A new spring brought another Snead cover. No one noticed at the time, but the background of our May 1964 issue showed a golfer urinating on a palm tree. Around the office we call that one the "Mr. Tinkle" cover.
How much has the game changed since 1966? That was the year we asked touring pros which of the majors mattered most. Surprise answer: the PGA Championship, which Dave Marr said "is in a class by itself."
In 1968, beside a tempting ad for the upscale Concord Golf Resort in New York, (three days of golf, deluxe lodging and three meals a day for $60), we ran a story on Golf-O-Tron, an early golf simulator. Designed by a firm that made ballistic missiles, the game offered video versions of Pebble Beach and Pinehurst and sold for $10,000, or $63,230 in today's dollars.
By '72 our editors were making like Carnac, predicting Nicklaus victories in that year's Masters, U.S. Open and British Open, "and everyone will go out of their birds waiting for the Super Slam to be completed at the PGA." Nicklaus won at Augusta and Pebble Beach and lost by one shot to Lee Trevino at Muirfield. That issue also carried these lines praising the U.S. Open venue: "Not everyone can play Merion or Baltusrol or the Olympic Club. But everyone -- everyone with money, since the greens fee ranges up to $20 -- can play Pebble."
A few years later GOLF MAGAZINE Instruction Editor Gary Player proposed a radical notion. He said fit was better than fat. His tips, including "Don't eat indiscriminately," ran under a photo showing Player running down the hall in our offices. But there was something wrong with this picture: The man known for wearing black was clad in white shorts and a white polo shirt. It seemed mad, heretical... until you saw his black socks.
That was the same year we serialized Michael Murphy's weirdly wondrous Golf in the Kingdom, and soon we took on another sort of metaphysics. In the 1975 story "How Close Are We to Breaking 60?" the editors suggested that "golf's 'four-minute mile' will never be attained because the courses are getting tougher." Two years later Al Geiberger shot 59. Chip Beck and David Duval have done it since; our own Annika Sorenstam shot the LPGA's first.59 three.years ago.
October of '76 brought one of the best off-course golf tales ever. In that issue, Winnie Palmer told GOLF MAGAZINE about a birthday surprise she'd planned for husband Arnold in the late '50s. President Dwight Eisenhower was in on it. So one night at the Palmer house in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, "the doorbell rang," we reported, "and Winnie, who was in her room dressing, said, 'Arnie, will you see who that could be?' He went downstairs, opened the front door, and almost collapsed. There stood the president of the United States with a duffel bag and that great grin of his. 'Could you put up an old friend for the night?' "
In 1979 the magazine launched a franchise that turns 25 this year: GOLF MAGAZINE's Greatest Courses in the World. That ranking had Augusta National first and Pine Valley 28th -- but only because the list was alphabetical.
Soon came our 1980 yearbook and some of the best quotes of any year:
Lee Trevino, griping about the small greens at Inverness, the previous year's U.S. Open venue: "My ball was in the middle of one green and the name on my ball was touching the fringe."
Andy North on his post-1978 U.S. Open slump: "I've been in a slump all my life."
Sam Snead on retirement: "What else am I going to do? I once thought of becoming a political cartoonist because they only have to come up with one idea a day. Then I thought I'd be a sportswriter because they don't have to come up with any."
Almost as good was a 1980 cover line that flew past the third cut of credibility -- "POWER PLUS: Ballesteros Tells You How to Drive It Long and Straight."
How much has the game changed since 1966? That was the year we asked touring pros which of the majors mattered most. Surprise answer: the PGA Championship, which Dave Marr said "is in a class by itself."
In 1968, beside a tempting ad for the upscale Concord Golf Resort in New York, (three days of golf, deluxe lodging and three meals a day for $60), we ran a story on Golf-O-Tron, an early golf simulator. Designed by a firm that made ballistic missiles, the game offered video versions of Pebble Beach and Pinehurst and sold for $10,000, or $63,230 in today's dollars.
By '72 our editors were making like Carnac, predicting Nicklaus victories in that year's Masters, U.S. Open and British Open, "and everyone will go out of their birds waiting for the Super Slam to be completed at the PGA." Nicklaus won at Augusta and Pebble Beach and lost by one shot to Lee Trevino at Muirfield. That issue also carried these lines praising the U.S. Open venue: "Not everyone can play Merion or Baltusrol or the Olympic Club. But everyone -- everyone with money, since the greens fee ranges up to $20 -- can play Pebble."
| A Message from the White House | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Congratulations to GOLF MAGAZINE on your 45th Anniversary. Mark Twain once called golf "a good walk spoiled." Clearly he was never president. For me, golf provides a welcome escape outdoors with friends and family, and a chance to exercise. Golf is a longstanding tradition in the Bush family -- we've even created our own version of the game, which rewards both score and speed of play. Some of my fondest memories are of early-morning rounds with my dad. Golf is one of the few sports in which each player reports his own score. There are no referees to call penalties or enforce the rules. The game demands integrity and trust, and it sets a good example for young people beginning to build character. And as anyone who has ever picked up a club can attest, golf is a great challenge. A well-placed trap or tricky green can test the patience of the most seasoned professional. Yet the game has a way of satisfying even the beginners among us. No matter how many 5-irons you shank in a round, there will always be one good enough to keep you coming back. May all your drives find the fairway in 2004. —President George W. Bush | |||
That was the same year we serialized Michael Murphy's weirdly wondrous Golf in the Kingdom, and soon we took on another sort of metaphysics. In the 1975 story "How Close Are We to Breaking 60?" the editors suggested that "golf's 'four-minute mile' will never be attained because the courses are getting tougher." Two years later Al Geiberger shot 59. Chip Beck and David Duval have done it since; our own Annika Sorenstam shot the LPGA's first.59 three.years ago.
October of '76 brought one of the best off-course golf tales ever. In that issue, Winnie Palmer told GOLF MAGAZINE about a birthday surprise she'd planned for husband Arnold in the late '50s. President Dwight Eisenhower was in on it. So one night at the Palmer house in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, "the doorbell rang," we reported, "and Winnie, who was in her room dressing, said, 'Arnie, will you see who that could be?' He went downstairs, opened the front door, and almost collapsed. There stood the president of the United States with a duffel bag and that great grin of his. 'Could you put up an old friend for the night?' "
In 1979 the magazine launched a franchise that turns 25 this year: GOLF MAGAZINE's Greatest Courses in the World. That ranking had Augusta National first and Pine Valley 28th -- but only because the list was alphabetical.
Soon came our 1980 yearbook and some of the best quotes of any year:
Lee Trevino, griping about the small greens at Inverness, the previous year's U.S. Open venue: "My ball was in the middle of one green and the name on my ball was touching the fringe."
Andy North on his post-1978 U.S. Open slump: "I've been in a slump all my life."
Sam Snead on retirement: "What else am I going to do? I once thought of becoming a political cartoonist because they only have to come up with one idea a day. Then I thought I'd be a sportswriter because they don't have to come up with any."
Almost as good was a 1980 cover line that flew past the third cut of credibility -- "POWER PLUS: Ballesteros Tells You How to Drive It Long and Straight."
