Chasing Greatness

by Adam Lazarus

  Just as Schlee readied himself for the crucial swing, however, a U.S.G.A. official called for him to wait, as a ruling was in process on the green. The moment of pause jolted him.

  “It was then I realized this was the most important shot of my life. I needed to relax. So I relaxed everything. As a student of hypnosis, I was easily able to do this. I did such a good job, I almost fell asleep. Arnie, who I was paired with, awoke me from my semislumber by saying, ‘John, you can play now.’

  “I went through my procedure and set up. As the club started back, I knew something was wrong. I wasn’t doing it. I thought to myself, ‘Hang on and hope for the best!’

  “As I moved through impact, my legs straightened and I hit a long, thin shot through the green.”

  The approach shot didn’t look terrible. Though a shade left of target and a little lower than his normal trajectory, Schlee’s ball hit on the front of the green, precisely as he intended. But because the greens had firmed up and the shot was “thin” (topspin rather than backspin), the ball refused to hold. It took a huge, thirty-foot hop, then bounded across the mammoth green and through the fringe, settling in the thick perimeter rough.

  “What had gone wrong? I had choked but didn’t know why. I had played that shot thousands of times in practice and in competition,” Schlee recalled. “It took me six months of playing it over and over in my mind before I realized what had happened. You see, when I relaxed, I relaxed my entire body, including my respiratory system. I overdid it. I was starved for oxygen and my body could not perform smoothly without it.”

  In a stroke of good fortune, Schlee’s ball did not sink deeply into the rough, as usually happened around Oakmont’s greens. Instead, it rested atop the grass, forty feet downhill and a half dozen cruel undulations to the hole.

  For the man whose natal moon was at its lunar high point, who interpreted his horoscope to believe “I was destined to do well athletically this week,” anything seemed possible. And that included sinking a forty-foot chip from the rough on the seventy-second hole of the U.S. Open to force a Monday play-off.

  Golf’s greatest championship was now on the line. And no matter what happened, the life of one man—either the nomadic, troubled journeyman who spent a decade barely scraping by on tour, or the handsome, religious golfer/ model whose inevitable stardom was long overdue—would forever change.

  With an understandably nervous-looking Johnny Miller standing nearby, Schlee studied his lie and the twisting pathway between his ball and the pin. He wiped sweaty palms on his pant legs several times, then set up for the shot of a lifetime.

  Schlee’s four-iron chip—he always preferred low shots from green-side fringe—popped out cleanly, taking one small hop before descending smoothly toward the hole. Both the speed and the line seemed exactly right. To the eager, anxious gallery, it seemed sure to drop.

  But just a moment from disappearing into the cup, the ball veered slightly left and missed by three inches.

  It was over. Miller had survived.

  He had endured and overcome everything. The forlorn, confused feelings of earlier in the day. A six-stroke deficit. The toughest golf course in America. The specter of Jack Nicklaus. The colossal shadow of Arnold Palmer and his hometown crowd. The grinding consistency of Lee Trevino. The inspired charge of Tom Weiskopf. And the spirited, dark-horse, upset bid of John Schlee. Johnny Miller was now the United States Open champion.

  After he tapped in for par, Schlee, along with Palmer—who had just gloriously dropped a long birdie putt to tie Nicklaus and Trevino for fourth place-headed for the green-side scorer’s tent. On the way, Palmer spotted Miller and walked toward the new champion, offering a smile and a hand of congratulations.

  Unknowingly, Palmer stepped right in front of Schlee, who was heading in to sign his card. Reporters and cameramen rushed to document the regal scene: an apparent passing of the torch from King to Prince.

  John Schlee glanced momentarily to see where Palmer was headed. Giving way to the flock of media, he continued into the scorer’s tent, then faded from the spotlight.

  MILLER’S 63 PROMPTLY CHANGED HIS travel arrangements. No longer was the family destined for Akron, Ohio—the trip that Linda Miller stayed behind Sunday morning to pack for. Later that evening, they would leave for Washington, D.C., so that Johnny could make a charity pro-am appearance at Prince Georges Country Club in Landover, Maryland. And the next day, the family would head to the White House; unfortunately, Richard Nixon’s meeting with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev ran long, so golf-crazed vice president Spiro Agnew personally congratulated Johnny, instead of the president.

