During the formative years of the PGA Tour, the greats of the game came from the caddie yard. They learned the game by carrying clubs and giving advice, moved into the pro shop, saved money, took to the fledgling tour and attempted to make their mark. Examples of caddie yard to major championship winners included the likes of Gene Sarazen, Walter Hagen, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson. Well into the 1960s, the last of the caddie yard breed was the colorful Lee Trevino, a six-time major champ.
However, in the 1950s, Arnold Palmer of Wake Forest University began a new trend. Palmer did grow up around the game and did such things as caddie and cut greens, but he also was one of the first of his generation to attend college, play amateur golf, win the United States Amateur, and then turn professional and go on to greatness on the links. That next generation of golfing greats was learning to win while competing on college golf teams. The NCAA Division I championship was suddenly just as big a feather in the cap as was the Porter Cup or the Western Amateur.
Playing college golf was the ticket to future success on the PGA Tour. Jack Nicklaus attended Ohio State, Johnny Pott won the NCAA title while at LSU, Bert Yancey went to West Point, Lanny Wadkins attended Wake Forest, and on and on.
Curtis Strange was the poster boy for the way things had to be done to reach tour success. He was the son of the owner and professional at White Sands Country Club in Virginia Beach, and picked up the game as a 7-year-old. He won the Virginia Junior as a 15-year-old and played collegiate golf at Wake Forest, playing alongside future pro Jay Haas. He won a pair of North and South Amateurs, won the Western Amateur, the Eastern Amateur and the NCAA Championship, and turned professional following his fourth year of college as a 21-year-old.
Like others, Strange couldn”t get through the PGA Tour”s Q School in his first attempt. There was no such thing as the Nationwide Tour back in 1976, so he headed to Asia to get some much-needed tournament experience. He earned his way onto the tour in 1977 and won his first professional event in late 1979, the Pensacola Open.
Strange won the Houston Open in 1980 and then captured the Westchester Classic the following year. He began to learn the tour courses, his game improved, and by the late 1980s we was arguably one of the game”s top players. He won three times in 1985, once in 1986, won three more titles in 1987, and found the winner”s circle four times in 1988. From 1985 through 1989, Strange won the Canadian Open twice, won some prestigious tourneys such as the Memorial, the World Series of Golf, and the Tour Championship, was the first golfer since Ben Hogan to win back-to-back United States Opens, was the 1988 PGA Tour Player of the Year, and was the tour”s leading money winner in 1985, 1986 and 1988. He also played on five Ryder Cup teams. Strange was a road warrior as well, winning in Panama, Japan and Australia. During the ”80s, Strange won two major titles as well as 14 PGA Tour events and added nine international victories.
His career began its downslide in the mid-1990s as a 40-year-old. There was neither shock nor surprise by his game”s demise. After all, Strange fit the mold begun by Palmer, namely junior golf, college golf, journeyman pro, top-notch pro and, finally, back-to-the-middle-of-the-pack status once turning age 40. His American peers had similar careers as evidence by the golf resumes of Tom Watson, Davis Love III, Freddie Couples, Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Mark O”Meara, Payne Stewart and others.
Yet it was during this time that a new way to get atop the world of golf became increasingly evident. The game was becoming international in scope and a contingent of foreign golfers was getting similar results in different ways. After being introduced to the game as youngsters, these man dabbled in regional junior golf, turned pro as teenagers, never contemplated the concept of college let alone college golf, and learned to win on golf”s distant tours in Australia, Europe and South Africa.
These linksters won their fair share of major titles in the 1980s during Curtis Strange”s heyday. They included Seve Ballesteros of Spain, Nick Faldo of England, Bernhard Langer of Germany, Sandy Lyle of Scotland, Greg Norman of Australia, and others. In the 1990s, the trend would continue with Ernie Els of South Africa, Nick Price of Zimbabwe, Jose Maria Olazabal of Spain and Vijay Singh of Fiji.
The game was more international than ever. Sure, the Curtis Strange American golf professional model held true to form with the likes of Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, David Duval and Jim Furyk leading the way, but it was no longer a case of the top collegiate golfers becoming the top golf professionals.
Nowadays, a new breed of international stars rules the game. They are relatively young, they have honed their golf games in faraway places, they have no college golf experience, and they have had breakthrough moments of brilliance early in their careers. Charl Schwartzel, the reigning Masters champion from South Africa, turned pro as an 18-year-old and learned to win on the Sunshine Tour. Germany”s Martin Kaymer, the PGA Championship winner last August, was also 18 years old when he joined the pay-for-play ranks. British Open winner Louis Oosthuizen was a 19-year-old when he turned pro. The story is quite similar when one considers the careers of Adam Scott, Rory McIlroy and Ryo Ishikawa. Rare is the case of an international such as U.S. Open champ Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland who came to America, attended the University of Alabama-Birmingham, and waited until he was 22 to turn professional.
Golf is in a new, growing era of international stars that have made their mark as 20-somethings. They are far removed from the Curtis Strange era when major titles weren”t accumulated until lots of experience had been accumulated. It”s a brand new day in professional golf and it has added to the entertainment of the game as the post-Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson era slowly begins to descend farther away from the top of the leaderboard.
