An emotional moment relived by Crenshaw

Richard Dunn

Ben Crenshaw, a noted golf history, is part of one of the game’s most

historic moments.

Golf fans will never forget Crenshaw falling to his knees and

breaking down in tears after winning the 1995 Masters Tournament, not

because he’d won, but because of the spiritual honor it provided on

the heels of the death earlier that week of his lifelong instructor,

Harvey Penick.

“I knew I got a lot of help from somewhere else that week. I think

the Lord was going to honor [Penick] through me that week,” Crenshaw,

a two-time Masters winner, said Tuesday morning during the Toshiba

Senior Classic Community Breakfast at the Newport Marriott, where he

was the keynote speaker.

Crenshaw grew up in Austin, Texas, and learned golf at The Country

Club of Austin under Penick, whom Crenshaw said “never gave you a

false sense of hope. He always left you with a kernel of something

positive. He was one of the kindest human beings who walked the earth

... if there was ever a time to do something for somebody, it was

then [at the ’95 Masters]. I couldn’t believe it happened then. He’ll

give me a smile for the rest of my life.”

Tom Kite, who grew up in Austin playing golf with Crenshaw and

also learning the game from Penick, called to tell his former

University of Texas teammate the bad news about Penick. They flew

back to Austin for Penick’s funeral on Wednesday and served as

pallbearers, then flew back in time to tee off for the first round of

the ’95 Masters.

“There were two very lost souls going to Augusta,” Crenshaw said.

“We couldn’t believe it was happening that week. We couldn’t believe

it would happen on Masters week.”

Crenshaw’s caddie since 1976, Carl Jackson, provided a couple of

quick tips to get his boss back on track with his swing. “The shots

were really coming off the clubs,” Crenshaw said. “I was hoping it

would carry over [into the first round] and it did. It was a

beautiful round in the first round.”

What was it that Jackson said to Crenshaw? “Get the ball back in

your stance and make a little tighter shoulder turn.”

Making only five bogeys the whole week, Crenshaw closed with a 68

to hold off Davis Love III by one stroke for his second Masters

championship.

Early in his speech, Crenshaw spoke about the game he loves and

how golf “bridges generation gaps.” Its great tradition can “boast of

having been around for 500 years,” he said.

Crenshaw, who has teed it up with President George W. Bush and his

father, former President George H. Bush, said he’s “having a

difficult time these days” on the golf course and that he’s “very

frustrated,” because taking three or four years off in the late 1990s

and early 2000s certainly did not help his golf game.

“Some of these fellows [on the Champions Tour] play so well and

have kept up their game so well,” said Crenshaw, who is currently

82nd on the money list after four events. “You need 100% devotion.

Some have all of their children out of school and they’re married and

their wives travel with them. They play well and they’re sharp and

competitive. I haven’t gotten to that point. It’s different for me. I

feel like I’m in a state where I have one good hole and then three

bad holes. I’m working on it.”

After collapsing on the 18th green at Augusta National in ‘95,

Crenshaw struggled on the PGA Tour the next six years, playing a

limited schedule while helping to raise his three daughters --

Katherine, 15, Claire, 10, and Anna, 5 -- with his wife, Julie.

Crenshaw’s Masters win in 1984 was also emotional, coming on the

heels of a decision to separate from his first wife and get a

divorce. “I don’t know if that cleared my thinking,” he once said. “I

did feel a certain freedom and an ability to concentrate at that

time. In retrospect, it did have a way of getting everything back to

the golf course.”

Once accused for being too nice of a guy by Lee Trevino, Crenshaw

(a.k.a. Gentle Ben) made his Champions Tour debut in 2002, following

an illustrious career on the PGA Tour with 19 titles, including his

two Masters wins.

Crenshaw was also the captain of the 1999 U.S. Ryder Cup team,

which had the greatest comeback in event history at The Country Club

near Boston.

Crenshaw fought winning battles against Graves disease in the

mid-1980s, wrote a highly successful book called “A Feel for the

Game,” which reached No. 25 on the New York Times best-seller list in

2001, and has been appointed to the President’s Commission On White

House Fellowships by President George W. Bush.

A member of four Ryder Cup teams as a player, Crenshaw lives in

Austin and owns a second home in Dana Point, allowing him to play

Newport Beach Country Club somewhat regularly.

“It’s funny, as a golfer, at least in my case, you start out on

the tour and you’re totally one-dimensional,” Crenshaw said during

last year’s Toshiba Senior Classic. “You just start tournament golf

and you go as far and hard as you can to try to make adjustments and

experiment with things. There are trials and tribulations, there are

lost tournaments and occasional wins ... then between the age of 42

and 50, you just start wondering what you’re going to do with the

rest of your life.”

The recipient of the Payne Stewart Award in 2001 and winner of the

William Richardson Award from the Golf Writers Association in 1989,

Crenshaw defeated Orville Moody to win his first start as a PGA Tour

member at the 1973 San Antonio-Texas Open. He won the 1971 and 1973

NCAA Championship and shared the title in 1972 with Texas teammate

Kite.