  But late into Sunday evening, the Millers stayed at Oakmont and soaked up the championship spotlight. Photographers snapped shots of what seemed to be a very relieved Miller hugging the U.S. Open trophy or kissing his wife. Still dressed in his playing outfit, Miller even posed with tournament runner-up John Schlee, who had already showered and changed into a suit. Above a very dated Pittsburgh Post-Gazette caption—“Hertz, Avis of ’73 Open: Johnny Miller, John Schlee”—the two smiled for the camera.

  Considering how much money he had just earned, Miller was glad to stand before the cameras. Aside from the $35,000 first-place paycheck, his manager, Ed Barner—who told reporters he couldn’t bear to watch Miller play the final hole because nerves made him “afraid I’d throw up”—bragged to the press what the win would do for his client.

  “Just on bonus contracts with various companies, this Open will be worth forty-seven thousand dollars to John the rest of the year,” Barner said. “And between now and next year’s Open ... oh, easily two hundred thousand.”

  And just like Billy Casper had seven years earlier, the Mormon golfer had to explain whether or not he would tithe ten percent of his winnings to the Church.

  “No, it’s got to be ten percent of the net; otherwise, you’d go broke,” Miller said.

  Naturally, reporters interrogated Miller for hours after Schlee’s desperation chip rolled by the flagstick on number eighteen. He explained his feelings of depression en route to the golf course on Sunday morning, his radical change in stance, the “sky-high” joy that overcame him early in the round, and how he rebounded from “choked” putts on numbers seven and eight to birdie five of the last ten holes.

  “I don’t know much about Open history, but I don’t think too many sixty-threes have ever been shot,” he told the press.

  Of course, none ever had (see Appendix 1). A few of the game’s more distinguished leaders quickly tried to put the round in perspective.

  “I still can’t believe it,” said P.J. Boatwright, the executive director of the U.S.G.A. who had been so angered by the overwatered greens Friday morning.

  “I don’t know if there has been a greater finish, except perhaps Gene Sarazen’s great charge at Fresh Meadow [Long Island] in 1932 when he played the last twenty-eight holes in a hundred shots and won the Open by three,” PGA tour commissioner Joe Dey said. “Miller’s finish was really unbelievable.”

  But considering that the first 63 had come at “the Hades of Hulton,” the word fluke was casually tossed around as a way to explain the inexplicable.

  “Without taking anything away from Miller, course conditions contributed to unusually low scoring on the weekend,” wrote one reporter who simply stated what many were thinking. “What happened to Oakmont’s vaunted ferocity?” asked New York Times columnist Arthur Daley. “The members were so proud of that ferocity too. But it was subdued for this Open, by either accident or design or both.”

  No one wanted to believe such a score was legitimate on the world’s toughest golf course, in the world’s toughest championship.

  “Imagine shooting a 63 in a U.S. Open! That’s almost like stoning a church, or painting moustaches on statues of saints,” hyperbole-prone Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray wrote. “You’re supposed to win an Open with four 71s or three 69s and a 72. Your swing is supposed to choke up as you get near first money. You’re
supposed to look up at the leaderboard and say, ‘My God! What am I doing leading a U.S. Open! Where do I come off beating Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino and Gary Player!’ Then you’re supposed to go out and faint, or shank and shoot bogey-bogey-bogey-double-bogey.”

  “Everyone else is griping and worrying so much they don’t have a chance,” Miller said. “The Open is perfect for me. It humbles everybody else.”

  Although he certainly feared the worst during his final round, Miller—who always felt destined to win the U.S. Open—didn’t succumb to the pressure. He stood up to the world’s top players and won.

  “No, I don’t think I’m a big shot because I won the Open. I’ll still dress myself the same way every morning.”

  But once he had finished narrating the round, Miller’s attitude shifted. He became defensive, as if he had to justify his triumph to his fellow pros, the press, and the world. He had craved for some time to separate himself from the cute “young lion” tag, and in the aftermath of victory, he felt a bit slighted and overlooked as someone who “deserved” to win a U.S. Open.

  “I’ve been around and won a little money. I am not out there trying to lag for pars,” he assured everyone. “I am no flash in the pan.”

  Time would tell.

