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The living room of Phil Rodgers' San Diego bungalow looks like a memorabilia shop — full of relics of a career that was and another that might have been. A large framed photo of Cypress Point adorns a wall covered in tartan wallpaper. A thigh-high winner's trophy from the 1955 International Jaycee golf tournament stands near the patio door. A plastic Masters cup rests on the coffee table. But the real conversation piece hangs above the television: a 1963 Sports Illustrated cover that features a flat-topped Rodgers flashing a toothy grin. The cover line reads: PHIL RODGERS, THE BRASHEST MAN IN GOLF.
The story painted Rodgers, then coming off a brilliant amateur career and a two-win rookie season on the PGA Tour, as a dazzling talent, but also as arrogant and quick to critique other players' swings. Deeper into the article other details emerged of Rodgers' temper, his notorious brushes with the Rules, and the irritating habit he had of leaving his record player blasting when he wasn't home. "What annoys some pros most of all," the article noted, "is that this year Phil Rodgers may be every bit as good as he thinks he is."
Rodgers wasn't. Not in 1963, and not during his 20-year Tour career. With just five wins and no major titles, Rodgers was an all-too-common phenomenon in a game where the difference between grinders and greats can be paper thin: a can't-miss kid who largely missed. "I had a good career, although it wasn't what I wanted," Rodgers, 70, says today, his eyes glazing over. "I probably talked myself out of being a great champion more than I talked myself into it."
But that's just one unfortunate chapter in the Phil Rodgers Saga, the odyssey of a prodigious teen who honed his touch by playing blindfolded; a bumptious pro with a decadent streak; a revered teacher who helped revive Jack Nicklaus. Indeed, of the sundry Tour pros San Diego has produced, Rodgers may be the most colorful, a compelling concoction of gruff and gregarious, inhibited and insightful, with more tales than the Brothers Grimm. In other words, the kind of guy you'd want to sit down with to eat steak.
The old pro orders his filet like an old pro. "Rare and lightly charred," Rodgers barks over the din at Donovan's, a mahogany-paneled steakhouse near the La Jolla home that Rodgers shares with Karen, his wife of 22 years. Rodgers doesn't talk, he growls, and his once-blonde hair is now brown and wavy, an odd side effect of the medication he takes to repress the chronic myelogenous leukemia with which he was diagnosed in 2003. "I'm extremely fortunate," Rodgers says of the success of his meds. But he'd rather discuss something else, like what's for dinner.
Food has always been one of Rodgers' biggest passions, and it's evident in his side order: a baked potato smothered in sour cream, chives and bacon; his wine selection: a $200 Martinelli pinot noir; and his waistline. During his eating prime, a typical breakfast included toast, fried eggs, hashed browns and a steak. "Probably the most famous story about Jack and me is when they changed the menu at the Masters," Rodgers says. It was 1960 and he and Nicklaus were amateurs, bunking in the Crow's Nest. "We'd have a filet for breakfast, a New York [strip] for lunch, and a Chateaubriand for two at dinner," Rodgers says. "They finally came to us and said, 'No, you can't do that. You can only have one steak per day.' "
Rodgers and Nicklaus shared more than a taste for beef. They looked so much alike early in their careers — blond, fair and sturdy — that fans often approached Rodgers for Nicklaus's autograph. The confusion was compounded because they were golf's two hottest prospects, though only one would live up to the hype. "I wanted to win more, but something always stopped me," Rodgers explains today. "I couldn't do what my mind wanted me to do." Maybe because his mind wanted him to do too much.
Rodgers earned the equivalent of a Ph.D. in swing theory before most kids had their first set of clubs. He took up the game at Presidio Hills, a San Diego pitch-and-putt where the pro made Rodgers wear a baseball cap with a pencil taped to its brim. "He told me to point the pencil at the ball and never take it off there," Rodgers says. "That helped teach me coordination and balance." Rodgers also learned a valuable lesson while working as a caddie for "LoBall" Johnny Wilson, one of California's biggest bookmakers: "Don't ever play anybody who's any good," Wilson once told him, "because there's always someone worse than you who wants to lose money."
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