First-Time Wonders

In the 1976 U.S. Open at Atlanta Athletic Club, Jerry Pate was a 22-year-old PGA Tour rookie playing in only his second major as a pro. He sort of knew his way around, though, since he had played the Masters and the U.S. Open the year before as the 1974 U.S. Amateur champion.

If anyone thought Pate didn’t really belong, he was not among them.

“I never thought I wasn’t going to win,” Pate said.

Maybe, but that’s not the way Pate’s first major championship began.

Playing in the first round, Pate hit his second shot at No. 18, a water hole, just clear of the bank, the ball stopping inches above the waterline. Pate trudged toward the green, slowing when he heard unusual sounds coming from the gallery.

Pate thought it a curious mixture, groans and laughter combined

A frog had jumped on his ball and knocked it into the pond.

Pate wound up with a bogey, signed for a 71, then went off in search of birdies and eagles instead of more amphibians.

He found no more frogs and darn few bogeys the next three days in Georgia 27 years ago.

In fact, what Pate found mostly was his place in history, becoming one of the very few whose first PGA Tour victory was a major championship. In the First Major Club, the roll call reads: Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Orville Moody, Pate, Jeff Sluman, John Daly, Paul Lawrie, Retief Goosen and Ben Curtis. Some have gone on to greater success than others but there is no disputing that counting a major championship as your first victory is a notable achievement.

Pate’s rounds of 71-69-69-68 added up to a two-shot victory over Al Geiberger and Tom Weiskopf.

Pate would recommend making a major the first victory to anyone.

“That’s right,” he said. “If you’re going to win your first, you might as well win one of the biggest ones in golf.”

Pate became the second-youngest winner of the U.S. Open since World War II, Nicklaus having been four months younger in 1962 when he beat Arnold Palmer in a playoff at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club for his first tour triumph.

Nicklaus is clearly the most famous member of the First Major Club, Curtis the most recent. Curtis joined last month, when he won the British Open at Royal St. George’s, thus making his first victory in a previously undistinguished professional career a noteworthy one. Curtis was ranked 396th in the world when he teed off at Royal St. George’s.

As it turns out, Curtis’ victory was even more special. He became the first player in 90 years, since Francis Ouimet won the 1913 U.S. Open, to win the first major he entered.

Pate says he wishes Curtis luck the rest of the way.

“It takes a strong-willed person and a real burning desire,” he said. “There’s a huge price you have to pay for winning.”

And you have to keep those frogs from messing with your golf balls.

There was an age distinction for Nicklaus too when he became the first member of the First Major Club. The reigning U.S. Amateur champion from 1961, Nicklaus was the youngest U.S. Open winner since Bobby Jones, at 21, had won the 1923 Open at Inwood Country Club at Inwood, N.Y.

Nicklaus, wearing ugly, olive-colored pants for the fourth round, shot a 69 to catch Palmer. Superstitious or not, Nicklaus wore them again for the 18-hole playoff the next day and beat Palmer by three shots.

“I was the Open champion as well as the Amateur champion,” Nicklaus said in “My Story,” his autobiography. “At last I had proved that playing golf full-time I could do what I had done when playing only part-time. In my 17th tournament as a professional, I had won.”

Not only had he won, he had made his first victory a major.

None of those other players in the First Major Club have approached Nicklaus, who counted 18 majors among his 73 tour victories, but each has found his niche.

In 1968, Trevino was 28 and playing in his third U.S. Open at Oak Hill, site of this year’s PGA. After 54 holes, Trevino was only one shot behind Bert Yancey, so he decided to go all out, at least with his clothes. On Sunday, he wore a red shirt, red socks and black pants.

Later, Trevino called those his “payday colors,” after shooting a 69 and beating Nicklaus by four shots as Yancey stumbled to a 76.

“There were thousands around the green and five policemen escorted me through the crowd to the clubhouse,” Trevino said later. “I hadn’t had so much attention from the cops since I backfired my 1949 Ford on North Central Expressway [in Dallas] when I was 15.”

Trevino has attracted a lot of attention in golf circles since then. He won 29 times on the PGA Tour, counting among his victories the 1971 U.S. Open, the ’71 and ’72 British Opens and the ’74 PGA Championship. At 63, he has won nearly $17 million.

Moody was a surprise winner of the 1969 U.S. Open at Champions Golf Club in Houston. He never won another PGA Tour event and earned less than $400,000 in 16 seasons on the regular tour before turning to the senior tour in 1984.

Moody was reinvigorated on the Champions Tour. He has won 11 events and about 10 times as much money as he did on the regular tour.

