Mottoes to Sink by: Play It as It Lies, Never Play It Safe

The first Masters golf tournament I ever saw was in 1957. The eventual winner, Doug Ford, was cruising along, four-under par and in the lead on the final round, when he came to the 15th hole. It’s a par 5 and reachable in two by the big hitters, of which Doug definitely was not one.

Doug was not your basic bomber. Doug had this little hustler’s hook grip on the club, and he tended to duck hook his way to the hole like a weekend club player, but he was as tenacious a player as we have ever had. He won 19 tournaments, mainly on guts and cunning. Head-to-head, he’d have you back on the bus to Altoona by the 16th hole. If you win 19 tournaments today, you have your own airplane and bank, but, in 1957, Doug thought he was overmatched at Augusta. Two nights before the final round, he confessed to me outside a downtown hotel that he found the Masters course an angel hair too long for his game.

All of this went flying out of the calculations as Doug stood on No. 15 that Sunday. His medium-long drive had put him on top of the hill above that 500-yard hole with the water in front and it was tempting. Doug reached for his 4-wood. But, it appeared to be stuck in the bag. He jerked at it. It wouldn’t come.

Then, Doug, to his amazement, realized why it wouldn’t. His caddy, a lean, worried-looking veteran of the course, had a death grip on it. He wanted Doug to take a 4-iron and lay up in front of the water. Ford shouted at him, tugged at the 4-wood. The caddy--I believe his name was Cemetery--wouldn’t budge. It became a wrestling match.

Finally, flushed and angry, Ford liberated his wood from the bag, addressed the ball and slashed at it.

The shot careened toward the hole and, as I remember it, hit the water and skipped across it like a scaled pebble and onto the green.

Doug made his birdie and won his tournament. But, in the club shack, later, his caddy was unreconstructed. “No way a man four-under par and leading the tournament should go for it in that situation,” he insisted. “Man was lucky. He’s in the water, Mr. Snead catches him. You don’t want Mr. Snead on the same lap you are on.”

I was reminded of this the other day when a young golfer named Curtis Strange flew the championship into the water on Holes No. 13 and 15 at this year’s Masters.

I don’t know whether his caddy argued with him or had a tug-of-war with him over club selection. They used to make you take the Augusta National caddies in this tournament, but the players, in their wisdom, fought for the right to bring their own tour caddies on the course. You can bet old Cemetery would have given young Strange a lively tussle if he’d been there. Those Augusta caddies knew every blade of grass on that real estate. They knew what to do--and what not to do.

But, the stories indicate one basic point: Golfers don’t change. What is it about golfers that makes them believe the gods of the game will punish them for faint-heartedness? Reward them for recklessness?

It’s hard to tell. But, to a man, they will confess to you a deep-seated belief that if God is a golfer, he hates a guy who will lay up.

If they write a book, they will tell you with a perfectly straight face that, if you ever find yourself in deep trouble, faced with a shot that will take a near-miracle to bring it off, that you must just bump it back on the fairway, take your penalty and start over.

Only, did you ever see one of them do it? They constantly hit shots that are right out of Lourdes. They take more chances than a guy who’s dating his secretary.

They can tell you by the hour horror stories of what befell guys who played it safe. If there’s a golfer’s hell, they’re convinced it’s full of guys who hit irons off the tees, played around rather than over the water or chipped short.

Perhaps you noticed, with the tournament practically in hand, the winner last Sunday, Bernhard Langer, used an iron off the long par-4, 18th hole. And, then, promptly slapped his second shot into a bunker and jeopardized his lead and insured bogey. That’s what happens to guys who play customer golf, golfers will warn you. Those are the sad stories.

I saw Ben Hogan hit a lot of bad shots. Well, maybe not a lot, but I saw him hit some bad shots. But I never saw him play a bad shot. The distinction is important. Hogan hit the ball where he knew it should be, not where he hoped it would be. Hogan never hit a shot to please a gallery. Hogan hit a shot to please Hogan.

You might expect that this Strange interlude at Augusta 1985 might change the face of tournament golf. Don’t bet on it. Golfers might engineer a round of golf a little more carefully for a tournament of two. But, then, it’ll be right back to “Gimme the damn wood and tell those people on the right to stand back.” Or, “I didn’t get here by playing safe, just shut up and I’ll take care of the shotmaking.”

If Doug Ford were standing on No. 15 tomorrow with a one-shot lead and four-under-par and 240 yards from the pin, he’d pull the wood out of his caddy’s hands again if he had to arm-wrestle him for it. Curtis Strange would pull on his rain gear and go back down in Rae’s Creek after the same shot. As Nick the Greek used to say, you shouldn’t call for cards if you ain’t gonna play the hand.