Sam’s last slam at the U.S. Masters

Press, 27 April 1983, Page 36

Sam’s last slam at the U.S. Masters

PETER DOBEREINER

of the Observer pays his

respects to SAM SNEAD

The most famous straw hat in the world went on to the peg at the end of this year’s United States Masters. This is a figure of speech because Samuel Jackson Snead has gone through literally hundreds of straw hats since he came down from the hills of West Virginia and started plundering the prize funds of professional golf.

That was back in the era when Franklin D. Roosevelt was promising America a New Deal, Tom Mix was the hottest property in Hollywood and an aviator named Lindbergh startled the world by flying the Atlantic in one of those new-fangled heavier than air machines.

It is also figurative to say that the current Panama hat went on to an actual peg. Sam will go on wearing it, indoors and out, until the day he dies. He will also find lucrative outlets for his golf swing, no doubt, but he will not be going back for the tournament he has played since 1937 and won three times.

Snead is credited with 84 official victories on the

American tour but he growls that the figure should be nearer 97 and that those bastards at the PGA headquarters have short changed , him. World wide, his score is 135 victories, including the 1946 Open championship at St Andrews. Fifty years of with princes and

presidents has not changed Snead in the smallest degree. He started as a barefoot hillbilly, learning golf with a club he whittled from a swamp maple branch, and he remains an unpromising, earthy hillbilly.

His career sprang from an uncompromising, even disastrous incident. He was working as an assistant at a local club and one day his ball struck a rich and influential member playing in front.

The member demanded that Snead be fired, on the grounds that he did not have the common courtesy to wait for a green to clear before hitting his approach. The irate member was first sceptical,, then stupefied and finally mollified when he was told that the shot which had pinged him was Snead’s drive, from a distance of about 340 yards. He decided to sponsor the youngster’s tournament career.

There was never a more natural player than Snead, Like Christy O’Connor, he learned his golf by trial and error and played with a mind totally unencumbered by theories of right and wrong. To this day, I doubt if either of them could ex- . plain what is'meant by . a 4 pronating wrist and yet it

would be a difficult task to nominate two more classical swings. Snead quickly established another reputation, as a man with a deep, almost religious appreciation of the value of a dollar. The popular belief among his fellow professionals was that Snead stashed his winnings in tomato cans and buried them, in his garden. During a tournament near Snead’s home, a bunch of roistering pros armed themselves with shovels and went prospecting at midnight at his farm. But all they collected was few pellets of buckshot from Sam’s 12-bore. Sam has never denied the stories of his unconventional banking arrangements, although he disputes that the cans bad contained tomatoes.

He was managed by the late Fred Corcoran, a splendid eccentric who organised the tour in the barnstorming days when the prize money was provided by wealthy

club members. Tournaments were played wherever Corcoran could sweet-talk the amateurs.

By chance, I was with Corcoran on the day he sold a piece of development land he had bought as an investnment for Snead.

“You remember that property I bought you in the war Sam? Well, today I made you ?5 million on it and, you know something, in the 20 years I’ve been your manager you have never bought me lunch. Today might just be the right day.” Snead feigned deep contrition: “Fred!” Whereupon he disappeared and returned shortly with a free lunch ticket he had just cadged from the club restaurant manager. He handed it over and said formally, “Lunch is on me.”

Physically, Snead is a marvel. He has thickened in the waistline recently but approaching his seventyfirst birthday he can still kick the lintel of a do® and

he remains as supple as a teenager. One curious attribute, and a useful one for a golfer, is that when he spreads his fingers he can touch his forearm with his thumb.

What is the secret of his durability? Snead puts it all down to clean living. “I’ve never smoked and never been a drinker,” he says. “And two but of three ain’t bad.”

Press him and he will ascribe magical properties to No. 3, a subject which is never far from his thoughts and speech. It is barely credible that a septuagenarian can still compete in an athletic pursuit and match the best in his sport. Apart from losing a little length, so that he can no longer reach the par fives at Augusta in two strokes, Snead strikes the ball as well as ever and much better than most of the tigers who are young

enough to be his grandchildren.

But golf is two games and, as with Ben Hogan before him, it is the putting which has given up on Snead before he was ready to give up on golf. That process of deterioration has been in train for a long time.

Snead resisted it by adopting his unique version of croquet style, facing the hole, putting with the ball outside his. right foot in order to comply with the rule prohibiting standing astride the line of the putt. His sidewinder method prolonged his career but Snead has now almost lost the sight of his left eye. He feels that he. is giving the long hitters four strokes a round at Augusta on the par fives and combined with the problems on the greens with monocular vision, he is concerned not to embarrass himself and other people by playing golf unworthy of Sam Snead.

I never dreamed that I would entertain a sentimental thought about Snead but on his final appearance in the Masters, I wished that I possessed a straw hat with a brightly coloured band because then I could have doffed it in respect, admiration, and affection.