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Legendary golfer Sarazen dies at 97 Associated Press May 20 11:47am ET | |||||||||||||||||
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Like the sand wedge he invented, the major championships he won and the elegant sportsmanship he displayed, Gene Sarazen was the very essence of golf.
"When you discuss or research the history of golf, the name Gene Sarazen is unavoidable," Jack Nicklaus said. "He was the cornerstone of the game we all enjoy today." Sarazen died Thursday at age 97 from complications of pneumonia at Naples (Fla.) Community Hospital, said his lawyer, John Cardillo. He had been hospitalized for several days. Not only was Sarazen the first to win all four major championships, he put The Masters on the map with his "shot heard 'round the world." "He will be remembered for as long as golf is played," Byron Nelson said. With his signature knickers and quick wit, the "Squire" played everyone from Harry Vardon to Bobby Jones to Nicklaus. A former caddie, Sarazen was inspired by watching Francis Ouimet win the 1913 U.S. Open. Nine years later, Sarazen won the U.S. Open with a final-round 68 to defeat Jones and Walter Hagen, then won the PGA Championship later that season at Oakmont. He beat Hagen in the PGA in 1923 and won seven major championships in all. But Sarazen's career was defined in 1935 at a new course in Georgia where Jones invited his friends to compete in the Augusta National Invitation Tournament -- later known as The Masters. Trailing Craig Wood by three strokes with four holes remaining, Sarazen holed a 235-yarder with a 4-wood on No. 15 for a double-eagle 2, the rarest shot in golf. He tied Wood in regulation and beat him in a playoff. The victory made Sarazen the first of only four players to win the career Grand Slam. And with one shot, he made The Masters perhaps the most famous tournament in the world.
"It was a spectacular shot, the one everybody talks about, but I take my greatest pride in having won the U.S. and British Opens in the same year, 1932," Sarazen once said. "Nowadays, wherever I go, people say, `That's the man who got the double eagle.' Actually, it was just a piece of luck. They forget the championships I won." Asked what he thought about Tiger Woods winning The Masters at age 21, Sarazen quipped, "I won two majors when I was 20." He stopped playing golf in 1973, but went out in fashion with a hole-in-one at the famous Postage Stamp hole at Royal Troon. "The game has lost one of its great heroes," PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said. "Gene Sarazen dedicated his life to golf and became one of the game's legendary figures." Since 1981, Sarazen had joined Nelson and Sam Snead in hitting a ceremonial tee shot to officially start The Masters. He hit his drive this year about 140 yards down the left side of the fairway. "Gene was a pioneer participant in The Masters tournament and held a special relationship with Augusta National," club chairman Hootie Johnson said. "We will miss him very much next year on the first tee. He was a great champion and ambassador for golf." When Mark O'Meara returned to Augusta National this spring as the defending champion, he saw his name on the same locker with Sarazen in the Champions Room. "I thought that was the greatest thing," O'Meara said. "He was class personified." Sarazen won the PGA Championship three times, the U.S. Open twice and The Masters and British Open once each. Only Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Nicklaus and Gary Player won all four majors at least once in their careers. Sarazen's best year was 1932, when he won the British Open with a then-record 283 and captured the U.S. Open by shooting a final-round 66. Jones called Sarazen's late charge, "the finest competitive round ever played." His victory in the 1932 British Open at the Prince's course in England was made possible by another Sarazen legacy -- the sand wedge. "I invented it in 1931 and I showed it at the British Open in 1932," Sarazen said in a 1997 interview. "I had it hidden because I was afraid they were going to ban it." Now it's found in every player's bag. "It probably should have been called the Sarazen wedge," Arnold Palmer said. Eugenio Saraceni was born Feb. 27, 1902, in Harrison, N.Y., near New York City, the son of an Italian immigrant carpenter who never understood golf and saw his son play only once -- at the PGA Championship in Pelham, N.Y. Sarazen said his father watched from a highway while he played the 10th hole. "I had a 40-foot putt and missed it," Sarazen recalled in an interview last year. "That night he said, 'You mean to say they pay you fellows to play that game and you couldn't put that thing in the hole?' I said, `Did you ever try it?' " Sarazen starting caddying as an 8-year-old, walking four miles to the nearest club and playing whenever he could. He set his sights on becoming a professional, against all odds. "In those days, only brokers and bankers played golf," he said. He won his first tournament and $20. He made a hole-in-one, and the next day his name was in the papers. He hated it. "It looked too much like a violin player. I changed it to Gene Sarazen," he said. Sarazen nearly died during a flu epidemic in 1918. After recovering, he bought a $15 steamship ticket from New York to Florida and settled in Sebring, where he unloaded brick in a freight yard while polishing his game. Sarazen said there was an easy explanation for why he remained a good player for so long. "Good golf is simply a matter of hitting good shots consistently," he said. "And a player can do this for many years after he has passed his physical peak if his swing is fundamentally correct." When the PGA Tour established its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, Sarazen was its first recipient. Sarazen lived the last years of his life on Marco Island, Fla. His wife of 62 years -- Mary Catherine -- died in 1986. He is survived by two children, Mary Ann, of Marco Island, and Gene Jr., of Delray Beach, Fla. A funeral Mass will be held at the San Marco Roman Catholic Church in Marco Island at 10 a.m. Monday. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Gene & Mary Sarazen Foundation, P.O. Box 977, Marco Island, Fla., 34146, or The Gene & Mary Sarazen Scholarship Fund, Siena College, 515 Loudon Road, Loudonville, N.Y., 12211.
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Sarazen never shirked responsibility Olazabal, Faldo pay tribute to Sarazen Man wonders if he owns Sarazen's Masters club
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