fellow Buckeye whose footsteps were in front of him.
Usually being the first is an accomplishment, but for Weiskopf, being the first “next Jack Nicklaus” was a cross to bear.
“Kaye Kessler and Paul Hornung—two writers from the Columbus area—they really kind of started that,” says Weiskopf of the sports writers of the
Citizen-Journal
and
Evening Dispatch
, respectively. “That became a little suffocating.”
Rarely did a story or column or television mention of Weiskopf come without a “Nicklaus” reference. It was perpetuated by everyone. Even when the press needed a different angle, it followed the same path: “The man to succeed Arnold Palmer,” wrote
Golf Digest
in 1968. Even if Weiskopf didn’t read the papers and magazines, he had to field the questions and hear the fans and that festered in his mind. “I didn’t want to be compared to him,” he says. “I didn’t have the same makeup.”
Weiskopf, like Miller, didn’t play golf as Nicklaus did. After all, his instruction book written in 1969 was titled
Go For The Flag
. He also lacked essential traits Nicklaus possessed: patience, course management, and a calmness when things went wrong. Weiskopf was a perfectionist with a long memory and short temper.
“I lacked the two most important things that he had over me,” says Weiskopf. “His motivation to be the greatest and the concentration that he could keep. We’re different. I didn’t have the same motivation. I didn’t have the concentration all the time.”
Every player in the early- and mid-1970s lived in the shadow of Jack Nicklaus. But for guys like Gary Player and Lee Trevino, their games really didn’t compare when it came to the eye test. Tom Weiskopf’s grade on the eye test was A+, so the comparisons to
Nicklaus were more pronounced as were the criticisms as to why he couldn’t produce similar results.
“Again, they don’t know me,” Weiskopf says. “They only look at the way I hit a golf ball. I had the power he had. He never could outdrive me. I had the long-iron game that he had. The games were very similar.”
Although they never wound up fraternizing at Ohio State, the two developed a friendship on Tour. They played practice rounds together. They went hunting together. “They were friends and Tom truly admired Jack,” says Maltbie. Indeed, Weiskopf thought the world of Nicklaus.
“Jack is the record book,” said Weiskopf. “Jack is what every golfer wants to be.” Nearly four decades later, Weiskopf feels the same: “He’s an icon. He’s a role model. He’s the greatest.”
Their relationship came to resemble that of big brother-little brother: Weiskopf, the little brother, admiring Nicklaus and placing him upon a pedestal. When little brother couldn’t climb alongside, however, there could be anger and hurt feelings.
“Jack respected him. Tom respected Jack,” says Kaye Kessler. “But Jack was a thorn in Tom’s side his whole career. It bugged the hell out of Tom.”
“I remember him saying to me that Jack always seems to find a way to beat me,” says Ben Wright, who became good friends with Weiskopf in the 1970s.
Weiskopf had gotten the best of Nicklaus once in the inaugural Inverrary Classic in 1972. But his eleven wins at the time were overshadowed by eighteen runner-up finishes on Tour—three of them to Nicklaus coming at the 1972 Masters, 1973 Atlanta Classic, and 1975 Heritage Classic. “Everywhere we went, the talk was that Weiskopf can’t beat Nicklaus,” says Murphy.
“I think, in truth, Tom Weiskopf did not believe that he could beat Jack in a major championship on Sunday,” adds Murphy. “I don’t know that there were any of us who didn’t feel that same thing.
You had no right to believe it, especially if it was a major. He was going to get you.”
Weiskopf witnessed their differences during one day at the 1973 Ryder Cup at Muirfield in Scotland, when they both played on the United States team.
In the morning, he and Nicklaus partnered in a foursome (alternate-shot) match against the Great Britain and Ireland side of Brian Barnes and Peter Butler. Weiskopf remembers one hole where Nicklaus asked him to read a putt for him. Weiskopf said, “Split the hole on the left.” “That’s exactly what I thought it was going to do,” said Nicklaus. The ball went down in the hole and came out. Nicklaus stared at the ball and the hole. Weiskopf said, “I can’t believe that didn’t go in the hole, Jack.” Nicklaus replied, “I MADE IT. It just didn’t go in.” In his mind, he made it. It wasn’t his fault it didn’t go in.
“That defines him perfectly,” says Weiskopf. “That is what Jack Nicklaus is all about. That is the way he thinks.”
After winning that match 1 up, in the afternoon they were together again, this time in a four-ball match against Clive Clark and Eddie Polland. Nicklaus told his wife Barbara to wait at the turn and just walk the last couple of holes as the match would end soon thereafter. Nicklaus was determined to beat Clark, Polland, and, it appeared, Weiskopf. On one green near the conclusion of the match, Weiskopf’s ball was about ten feet from the hole for birdie, Nicklaus’s just outside him on nearly the same line. “I said, ‘Which way do you want me to move this?’” recalls Weiskopf. “He said, ‘Nah, pick it up.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Pick up your coin. Don’t worry, I’ll make this’.” He did. They would win, 3 and 2. He not only put it to the other team, but he put it to Weiskopf who was enjoying the best year of his career. “It was the only time I rooted against him,” he says.
“I wasn’t afraid of Jack, and Jack knew that” says Miller. “Tom Weiskopf probably had the horsepower also to beat Jack and the game to beat Jack, but he was so in awe of Jack that he just couldn’t
imagine beating Jack Nicklaus. He put him in such high esteem, mentally, the way he prepared for tournaments, how well he played under pressure, how he hit the ball. He was just so impressed with Jack—which you probably should be—but so impressed that he just couldn’t beat him.”
