Bob Charles of New Zealand was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame this past November. He broke a long-standing HOF trend to become the Hall”s first left-handed member. Best known for his 36-hole overtime triumph in the 1963 British Open, Bob Charles, the purest putter of the modern era, is a most noteworthy addition to the Hall of Fame.
Bob Charles was born in 1936 in Carterton, New Zealand. He was around the game of golf at an extremely young age, and I mean that in a very literal sense. His mother was an avid golfer. She used to push Bob”s stroller around the local golf links while she played. This was a common occurrence until he was able to walk. Charles has jokingly stated that he learned the game from the cradle. Once he was able to, Charles took up the game, playing with his mother”s cut-down clubs. His mother was an extremely rare golfer for that time in that she played left-handed.
Charles” first tournament as a youth was mother-son alternate shot events. At age 18, he had an amazing breakthrough moment, winning the 1954 New Zealand Open against a field of professionals. His aggregate total of 280 equaled the Open tournament record. Press accounts described Charles as an excellent putter, a skill of brilliance he would carry with him throughout his career.
Bob Charles remained a top-notch amateur golfer for the next six years. He played on the New Zealand national amateur teams, competed in Australian Tour events, was invited to the 1958 Masters, and qualified for the 1958 British Open, all the while working as a banker. He turned professional in 1960 after having saved up $2,000. His father gave him an around-the world open airline ticket and told him, “When you run out of money, come home and get a real job.” He never needed to.
Charles won his first tournament as a professional in 1961, capturing the New Zealand PGA Championship. He played both the Australian and European Tour for the next few years. He won three times in 1962, capturing the Daks Tournament, the Caltex Open, and the Swiss Open. Trying his hand in America in 1963, Charles had a year of career highlights.
In the spring of 1963, Charles became the first lefty to win a PGA Tour event when he won the Houston Open. Later that summer, Charles traveled to Royal Lytham and St. Annes in England, site of that year”s British Open. Charles fired rounds of 68-72-66-71 for a 3-under-par 277 total. He ended regulation play tied with American Phil Rodgers. Charles won the 36-hole playoff the following day by eight strokes to bring home the Claret Jug. His morning round of 69 featured 12 one-putt greens.
For the next 25 years, Bob Charles was an impact player on golf”s world stage. He won six times on the PGA Tour at such settings at Tucson, Atlanta, Greater Greensboro, and the Canadian Open. He won eight times on the Australian-Asian Tour, 14 times on the European Tour, and twice in South Africa. In 1986 he joined the fledgling PGA Senior Tour.
A dominant Senior Tour regular, Charles won three times in 1987, five times in 1988, and five more times in 1989. He won a total of 23 times on the PGA Senior Tour and 13 more times in worldwide senior events. Charles had a nice run of success in Northern California, winning the 1988 Senior Gold Rush at Rancho Murieta and the 1992 Transamerica at Silverado. He won a pair of Senior British Opens in 1989 and 1993.
A gracious and graceful man with a beautifully swing, Bob Charles was best known for his fluid putting stroke. Always using a Bulls Eye putter, Charles was the first top-notch golfer of the modern era to incorporate the pendulum-putting stroke into his game. Jack Nicklaus always contended that Charles was the best putter of his time.
That Bob Charles was the only left-handed golfer of note for 40 years is some sort of odd aberration. Until Canadian Mike Weir won the 2003 Masters, Charles was the lone lefty winner of a major championship, soon to be joined by Phil Mickelson. Yet Charles was a left-handed golfer solely because of the availability of his mother”s golf clubs as a youth. In all other aspects of his life, Charles is exclusively right-handed.
Nowadays, Bob Charles is still chugging along on the worldwide golf scene, just like he did in 1963. In 2007, he was the oldest golfer to make the cut at a regular European Tour event. He made the cut at the New Zealand Open and finished 23rd. During the second round he carded a 68, besting his age by three strokes.
When Charles got the news that he had been selected for the World Golf Hall of Fame, he was competing in a European Senior Tour event in Moscow. He”s also highly regarded back home in New Zealand, not only for his achievements on the links, but also because of his strong financial support of various New Zealand junior golf programs.
Bob Charles was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame this past November alongside architect Pete Dye, Craig Wood, Denny Shute, journalist Herbert Warren Wind, and amateur great Carol Semple Thompson. While he went in among a class of six inductees, Charles is still very much alone. He is the only New Zealander in the Hall, and he is its only lefty. Arguably, he is the Hall of Fame”s best pure putter. Selected by the veteran”s committee, Charles” place in the Hall is most deserved after all these years of being one of the game”s class acts.
