Professional golf’s major championship series is just about one month away with the commencement of the Masters on April 7. While the PGA Tour and the European Tour are year-long endeavors with more than 40 tournaments on the schedule, every golfer of note will tell you that their year, and for that matter their career, is defined by success in the Masters, the United States Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship.
During the next few weeks we’ll review the up-and-coming 80th edition of the Masters. However, this week we’re going to turn back the clock some 30 years and take a walk down memory lane. It was during the 1986 season that we had a pair of golden oldies prevail in the Masters and the National Open, we had the winner of the 54-hole grand slam finally prevail at the British Open, and we had a most dynamic conclusion to a rain-delayed Monday afternoon finish at the PGA Championship.
The Masters opened up the 1986 major championship series with a new breed of golfers ready to take golf’s center stage. A dynamic contingent of foreign born golfers, including Seve Ballesteros of Spain, Nick Faldo of England, Bernhard Langer of Germany, Sandy Lyle of Scotland, Greg Norman of Australia and Nick Price of Zimbabwe, were dominating leader boards alongside Americans such as Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Payne Stewart, Corey Pavin, Fuzzy Zoeller, Hal Sutton and Bob Tway.
The ’86 Masters lived up to its billing with many of the game’s top players entering the fourth round with a valid chance to put on the green jacket later that afternoon. Norman held a one-stroke lead at 6-under-par over Ballesteros, Price, Langer and journeyman Donnie Hammond. The three Toms, namely Watson, Kite and Nakajima of Japan, were one stroke farther back at 4-under-par. Seven golfers were in a tie for ninth place, including Lyle, Tway, Pavin, David Edwards, Gary Koch, Mark McCumber and the 46-year-old five-time winner of the Masters, Jack Nicklaus. By reputation, the Masters really didn’t start until the back nine Sunday, and this would play out to form in 1986. Would it ever.
Ballesteros looked like a sure winner until he snap-hooked his second shot into the water on the par-5 15th hole to fall out of first place. Norman, who made four birdies in a row on the back nine, hit an awful second shot into the 18th green and made bogey. Tom Kite missed his winning putt on the 18th green, coming up just short. Pavin hit it into the water on the 16th hole. Price and Watson shot 71 and failed to make their move. The rest of the top 10 faltered. Yet as we all know, it turned out to be a most magical Sunday afternoon as Nicklaus shot a back-nine 30 with birdies on the 10th and 11th holes, a bogey on the 12th, a birdie on the 13th, an eagle-three on the par-5 15th, and birdies on the 16th and 17th holes. Nicklaus two-putted the 18th hole from 50 feet, tapped in for par, concluded his round more than one hour before Norman and watched everyone else falter down the stretch. Nicklaus would win $144,000.
When all was said and done, it was arguably the greatest Masters of all time because of the Nicklaus heroics, the Ballesteros and Norman late-round struggles, and the ever changing leader board with golfers of note vying for major championship history. It was almost 30 years ago that we got to see the most dramatic final-nine Masters of all time.
The scenario was eerily similar two months later at the United States Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills on Long Island. An original-member club of the USGA, Shinnecock had hosted the second annual National Open in 1896. Some 90 years later it had its second major championship. It turned out to be well worth the wait.
The U.S. Open is more about endurance, mental and physical, than the Masters. The Masters is all about making birdies when you can whereas the Open is all about holding on for dear life while making par. No one truly wins the National Open. It’s just that the other 155 golfers lose it. However, that was not the case at the 1986 U.S. Open.
Just like the ’86 Masters, Greg Norman held a one-stroke lead at even par. One stroke back in a tie for second place were Hal Sutton and another noted 46-year-old, Lee Trevino, a two-time National Open champ. Tway was two strokes off the pace and Floyd, McCumber, Stewart, Denis Watson and Mike Reid were in a multi-way tie for fifth place. Just four strokes off the pace were Watson, Crenshaw, Langer, Scott Verplank and Lennie Clements.
On a day when scores were surprisingly low for a U.S. Open, Norman was the first golfer to blink, faltering to a 75 and a 12th-place finish. Throughout the day, a total of 10 golfers held the lead at one time or another. After Floyd birdied the 11th hole, there was a nine-way tie atop the leader board. Mark Calcavecchia, Lanny Watkins and Chip Beck, well outside the top 10 after 54 holes, posted early 65s for the rest of the field to take note of although it was too little, too late. Yet while others were going south, Raymond Floyd prevailed over the final nine with that birdie on the 11th, then went ahead and made a great par save on the 12th, a birdie on the 13th, and another birdie on the 16th hole.
When the dust had finally settled, Floyd recorded 14 pars and four birdies to shoot a final-round 66. He won by two strokes over Beck and Watkins and would end up pocketing $115,000 for his efforts. It was his fourth major title. Floyd was a couple of months away from his 44th birthday and it was basically his final hurrah although he would be in contention to win the Masters on a couple of occasions in the early 1990s, losing to Faldo and Freddie Couples.
After the playing of the Masters and the U.S. Open, a pair of aging 40-somethings, Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd, had dug deep and gone low over the final nine holes, capturing the final major of their Hall of Fame careers. Greg Norman was still major-less even though he held the third-round lead at both grand slam events.
Next week we’ll take another walk down 1986 and memory lane to look back upon the British Open at Turnberry and the PGA Championship at Inverness.
