He Was One for the Ages

Sam Snead died Thursday, but that silken swing that may be the sweetest in the history of golf will live forever in the memories of anyone who saw Slammin’ Sammy in action.

The man with the straw hat, the jaunty stride down the fairway and a swing for the ages won more tournaments than anyone, 81 official on the PGA Tour, and an estimated 160 overall. His swing was so unhampered by age, 17 of his Tour wins came after he was 40.

Which shouldn’t sound so remarkable considering he was still able to touch the top of a door jamb with his foot when was in his 80s.

Snead died four days shy of his 90th birthday at his home in Hot Springs, Va.

Although he won the Masters three times, the British Open once and the PGA three times, he never won the U.S. Open, a fact that haunted him until his death.

He started playing the Tour in 1936, but California had a special place in his career. In 1937, he arrived in California with $300 and won what became known as the Bing Crosby Clambake at Rancho Santa Fe, took the money and drove to Oakland, where he won again.

I first saw Snead in 1950 at the Riviera Country Club. Ben Hogan was making his miraculous comeback from a head-on collision with a bus and was leading the Los Angeles Open when he finished his final round. Snead was still on the course, needing to birdie the final two holes to tie Hogan.

He did it, forcing a playoff, which in those days was 18 holes.

Hogan, sitting in the clubhouse chatting with reporters, just shook his head and said, “Only Sam could have done that.”

The playoff was delayed more than a week because the players had to get to Pebble Beach for the Crosby Pro-Am. When it was finally held, Snead won easily in an anticlimactic round.

Snead was on the other side of the ledger in 1974 when he and young Dave Stockton were involved in a tense match entering the final hole of another Los Angeles Open. It was Stockton who produced the Snead-like heroics, hitting a 3-wood shot off the side of a hill more than 250 yards away to win the match.

Had Snead, 61, won, he would have become the oldest player to win a PGA event--a record he established in 1965 when he won the Greater Greensboro Open for a record eighth time when he was 52.

Before there was a Jack Nicklaus or a Tiger Woods, Snead owned the Masters. In addition to his three victories, he had nine finishes in the top five and 15 in the top 10. When he was 61, he won the par-three tournament at Augusta National that precedes the Masters.

Woods was 6 when he met Snead during an exhibition at the naval base course in Cypress. As the story goes, Woods was unable to clear a narrow stream in front of a par-three and made a bogey after playing out of the shallow water. Snead beat him with a par, but he saw the makings of a future champion.

“You watch his backswing, and it comes down on that same line,” said Snead, the same line that marked his swing.

Snead usually said what he meant. His most famous gaff came at St. Andrews, where he had played and won his only British Open.

He returned to St. Andrews in 2000 for an exhibition with former winners. He regaled British writers with his memory of his earlier visit to golf’s hallowed grounds.

“When the train pulled alongside the Old Course, it did not look to me like it had ever had a [grass-cutting] machine on it. I turned to the man next to me and asked, ‘What abandoned course is this?’”

If Snead had played a few years later, he undoubtedly would have won the U.S. Open. In 1939 at the Philadelphia Country Club, he thought he needed a birdie on the final hole to win. There were no scoreboards on the course and all he needed was a par.

Snead gambled to make up the stroke and hit his drive into the rough, from where he took a triple bogey.

In the 1947 Open he lost in a playoff with Lew Worsham when he missed a 13-inch putt. In all, he finished second four times.

The older he got, it seemed the better he got. Including the Senior PGA Tour, which he helped launch by winning the inaugural Legends of Golf in 1978 with Gardner Dickinson, Snead won tournaments in six decades.

In the second round of the 1979 Quad Cities Open, he became the first Tour player to shoot his age, a 67 when he was 67. Two days later he shot a 66.

John Schlee, a U.S. Open runner-up in 1973, probably described Snead best when he said, “Watching Sam Snead practice hitting golf balls is like watching a fish practice swimming.”