  Chasing Greatness, Twenty Years Later

  • 14 •

  Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Lee Trevino

  True to his word, Arnold Palmer did not run for governor of Pennsylvania and never entered politics—although in 1974, President Richard Nixon did ask for Palmer’s opinion on how best to end the war in Vietnam. “Well, if the decision were mine to make,” he told Nixon and his national security staff in the president’s San Clemente vacation home, “I guess I wouldn’t pussyfoot around. Let’s get this thing over as quickly as possible, for everyone’s sake. Why not go for the green?”

  Palmer stuck to golf. The February 1973 Bob Hope Desert Classic proved his last PGA tour triumph, but he remained far more than a sentimental crowd favorite. A year after the heartbreak at Oakmont, he again charged into contention during the Sunday of a U.S. Open. In the famed 1974 “Massacre at Winged Foot,” Palmer began the final round once again in the second-to-last pairing, just three strokes behind the lead. Poor putting and a string of front-nine bogeys cost him, and the forty-four-year-old finished tied for fifth.

  “I’m not going to quit and give up just because I’m not winning. Physically I feel great. Another eighteen would be no problem right now,” he said after his final-round 76. “I hear the players and the fans calling me the ‘Old Man,’ but I don’t feel old. Don’t forget, there’s Boros and Snead, who are still playing, and they make me feel like a kid.

  “There aren’t too many things I’d rather do than play golf. It’s not the money anymore and, even though I like to win, it might not even be that. Maybe it’s just that [the] roar of the crowd is too good to leave behind.”

  Roars followed Palmer everywhere during the remainder of the 1970s. Finishing ninth in the 1975 U.S. Open tied Palmer with Ben Hogan as the only golfers over age forty to score top tens in four consecutive U.S. Opens. In the 1976 Bob Hope, he one-putted ten greens, two-putted the rest, and shot a second-round 64; sadly, “Deke” Palmer died the next day, and Arnold withdrew to fly back to Orlando. Two years later, a nostalgic final-round charge nearly won Palmer the Phoenix Open at age forty-eight. Five consecutive birdies pulled him into the lead before he ran out of steam and finished tied for fifth.

  Palmer turned fifty in September 1979 and was instrumental in the founding of the Senior PGA Tour in 1980. Purses were small (averaging less than $120,000 that inaugural season), and only eleven events were played over the first two years. But he won the Senior PGA Championship in February, and claimed the Senior U.S. Open the following summer. The buzz among fans and corporate sponsors—both groups eager to see Palmer play and win—sparked an explosion of interest in over-fifty professional golf.

  By 1985, twenty-four events were on the senior schedule, and the average purse had nearly doubled. Palmer was the main catalyst for the rise in the Senior Tour’s popularity and prosperity, just as he had been for the PGA tour three decades earlier.

  With a lifetime invitation to the Masters, Palmer continued to appear at Augusta each spring, and he occasionally delighted the European crowds by playing in the British Open. But his exemption for the U.S. Open expired after 1977. The U.S.G.A. issued Palmer special exemptions to play in the 1978, 1980, and 1981 U.S. Opens (winning the 1981 Senior U.S. Open automatically qualified him for 1982). And when the U.S. Open returned to Oakmont in 1983 (which Larry Nelson won), Palmer again received an exemption; he made the cut and tied for sixtieth place, at age fifty-three.

  As the 1980s progressed, Palmer scaled back his playing schedule and did not earn any Senior Tour exemptions to play in the U.S. Open. The U.S.G.A. chose not to issue him any more special exemptions ... until the Open returned to Oakmont in 1994.

  Although fans—especially the Pittsburgh crowds—loved the U.S.G.A.’s sentimental move, not everyone believed it was fair for the sixty-four-year-old to earn a free pass into the field.

  “There’s a school of thought that says golf owes Arnold,” wrote former U.S.G.A. executive director Frank Hannigan. “I don’t buy it. Arnold most certainly enhanced golf. In return, he became rich and famous. It’s a wash.”

  Hannigan wasn’t alone, either.

  “I’ve never needed an invitation before, and I think I deserve one more than Arnold Palmer,” said Seve Ballesteros, who eventually earned his trip to Oakmont with a win in early May.