Sluman had been a pro for eight years and had limited success in his five previous majors when he showed up at broiling Edmond, Okla., for the 1988 PGA Championship. No one was hotter under the sun than Sluman, though, in the last round at Oak Tree, where he began the day trailing Paul Azinger by three shots, but finished with a six-under 65 and won by three.

Sluman has won five other times in his 20-year career and banked more than $13 million. He also has become a serious wine collector, but his best vintage has to be that first victory.

Daly, as the ninth alternate, was lucky to get into the field at the 1991 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind. Daly, from Dardanelle, Ark., was 25 and had driven into town behind the wheel of a smoking jalopy. He got to play when Nick Price pulled out because his wife was giving birth and all the alternates ahead of Daly declined.

Without having played so much as a practice round, Daly shot eight-under and beat Bruce Lietzke by three shots, golf’s everyman making his first tournament victory a major championship.

He won another major in 1995, the British Open at St. Andrews, but that was the last of his four PGA Tour victories. Winless in eight years, Daly’s reputation has moved to notoriety as a long-hitting good-timer with a big heart and a matching appetite.

Recent members of the First Major Club are Lawrie and Goosen, who share a coincidence of success in that they both needed playoffs to make their mark in history.

Both players had won tournaments before their major successes, but not on the PGA Tour. Lawrie was a moderately successful European Tour veteran who made a playoff with Justin Leonard and Jean Van de Velde after Van de Velde blew a three-shot lead with one hole to go in the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie.

Lawrie won the four-hole playoff and, although he is a five-time winner on the European Tour, he hasn’t done much in majors since his breakthrough at Carnoustie.

Goosen beat Mark Brooks in an 18-hole playoff for the 2001 U.S. Open title at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla. Since then, Goosen has had two top-10 finishes in majors, one a second place in the 2002 Masters when Tiger Woods won. Last year, Goosen won on three tours on three continents and earned his second consecutive Order of Merit on the European Tour.

There may be more major victories in store for Daly, Sluman, Goosen, Lawrie and Curtis, just as Pate believed there would be more for him. He won eight times, starting with his 1976 U.S. Open title and ending with his 1982 victory at the Players Championship. Pate was 28 at the time of that final win, but four surgeries on his left shoulder cut short what could have been an even greater career.

“For me, it wasn’t a burden for my first tournament win to be a major,” Pate said. “It was a dream, a goal. I thought I was a good player in major championship golf. Right up until I hurt my shoulder. I had a pretty good run.

“So it was a blessing, I think. Probably it’s the same for everyone else who’s done the same. It’s an interesting group that’s done it.”

It’s also a small group, heavy on star quality.

And Pate is probably right. If you’re going to win a tournament, you might as well win one of the most important ones in the world first. It might be talent, luck or coincidence, but whatever else it might be, it’s good timing.

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BEN CURTIS

2003 British Open

Ben Curtis? There probably hasn’t been a longer longshot to win a major championship since Francis Ouimet in the 1913 U.S. Open.

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RETIEF GOOSEN

2001 U.S. Open

Goosen won a playoff at Southern Hills. He has won abroad and in the U.S. since then and has six top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour in 2003.

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PAUL LAWRIE

1999 British Open

Thank you, Jean Van de Velde, whose collapse at Carnoustie got Lawrie into a playoff. Lawrie makes a good living on the European Tour.

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JEFF SLUMAN

1988 PGA Championship

It took Sluman almost nine years to win again after his victory at Oak Tree in Oklahoma, but he has won five times since 1997.

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JERRY PATE

1976 U.S. Open

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Pate was among the tour’s best players from 1976 through 1982, but shoulder problems effectively ended his competitive career.

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ORVILLE MOODY

1969 U.S. Open

They called him Sarge, and he was just another rank-and-file player on the regular tour, never winning again. He became a senior mainstay.

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LEE TREVINO

1968 U.S. Open

Trevino’s four-stroke victory over Jack Nicklaus was the first of his four major championships and the first of 29 wins on the PGA Tour.

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JACK NICKLAUS

1962 U.S. Open

At the time, who would have guessed that he would win more majors (18) than anyone and be considered the game’s greatest player?

