LAST MONTH, the Byron Nelson award for the lowest scoring average on the USPGA Tour in 1995 was presented to Greg Norman - by the man himself. While accepting the trophy, the Shark observed graciously: "My one regret is that I never had the chance to play with you." To which Nelson replied: "I'm glad you didn't."
It was never on the cards that they could have clashed competitively, given that their ages are separated by 43 years: Nelson will be 84 tomorrow and Norman celebrates his 41st birthday next Saturday. In this, the golden jubilee of Nelson's retirement from the game, one can't help speculating that it would have been an absorbing confrontation between players with a rare talent for shooting low numbers.
Both players have had their disappointments, but Norman's set backs provoked far more publicity, largely because of television. According to himself, the chip in from which Larry Mize stole the 1987 US Masters, at the second tie hole, hurt the most. "Because it came in the next major championship after Bob Tway (who holed a bunker shot at the 72nd) in the USPGA of 1986," said Norman.
"Somebody may do that to you once in your life. It happened to Nicklaus with Tom Watson. Lee Trevino did it to Tony Jacklin. And to Nicklaus. So you look back and see that. But then you think `Not back to back. No way.' I would say that Larry Mize's position was a hundredfold worse than Bob Tway's. That compounded the hurt."
During 1945, the year of his celebrated streak of 11 successive tournament victories, Nelson set a still unmatched record scoring average of 68.33 for the 120 competitive rounds he played that season - astonishing even by present day standards. And there was more to come. In fact he played a total of 113 tournaments in the 1940s without missing a cut.
A haemophiliac, he was exempted from military service, but by 1946, all the top players had returned from the Second World War. And he kept on winning. Perhaps the ultimate accolade came from Bobby Jones, who admitted: "At my best, I never came close to the golf Nelson shoots." He had five more victories that year and tied with Lloyd Mangrum and Vic Ghezzi for the US Open, before losing the play off to Mangrum.
He then announced his retirement after the USPGA Championship. Some suggested he was suffering from a nervous stomach, others claimed he had back trouble. Nelson said that he was unhappy at being the centre of so much attention, with countless hands to shake, lunches to attend and various other demands on his time.
Years later, he was asked how intense his rivalry had been with his most gifted contemporary, Ben Hogan. Nelson replied: "It's a peculiar thing about Ben's career. He was in the service early in my career and his big wins, which he would have won regardless of whether I was around, came in 1948 and after his automobile wreck, when I was off the tour.
"He was good when I was playing against him, but later on he was great. We were friendly. We had caddied together as kids in Texas. Our wives were quite close. Ben and I travelled together some. Sam Snead tells the story about Ben and me rooming together and me leaping out of bed in the middle of the night hearing rats. Ben told me to go back to bed: it was only him gnashing his teeth."
It was a very special treat for me to stand beside Nelson on the first tee at Oak Hill last September when he was introduced to the competitors from both Ryder Cup teams before they set off on their singles matches. I thought it particularly interesting that Jay Haas should have rubbed his right hand on Nelson's back, hoping to extract some magic for his clash with Philip Walton.
In the light of developments later that day, one could only conclude that there were limits to the great man's powers.
"ONE thing you have to understand about Lee Trevino is that he may play a lot of golf, but he rests a lot, too. Some guys may go fishing or something, but I love to sit in my hotel room, chip a little, watch some television and rest." - Lee Trevino, on his approach to relaxation away from the game.
BY DEFINITION, a championship course is a venue where a championship has actually been played. A championship standard course is not the same thing. The difference was illustrated rather nicely by the experience of staging the revived Irish Amateur Open Strokeplay Championship at Fota Island last June, when Padraig Harrington captured the title.
Arising out of that venture, Christy O'Connor Jnr, who was responsible for the design of the course in partnership with Peter McEvoy, has recently been back at Fota to draw up a programme of course revisions. The idea is that remedial work will be completed by the time the championship returns to Fota on June 13th and 14th.
The lake at the 12th has already been brought closer to the fairway and is now visible from the tee, a second practice putting green has been constructed and, among other things, O'Connor is reviewing the bunkering at the fourth, the approach at the long, fifth and a possible extension to the back shelf on the 202 yard 17th green, making it more receptive to long irons. Changes are, also planned for the second and seventh greens to come with PGA European Tour recommendations.
Fota's general manager, Kevin Mulcahy, informs me that "Garth's Gap" at the 18th has been closed off. It was so called because of Garth McGimpsey's ingenuity in finding a rather interesting route to the 18th hole by driving through a gap in the frees and down the first fairway during the Amateur Open. Prospective imitators are now effectively stymied by a mound, topped by pine trees.
FILM BUFFS will be looking towards the Oscars ceremony and the possibility of Apollo 13 garnering a few awards. For golf enthusiasts, however, the Apollo 14 mission holds far greater appeal. Indeed we are only a few days from the silver jubilee of the occasion. On February 6th, 1971, Alan Shepard, commander of the Apollo 14 mission, carried the game of golf beyond terrestrial limits.
When he descended from the lunar module to begin a scientific walk on the surface of the moon, he carried with him a retractable implement used to collect dust and rocks. Befitting a true enthusiast, however, Shepard had fashioned a six iron clubhead for the end of the tool. And he carried two golf balls in his spacesuit.
Since then, eager manufacturers have made repeated attempts at discovering the brand of those balls, but without success. "I expect I'll take that secret with me to the grave," said Shepard. In the event, he dropped the balls onto the lunar surface and swung with his right hand: restrictions imposed by the spacesuit didn't permit a normal swing. The first shot was shanked 40 or 50 yards, but the second went an estimated 600 yards, or about 10 times the distance it would have covered here on earth.
Wildly fluctuating temperatures on the surface of the moon may have caused the balls to deteriorate since those historic shots. But photographs taken from cameras aboard the Apollo 14 lunar module verify that the shots were actually played. Which means that from a golfing stand point, Shepard could accurately claim to have been over the moon.
TEASER: In strokeplay, a competitor's ball lies in a water hazard. A moveable stake defining the margin of the hazard interferes with the area of his intended swing. He plays his next stroke, avoiding the stake. It then occurs to him that he may have been entitled to remove the stake. The competitor informs his marker that he is invoking Rule 3-3 and elects to score with a second ball. He removes the stake and drops a second ball at the spot from which his original ball was played. He holes out with both balls. What is the ruling?
ANSWER: The situation which caused the doubt arose when the competitor's ball lay in the water hazard and the stake interfered with his swing. Since the competitor took further action, i.e. played the original ball, after the situation which caused the doubt had arisen, the score with the original ball must count. However, the competitor incurs no penalty for having played the second ball.
