Gene Sarazen Spans a Century of Golf

The voice coming through the telephone was bright and lively with just a touch of mischief.

“How long have you been around golf?” Gene Sarazen asked.

“Forty years,” I said, stretching the truth only slightly. I was 6 when my father gave me a cutdown 5-iron and took me walking through the weeds with him, looking for golf balls, pausing now and then to hit shots.

“Yesterday,” said the 94-year-old Sarazen, who won the last of his seven major championships 61 years ago. “That was yesterday.”

Perhaps no one is in a better position to comment on golf than Sarazen, a man whose life in the game virtually spans the century.

Asked how he is feeling, Sarazen says: “Not bad for 94.”

“I use to walk to the first tee with my driver,” he said. “Now I walk up there with my cane.”

In this conversation he spoke of the best golfer ever (Jack Nicklaus), money (Tiger Woods is getting too much too soon), caddies (riding carts are hurting American golf) and technology (the cost of clubs).

“I have been very fortunate,” Sarazen said Monday from his home in Marco Island, Fla. “I played with all the best.”

Sarazen played with every great player from Harry Vardon and James Braid -- winners of 10 British Opens between them from 1896 through 1914 -- through Nicklaus, who won 18 major professional championship from 1962 through 1986.

Sarazen won his first three major championships -- the U.S. Open and PGA in 1922 and the PGA in 1923 -- with hickory-shafted clubs and has lived to see space-age titanium clubs.

“I can’t believe people are paying $1,000 for a set of irons,” he said, the amazement in his voice tinged with anger. Sarazen earned only $700 for winning the 1922 U.S. Open.

Sarazen won six major titles before the Masters even existed and when he won the second Masters played in 1935 -- with the famous 4-wood double eagle on No. 15 -- he became the first player to win the career Grand Slam, a feat matched only by Ben Hogan, Nicklaus and Gary Player.

Sarazen invented the sand wedge in 1931, kept it hidden a year because he was afraid it would be outlawed, and used it to win the 1932 British Open.

He won the 1954 PGA Seniors title and in 1973, at age 71, made a hole-in-one during the first round of the British Open, his last tournament.

“In 1923 I went over to play in the British Open at Troon and the week before there was a tournament at Royal Lytham and St. Annes.”

“I’ll never forget the feeling when the announcer said: ‘Now on the tee Gene Sarazen and Harry Vardon.’ I was paired with him for 36 holes.”

Vardon won a record six British Opens between 1896 through 1914.

“The greatest player of all time was Nicklaus,” Sarazen said without hesitation. “Then Bobby Jones, Harry Vardon and Ben Hogan.”

What about a guy named Sarazen?

“He just came in accidentally from the caddie ranks,” he said.

“I was caddying outside New York City in 1913 when Francis Ouimet, a former caddie, won the U.S. Open,” Sarazen said. “That inspired me. I said if he can win the Open I can win the Open.”

Sarazen says the replacement of caddies by carts in the United States has helped shift the balance of power in world golf.

“That’s the reason players are coming from outside the U.S.” said Sarazen, who lent his name to the Sarazen World Open Championship at Chateau Elan in Braselton, 43 miles northeast of Atlanta, Oct. 31-Nov. 3, an event he said will be a major championship in 10 years.

“Outside of the U.S. they don’t have carts. We used to get our great players from the caddie ranks,” he said citing himself, Byron Nelson and Hogan. “Now they come from college.”

Sarazen was stunned by the millions showered on Woods, the 20-year-old yet to win a pro event.

“I haven’t seen him play,” Sarazen said. “But I think he has to win a major tournament before he gets this kind of buildup. I think they are doing a little too much for him.”