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Champions

*--* Year Player Course Location 2002 Rich Beem Hazeltine National Chaska, Minn 2001 David Toms Atlanta Athletic Atlanta Club 2000 Tiger Woods Valhalla Louisville, Ky 1999 Tiger Woods Medinah Medinah, Ill 1998 Vijay Singh Sahalee Redmond, Wash 1997 Davis Love III Winged Foot Mamaroneck, N.Y 1996 Mark Brooks Valhalla Louisville, Ky 1995 Steve Elkington Riveria Pacific Palisades 1994 Nick Price Southern Hills Tulsa, Okla 1993 Paul Azinger Inverness Toledo, Ohio 1992 Nick Price Bellerive St. Louis 1991 John Daly Crooked Stick Carmel, Indiana 1990 Wayne Grady Shoal Creek Birmingham, Ala 1989 Payne Stewart Kemper Lakes Hawthorn Woods, Ill 1988 Jeff Sluman Oak Tree Edmond, Okla 1987 Larry Nelson PGA National Palm Beach Gardens, Fla 1986 Bob Tway Inverness Toledo, Ohio 1985 Hubert Green Cherry Hills Denver 1984 Lee Trevino Shoal Creek Birmingham, Ala 1983 Hal Sutton Riviera Pacific Palisades 1982 Raymond Floyd Southern Hills Tulsa, Okla 1981 Larry Nelson Atlanta Athletic Duluth, Ga Club 1980 Jack Nicklaus Oak Hill Rochester, N.Y 1979 David Graham Oakland Hills Birmingham, Mich 1978 John Mahaffey Oakmont Oakmont, Pa 1977 Lanny Wadkins Pebble Beach Pebble Beach 1976 Dave Stockton Congressional Bethesda, Md 1975 Jack Nicklaus Firestone Akron, Ohio 1974 Lee Trevino Tanglewood Winston-Salem, N.C 1973 Jack Nicklaus Canterbury Cleveland 1972 Gary Player Oakland Hills Birmingham, Ala 1971 Jack Nicklaus PGA National Palm Beach Gardens, Fla 1970 Dave Stockton Southern Hills Tulsa, Okla 1969 Ray Floyd NCR Dayton, Ohio 1968 Julius Boros Pecan Valley San Antonio 1967 Don January Columbine Littleton, Colo 1966 Al Geiberger Firestone Akron, Ohio 1965 Dave Marr Laurel Valley Ligonier, Pa 1964 Bobby Nichols Columbus Columbus, Ohio 1963 Jack Nicklaus Dallas Athletic Dallas Club 1962 Gary Player Aronomink Newtown Square, Pa 1961 Jerry Barber Olympia Fields Olympia Fields, Ill 1960 Jay Hebert Firestone Akron, Ohio 1959 Bob Rosburg Minneapolis St. Louis Park, Minn 1958 Dow Finsterwald Llanerch Havertown, Pa 1957 Lionel Hebert Miami Valley Dayton, Ohio 1956 Jack Burke Blue Hill Boston 1955 Doug Ford Meadowbrook Detroit 1954 Chick Harbert Keller St. Paul, Minn 1953 Walter Burkemo Birmingham Birmingham, Mich 1952 Jim Turnesa Big Spring Louisville, Ky 1951 Sam Snead Oakmont Oakmont, Pa 1950 Chandler Harper Scioto Columbus, Ohio 1949 Sam Snead Hermitage Richmond, Va 1948 Ben Hogan Norwood Hills St. Louis 1947 Jim Ferrier Plum Hollow Detroit 1946 Ben Hogan Moraine Portland, Ore 1945 Byron Nelson Morraine Dayton, Ohio 1944 Bob Hamilton Manito Spokane, Wash 1943 No championship played 1942 Sam Snead Seaview Atlantic City, N.J 1941 Vic Ghezzi Cherry Hills Denver 1940 Byron Nelson Hershey Hershey, Pa 1939 Henry Picard Pomonok Flushing, N.Y 1938 Paul Runyan Shawnee Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pa 1937 Denny Shute Pittsburgh Aspinwall, Pa 1936 Denny Shute Pinehurst Pinehurst, N.C 1935 Johnny Revolta Twin Hills Okla. City, Okla 1934 Paul Runyan Park Williamsville, N.Y 1933 Gene Sarazen Blue Mound Milwaukee 1932 Olin Dutra Keller St. Paul, Minn 1931 Tom Creavy Wannamoisett Rumford, R.I 1930 Tommy Armour Fresh Meadow Flushing, N.Y 1929 Leo Diegel Hillcrest Los Angeles 1928 Leo Diegel Five Farms Baltimore 1927 Walter Hagen Cedar Crest Dallas 1926 Walter Hagen Salisbury Westbury, N.Y 1925 Walter Hagen Olympia Fields Olympia Fields, Ill 1924 Walter Hagen French Lick French Lick, Ind 1923 Gene Sarazen Pelham Pelham, N.Y 1922 Gene Sarazen Oakmont Oakmont, Pa 1921 Walter Hagen Inwood Far Rockaway, N.Y 1920 Jock Hutchison Flossmoor Flossmoor, Ill 1919 James M. Barnes Engineers Roslyn, N.Y 1918 No championship played 1917 No championship played 1916 James M. Barnes Siwanoy Bronxville, N.Y

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