Flyin' High

Fifty years have not dimmed the fun of remembering 1960, golf's golden year. Eras collided. A star was born. The unlikely and the absurd took center stage, and then, just in time, they left. A moody brooder with atrocious karma nearly won the Masters. A nightclub singer almost won the U.S. Open. Something a mere writer said to a player in the middle of the year's most dramatic event made a difference in its outcome. In Scotland in July, a well-known American pro received the news that the never-rained-out British Open had been rained out by firing his wet shoes and a couple of Wilson Staff irons across the St. Andrews locker room. Even the USGA added a bizarre note. As an experiment, the men in blue blazers gelded the out-of-bounds penalty. In '60, it was distance only. In other words, a ball hit over the fence meant only that you had to re-tee and get one in play -- and you were lying two, not three.

Ultimately, the candlepower of the brightest star in golf history shone through the crazy subplots. The 1960 season was Arnold Palmer's year, and his ascendancy represented a dramatic change from the way the previous Greatest Player did business. Ben Hogan had considerable appeal, of course; not for nothing had Hollywood made a movie of his life while he was still living it. But Hogan kept his concentration mask on until the trophy presentation, only then showing the cameras and fans two rows of beautiful teeth. But from the moment Arnie arrived in the parking lot, he winced and grinned as the moment demanded, and he was on TV, while Ben belonged to the newsreels. The Hawk did not care for Palmer (the feeling was mutual) and would have preferred to be succeeded at the top by his acolyte, Ken Venturi. Perhaps the major shock of 1960 was that the limping, 47-year-old Hogan played as if he did not want to be succeeded at all.

Enter the wild card, an Ohio State undergrad and Phi Gamma Delta brother who came onstage with sportswriter adjectives attached so securely that they seemed to be part of his name. Beefy, burly, stocky, blond, crew-cut Jack Nicklaus took a break from his sophomore year and the beer blasts at the frat house to play a little golf. Palmer knew the kid, having played an exhibition with him in 1958, with Arnie shooting 62 to Jack's 68. That was about right. Palmer had just won that year's Masters and could give just about anyone in the world a couple of shots a side. Two years later, however, beefy-burly-stocky had only gotten better and more experienced. He had won the 1959 U.S. Amateur and had played in the U.S. Open three times and the Masters once.

It was as if Palmer stood at the center of a teeter-totter in 1960, with the grim gray man at one end and the heavyset youth on the other. The avatars of three overlapping periods, each had a compelling persona and personal history. It all set up so perfectly. The performers did not disappoint.

Tour rookie Al Geiberger played well at the Pensacola Open in March and found himself in the final group with the game's hottest player. "I was awestruck," Geiberger recalled years later. "I just thought, 'You can't do that in golf.' "

After a ho-hum start, Palmer came to the ninth green and assumed the position: knees touching, pigeon toes almost touching, shoulders so hunched they almost contacted his ears, giant paws encircling a Wilson 8802 bearing hammer and vice marks. Then the wristy slap shot at the hole: suddenly, four birdies fell in a row, about 60 feet worth of putts. Informed on the penultimate tee that he needed two more birdies to win, the genius holed from 17 feet on 17 and from 32 feet on 18. It was Palmer's third consecutive win and fourth win of the young season. He had banked a mind-boggling $24,266.86. He played two more tournaments, then went to Augusta for a week of practice. He wanted to get used to a new putter.

But the 1960 Masters must really be relived through the dark of eyes of Venturi. The son of San Francisco won the Crosby in January, but he would have traded a hundred grip-and-grins with Bing for one with Bobby Jones. As a 24-year-old amateur in 1956, he led the Masters by four going into the last round, then contrived to shoot 80 to lose by one to Jack Burke Jr.

His tragic Augusta opera continued in '58. Locked in a final-round duel with Palmer, with whom he was paired, Ken had to endure a delay near the 12th green while Palmer and a rules official went back and forth. Was Arnold's ball embedded? Was it in the bunker? Could he, should he, play another ball? Arthur Lacey of the R&A said no, maybe, and OK. Long story short, Arnold made a 5 with his original ball and a par 3 with the alternate. Venturi was sure the 5 would count, which would give him a one-shot lead. But before Palmer putted for eagle on No. 13, an official whispered that he should mark down a par on 12. Arnie made the eagle putt. Ken, suddenly three behind instead of one ahead, missed a couple of short ones on the way in and finished fourth. An hour or so later, Doug Ford, the '57 champ, helped the new king into a green jacket.

"I'm not bitter, and I'm not saying I would have won," Venturi recalled. "But the 1958 Masters was a big deal because neither Arnold nor I had won a major yet."

That Palmer and Venturi were neck and neck going into the final round of the 1960 Masters surprised no one. But one shot off the lead was -- who the hell? Hogan? Statistically the worst putter in the tournament, Ben compensated for his adult-onset yips by hitting more greens in regulation than anyone -- he would miss only 10 of the 72. But the grace and accuracy of his striking could not overcome his butterfly stroke on the greens. "It is hard to recall a player of his class ever putting so poorly," mused Herbert Warren Wind in Sports Illustrated. "Perhaps Vardon in his 50s." Hogan shot 76 and tied for sixth.

Nicklaus also had a good-hit, no-putt tournament -- but still tied for low amateur and T-13 on rounds of 75-71-72-75. It's simplifying things only a little to say that at the end, it came down again to Venturi, the man who idolized Hogan, and Palmer, who disliked him. The friction had started in Augusta a few years before, the day Arnold played a practice round with Burke, Dow Finsterwald and the Hawk. Afterward, Hogan ignored protocol and sat at a different table at lunch and insulted young Arnold again by asking in a loud-enough-to-overhear voice, "This Palmer -- how did he get in the Masters?"