  Among others, Lanny Wadkins rushed to defend Palmer.

  “I know [Seve’s] a big name in golf, but guys like Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer had to go through qualifying, and if Seve thinks he’s a bigger name than them, he’s sadly mistaken.”

  Regardless of how he got there, Palmer would be making a record fifth U.S. Open appearance at the same course. He played five Senior Tour events in five consecutive weeks during May and early June of 1994 to sharpen his game, then spent the week before the U.S. Open preparing at Oakmont.

  “Yes, this will be my last. I thought that happened long ago, but they want me to play one more,” he said after a practice round with a few local amateurs and Oakmont assistant pros. “[My game is] no good. No good. I thought I had the irons for a while but they disappeared again. I’ll have to find something pretty soon.”

  The next day, during an official practice round, Jack Nicklaus joined Palmer (along with the defending U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen and Rocco Mediate) for eighteen holes. Nicklaus and Palmer bantered back and forth, hurling self-deprecating comments and good-natured barbs at each other before closing out the round and meeting with the press.

  “I’m sure a lot of people enjoyed it,” Nicklaus said. “But I’m sure both of us would have wanted to play better.”

  “I would like to play respectable golf,” Palmer added. “The chance of me doing that on a scale of 1 to 10 is about three or four. I would be happy to play any kind of golf. But I’m just going to enjoy the week.”

  The last United States Open Championship played without Eldrick “Tiger” Woods began at seven a.m. on Thursday, June 16, 1994. By the early afternoon, 126 golfers had already teed off, including Greg Norman, John Daly, Phil Mickelson, eleven past U.S. Open champions, and Tommy Armour III, grandson of the champion in the 1927 Open. But when Palmer’s threesome walked to the first tee at two p.m., no one else mattered.

  Despite their vast age differences, Palmer actually had a lot in common with his playing partners. As Palmer did as an amateur in the late 1940s, John Mahaffey had won at Oakmont before; the Texan claimed the 1978 PGA Championship at the Hades of Hulton. And thirty-one-year-old Rocco Mediate, from nearby Greensburg, grew up less than an hour from the Oakmont course. Naturally, he worshiped Arnold Palmer.

  “He’s responsible for all this,” Mediate said that week. “The popularity of golf. The Open. These crowds. The mon
ey. We owe him a lot.”

  Mediate and Mahaffey teed off first. Then Palmer endured an eerie—and presumably comical—moment of déjà vu. His caddie, Royce Nielson, was nowhere in sight. Since Nielson had his clubs, Palmer could only wait. Unlike his young, scared-to-death caddie in 1973, Nielson hadn’t abandoned the King; he just couldn’t fight his way through the gallery to reach the tee box. After a few minutes, Nielson finally made it through the mass of people and handed the driver to Palmer, who promptly drove into the right rough.

  Palmer would go on to make a respectable bogey: In the opening round, more than half of the field failed to par the opening hole. Under a brutal sun, he played the next seven holes in two over par before coming to the par-five ninth tee. Palmer struck a poor wedge for his third shot that left him far from the hole. But he thrilled the next generation of Arnie’s Army, massed in front of the clubhouse, by sinking the birdie to finish the front side in thirty-eight strokes. A few hours later, at the home hole, the showman again excited the crowd with a beautiful bunker shot that nearly landed in the cup. From there, he nailed the eight-footer.

  “I was pretty darn proud of that shot on eighteen,” he told the press after wrapping up a six over 77. “Making the cut was my goal when I started, and it still is. I didn’t enhance it, but I have [a] chance. I need a good round [tomorrow]. Then I’ll worry about winning the tournament.”

  Friday morning, Palmer couldn’t produce the same heroic bunker saves or long putts. His score ballooned, and standing on the eighteenth tee, he was fifteen over par, well back of the projected cut. Palmer’s last U.S. Open was almost over.

  He struck a solid, straight drive and headed down the fairway. Two hundred yards ahead, all three grandstands, along with the green-side gallery, stood and cheered. The army momentarily quieted so that Palmer could poke his lengthy approach up the steep bank toward the green. The ball skidded to the green’s edge, forty feet from the flagstick. As he walked toward the putting surface, the gallery again roared. Palmer doffed his straw hat to the fans, then flashed a prolonged thumbs-up.