Over the past four weeks, this column has featured articles about the technological growth of the game of golf, the introduction of square grooves, the PGA Tour”s new rule that limits grooves, and the demise of MacGregor Golf. While it”s time to move on to other golfing points of interest, a few words are still required to add finality to the subject of the 2010 PGA Tour and the square grooves issue.
Last week three entrants into the field at the San Diego tour stop at Torrey Pines had pre-1990 Ping Eye2 wedges in their golf bags, including the world”s No. 2-ranked golfer, Phil Mickelson. Because of the 1993 legal settlement between the PGA Tour, the USGA and the maker of Ping golf clubs, Karsten Manufacturing, the clubs were grandfathered into play for perpetuity. Mickelson took some amount of criticism for carrying the 20-year-old lob wedge in his bag, most notably from Sacramento”s Scott McCarron, who considered it tantamount to “cheating.”
In the eyes of the PGA Tour, Mickelson has found a loophole and technically speaking, he is not cheating. However, I concur with many of his fellow pros who feel that the use of the Ping Eye2 wedge that Mickelson had in his bag is certainly pushing to the limit the spirit of the new grooves regulation. Enough said.
This past November, President Dwight Eisenhower, PGA champion Lanny Wadkins, two-time Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal, and Irishman Christy O”Connor were inducted into St. Augustine”s World Golf Village Hall of Fame. While American golf fans know quite a bit about the careers of Wadkins, Olazabal and our 34th president, O”Connor is largely unknown to the greater golfing public. Yet to those who are familiar with the career of the elder O”Connor, his place in the World Golf Hall of Fame is most deserved.
O”Connor was born in 1924 in Galway alongside Ireland”s western coast. Living in the town of Knocknacarra, O”Connor”s childhood home was about 90 yard from the seventh tee at the Galway Golf Club. Like many of the professionals of the time, Christy was introduced to the game when he became a caddie. It was during the time of the worldwide Depression and O”Connor spent long hours at the club caddying for the regulars as well as getting hooked on the game. He spent many hours at Galway working on his putting and short game.
Playing at the Alister Mackenzie-designed Galway Golf club (located near my grandparents” ancestral home, Galway is the first course I played in Ireland) certainly prepared O”Connor for the haphazard European Tour of his time. He turned professional in 1946 at the age of 21 and flung himself full force into the hardscrabble world of the play-for-pay post-war golfing scene.
A journeyman during the first nine years of his career, O”Connor broke through with his first of 43 professional wins by capturing the Swallow-Penford Tournament in 1955. The first-place winner”s check was worth 1,000 pounds (about $1,500). From that moment on, winning became a habit and he won a European Tour event every year through 1970. O”Connor won the prestigious British Masters in 1956 and 1959, won the World Cup for Ireland with partner Harry Bradshaw in 1958 (it was called the Canada Cup in those days), and won the Vardon Trophy in 1961 and 1962 for having the lowest scoring average on his tour.
O”Connor was a member of 10 consecutive Ryder Cup teams from 1955 through 1973. In those days, the European team consisted solely of professionals from Great Britain and Ireland. The GB&I team hadn”t won a Ryder Cup match since 1933, but in 1957 he led his fellow pros to a surprising victory at Lindrick over a top-notch American team. In the final-day singles matchup, O”Connor defeated U.S. Open champion Dow Finsterwald by an impressive 7-and-6 margin. He was also on the GB&I team that tied the U.S. team in 1969.
In 1970, O”Connor won the John Player Classic that was contested in Manchester. The 25,000-pound winner”s check was the largest in world golf at that time, nearly five times the amount given to the British Open champion of that year, Jack Nicklaus.
Except for the Ryder Cup and World Cup, O”Connor never traveled beyond the European continent to play competitive golf. He never competed in American majors even though he received invitations on an annual basis to the Masters. He had 10 top-10 finishes in the British Open and was runner-up to Australian Peter Thomason in 1965.
O”Connor was a great striker of the golf ball. A great story that was recently repeated in Tom Coyne”s book A Course Called Ireland stated that O”Connor was playing with a foursome of members at Bundoran, where he was the head professional. On the 220-yard par-3 13th hole, O”Connor reached the heart of the green with a 3-iron. One of the members in the group hit a 4-iron onto the green and loudly proclaimed to his playing partners, “I only needed a 4-iron.”
O”Connor said nothing. Instead, he walked over to his golf bag and took out 10 balls. Starting with his 1-iron, O”Connor hit the ball onto the green. He then did the same with his 2-iron. He continued this, going from 4-iron to 5-iron to 6-iron until he hit his 10th and final shot onto the green by blading a pitching wedge. Yes, Christy O”Connor was a great striker of the ball.
In the 1970s and 1980s, O”Connor won eight senior titles, including six European PGA Senior Championships from 1976 through 1983. He also became the role model for a burgeoning generation of young Irish golfers, working with and playing with three-time major champion Padraig Harrington, Paul McGinley, and his nephew, the hero of the 1989 Ryder Cup matches, Christy O”Connor Jr. In fact, McGinley, who has played hundreds of rounds with O”Connor, has been quoted as saying, “I”ve never seen a better wind player than Christy O”Connor.” Lee Trevino said, “Christy flows through the ball like fine wine.”
Now 85 years of age, Christy O”Connor is the second Irishman to be inducted into the HOF alongside Joe Carr. He is most deserving of that honor.