Nicklaus noticed it as well: “I just believe that he didn’t believe he could beat me... And if you think that way, you’re not going to beat somebody.”
From Weiskopf’s side, it was a love-hate relationship that flipped back and forth regularly. “They had one hell of a rivalry,” says Kessler. “Jack would just piss Tom off. He really got his goat. But Tom loved Jack.”
“There was a whole inferiority complex about Nicklaus,” says Wright. One time after a few drinks, Wright recalls Weiskopf telling him, “You know, I get so mad. Everybody says Nicklaus and Weiskopf are great friends. I hate him. I’ve always hated him.
“Nicklaus did in Weiskopf. No question, he destroyed him because he got that bug in his head.”
In the end, it goes back to Columbus. “It would’ve been different (had Nicklaus not been from Ohio and gone to OSU),” admits Weiskopf. “You just get tired of reading that stuff all the time. Of being reminded.”
With Weiskopf’s resurgent play, he would hear it again this week.
On Monday, Weiskopf played a practice round with Ed Sneed, Tony Jacklin, and Maurice Bembridge. On Tuesday, he joined Arnold Palmer. On Wednesday, there was another round. “I played a lot of holes when I played practice rounds. I was a 36- or 45-hole guy a lot. There wasn’t enough time in the day,” says Weiskopf. “It never bothered me. I was in shape.”
Even with his renewed game, Weiskopf admitted who the favorite was. “If I was a betting man and I was told I could pick only one man out of the field that man would be Jack Nicklaus,” he said. “Jack is just a phenomenal man.”
The day before the tournament’s start, Nevada oddsmakers listed Nicklaus as the favorite at 3/1. Weiskopf was next at 6/1, followed at 8/1 by Miller along with Player and Hale Irwin, the reigning U.S. Open champion. “I would say Weiskopf’s odds are as good as anybody’s,” said Miller, who on Monday played Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder and rated himself at 6/1.
No matter the order or the odds, Nicklaus, Miller, and Weiskopf were definitely the three overwhelming favorites. Not only were they the three most gifted players, they were the three hottest. But with so many variables and other talented players on Tour, pre-tournament storylines didn’t always pan out. Golf isn’t like the Miss America contest. The prettiest swings and best players rarely play well the same week. Even Nicklaus had won only 20 percent of the time he teed it up in his career as a professional on Tour. The likelihood of that trio all playing well and in contention late Sunday afternoon was very remote.
THE BUILD UP
to the Masters Tournament ended Wednesday afternoon with the Par Three Contest, another Roberts creation. In the very first Masters of 1934, a driving contest and iron contest had been staged during the tournament, and such extra-curricular activities became an annual staple. In 1958, the club hired George Cobb to design a nine-hole par-three course on the east side of the property. In 1960, they inaugurated a par three competition to be played the day before the start of the tournament, replacing another driving and putting contest. Any player could participate, and non-competing invitees joined in as well. Miller and Weiskopf chose to play, Nicklaus did not.
The competition began at 1:00 p.m. Twelve holes-in-one had been made in the contest’s history, but none would be added on this day. Lee Elder took home one of the nine closest-to-the-pin trophies after hitting it to nineteen inches on the 2nd. For the first time, a four-way sudden-death playoff took place with Isao Aoki,
Bobby Cole, Peter Oosterhuis, and Sam Snead, the defending champion, after they tied with scores of 23, which was four under par. Aoki won on the second playoff hole. The thirty-four-year-old Japanese star, who played almost exclusively in his home country, was appearing in his second Masters and only event of the year on the U.S. mainland. No player had won the Par Three Contest and Masters Tournament in the same year.
The weather had been delightful for the three practice days: clear and temperate with highs reaching 70 every day. Thanks to a mild winter, course conditions had been pristine. “It’s as good as it has been in some time,” said Nicklaus. Weiskopf agreed: “Just perfect. It’s in the best shape I’ve seen it.” But change was on the way overnight with rain forecasted Thursday. “If it rains, then they’ll eat it up, and I’m talking about players like Weiskopf and Nicklaus,” said Lee Trevino.
“Jack Nicklaus against Johnny Miller, Lee Elder’s debut as the first black in the Masters, the resurgence of Tom Weiskopf, Lee Trevino’s return, and the title defense of Gary Player have made this one of the most talked-about weeks in tournament history,” wrote Robert Eubanks on the front page of Thursday’s
Augusta Chronicle
.
Which story would be the headline on Monday morning?
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or the twenty-second consecutive year, the first player to tee off in the Masters would be one without a chance of winning. Fred McLeod, after all, was ninety-two years old. Beginning in 1954, officials moved he and Jock Hutchison to the earliest tee time because of their speedy pace of play. There they stayed. Both natives of Scotland, McLeod emigrated from North Berwick at age twenty, and Hutchison from St. Andrews at age twenty-one. The two old pros had helped establish golf in the United States of America. McLeod, who didn’t reach five and a half feet in spikes and barely weighed more than 100 pounds, captured the 1908 U.S. Open and two North & South Open titles. Hutchison found even more success, winning the 1920 PGA Championship, two Western Opens, a North & South, and the 1921 British Open in a return to his birthplace. And although they would never win a Masters, each had won at Augusta National. The club hosted the first two Senior PGA Championships—the only event to be contested there other than the Maters. The respective champions in 1937 and 1938 were Hutchison and McLeod.
