It's Cool Being Tom

Tom Weiskopf was his own worst enemy when his vast talent didn't produce perfection, but in a second career as a respected course architect, life couldn't be better

Shining moment: Weiskopf enjoyed the spoils of his lone major championship, the '73 British Open at Troon (Below), but today, at 66, he doesn't dwell on the past.

By Al Barkow

Photos by Dom Furore

March 30, 2009

He still has the straight-backed military cadet posture that accentuates his significant height. However, between the chest and waist Tom Weiskopf's physical profile is skewed a little. There's a bit of a bulge up front. Well, why not? He's 66 years old now, doesn't drink anymore, or play competitive golf. With the long-held perception of his personality in mind—the most colorful expression of it being "The Towering Inferno"—Weiskopf is in something of a state of grace. He's very happy in his work as a golf architect, is contentedly remarried and, as one of the more articulate golf professionals of his or any other day, he has interesting things to say about his reputation as one of golf's most notable coulda-beens.

He had a classic golf swing. With superb balance, Hogan-like, he rotated his left forearm clockwise early in the backswing to put the club on a flatter plane than expected for someone 6-foot-3. His action gave him excellent ball control with great length off the tee. It was all there, which is why everyone expected so much from him. Everyone was shorted. Weiskopf as well?

"Oh yeah, I should have done more," he says. "But I don't dwell on it anymore. I will say this, though: If it wasn't for the fact that I love so much what I'm doing now [golf course design], I would probably be a very unhappy person."

Weiskopf won 16 PGA Tour events, plus five foreign titles, including his one major championship, the 1973 British Open. He shares with Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus the record for most runner-up finishes in the Masters—four. Weiskopf points out that for 17 straight years he was among the top 60 money winners and was the fourth player to win $2 million in a career. "Nicklaus, Trevino and Watson were the three before me—pretty good company." A consensus of those who were there in Weiskopf's day would say he shoulda won 50 tournaments, 10 majors and a zillion dollars.

Photo: Bettmann/CORBIS

What happened? There was, first and foremost, his temperament. He boiled at high-bubble when things did not go well. It's not that he threw clubs much or blurted the f-word a la Tiger Woods. He just steamed, the internal anguish rushing the color red up into his face like the mercury in a thermometer and overcooking his game. "He was his own worst enemy on the course," says Charles Coody, among many others.

What generated the heat? For one, odd as it seems to say, he was a gifted athlete. His father was a fine golfer with a beautiful swing; same with his mother. Weiskopf didn't take any formal lessons, and to this day when asked about his technique has little to say. The game came naturally to him, and when that happens, gifted athletes can have difficulty dealing with adversity and error. "I couldn't stand mediocrity," Weiskopf says. "I knew how good I was, what I was capable of doing, and couldn't accept a mistake. Another thing, I didn't start playing golf until I was 15, and within a year I was shooting in the 70s. Everyone was telling me how good I was, so with all of that you have these high expectations of yourself. And I didn't have a lot of patience."

Added to that was the Nicklaus vortex, into which every young golfer growing up in northern Ohio in the 1950s was caught. Weiskopf—three years younger than the man to whom he would so often be measured—perhaps a little more, given the stuff he was showing.

"To be honest, I didn't handle the Nicklaus situation well," Weiskopf says. "I got tired of hearing and reading about him all the time, and especially always being compared to him. I could hit the ball as far as he could, sometimes a little farther. I could hit my irons as well as he could. But I had a different makeup or personality, and I took the comparing thing very personally; that was a big part of it. I wasn't him, or even trying to be like him.

"The difference between Jack and me? Concentration, determination, but mainly motivation, which the great players have week after week, month after month, year after year. I had other things I enjoyed doing, that I looked forward to. Hunting, especially."

Sport psychology was just coming on the scene in the early 1970s, but many players then considered it effete to see a "shrink." In retrospect, Weiskopf wishes he had. "Absolutely. It would have helped," he says. "Thing is, I could go to a Masters or an Open and accept some bad shots. So I could train my mind for that particular week. I just couldn't do it on a weekly basis. I should have talked with someone."

And, Weiskopf acknowledges, he had a drinking problem. "I started drinking in college. My temperament on the golf course had something to do with that. I liked to party, to be with the guys, and I did nothing in moderation. That's my nature, the way I did things."

Even when at the top of his game he drank? "Oh yeah. Not quite as much, but I was young and could handle it," he says. "If I was playing well, I had a late tee time and had time to recover. All I needed was six hours sleep, a milkshake and a cheeseburger, and I was fine. I was in great physical shape then."