Word: pga
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...first time in more than 15 years Jack Nicklaus is not favored to win the tournament he has dominated like no other golfer in history. His Masters record forms the core of his unprecedented list of 15 Grand Slam titles: five Masters, three U.S. and British Opens and four PGA championships. But Nicklaus, 40, has not won a tournament since July 1978, and last year he dropped to 71st on the list of money winners after 18 years in the top five. His place on top has been taken by Tom Watson, 30, whose Huck Finn freckles and gentle demeanor...
Laboring in Nicklaus' formidable shadow, Watson has been quietly etching his way into the record books. In each of the past three years, he has been the top money winner in golf, named Player of the Year by the PGA, and awarded the Vardon Trophy for the lowest stroke average on the PGA tour, a feat no other player has accomplished for even two consecutive years. Says 1978 PGA Championship Winner John Mahaffey: "Tom has become the man to beat...
Watson became that man the slow way, working up through the ranks during golfs boom era. The son of a wealthy Kansas City insurance broker, Watson decided to make golf his career before he graduated from Stanford in 1971. By then the PGA had established a qualifying school in which the pros have to survive a hair-raising Shootout before earning the right to compete on the tour. After that they become "rabbits," harried journeymen who must scramble through early morning rounds to qualify for each individual tournament. Freedom from this grind is granted only to those...
These players feel, not unnaturally, they earned their privilege fair and square, and no one should simply rescind them. As Bob Rosburg, the winner of the 1959 PGA, noted, "If you had told me, when I won, that I could have the exemption or the prize money but not both, I'd have taken the exemption...
...present brouhaha, Sarazen says, "I've been paying my PGA dues for 57 years. I've got this card which gives me a lifetime exemption from qualifying for a Tour tournament. Now they tell me it's not good...