PGA Championship Quiz: 1) In the 1970s, who were the only two to win at least two PGA Championships? 2) In the 1980s, who is the only one to win two PGAs? 3) In 1972, I finished tied for second and my initials are J.J. Who am I? Answers below.
Tom Jones
The rock ‘n’ roll stud has a new album out, Praise & Blame, that as I mentioned a few weeks ago is different from anything else he’s ever done. Some folks at Island Records evidently aren’t real happy with the effort, wanting an album of classic Tom Jones type material, but as Jones puts it, hey, I’m 70 years old! Time to grow up, don’t ya think? No word yet on how his concert audiences feel, because, you see, the reason why I’m bringing him up is because of a recent interview he did with the London Times’ Hugo Rifkind.
Jones was born Tommy Woodward, June 7, 1940, Pontypridd, Wales, but I forgot how he got married at 16, to 15-year-old Linda, and 53 years later they are still married. They tied the knot a month before their son was born. As Jones says, that will focus you. “It made me concentrate more. I thought, I’ve got to do this! I’ve got to get a hit record, to make something of myself for my wife and son. Otherwise I’m going to be working on building sites all my life.”
So by day he worked mostly construction and at night he played in the clubs. “Within six years he was managing himself out of the phone box at the end of his road, gigging around the clubs of South Wales,” writes Rifkind. Eventually, he was signed by Gordon Mills, who changed Tom’s name and took him to London. Shortly thereafter, Jones was on Tops of the Pops with It’s Not Unusual, which then became his breakthrough hit in the U.S.
“It’s possible (if you’re of a certain age) to get bogged down with the silliness of Tom Jones. Watching clips of him from the late Seventies, he seems worse than absurd, sweating on stage into some stranger’s undercrackers….Looking back over his videos feels a bit like watching an associate of Tony Soprano leering over strippers at the Bada Bing!.”
But at his peak, notes Rifkind, “he was certainly one of the greats.”
“These were the Las Vegas years, when the knickers rained down in biblical numbers, and the room keys often followed them. Linda was in Los Angeles by now, but it’s not clear that this ever made a huge difference to Tom’s behavior. A few years ago, on American TV, he admitted that his wife had beaten him up after one particular infidelity made the papers. History does not relate which one, but there is no shortage of candidates, from a former Miss World to one of the Supremes. While some tales of the great Welsh shagmonster are surely overblown, they can’t all be. He’s known to have had an illegitimate child in 1989 with a model called Katherine Berkery, which we don’t discuss, and a Las Vegas student has claimed that, pre-sex, he likes to [and this is where your editor needs to move right along…]
“ ‘She was with me all the way,’ says Tom, of Linda. ‘I know friends of mine, their wives would get pissed off when they were away on tour, with this and that. I used to have a musician, his wife was nagging him, so he went home. He gave up his job! But I know other people who’ve got divorced. Whose wives keep on and on. You’ve gotta work together.’
“There’s a story there, I’m sure, about the wife who looked away while the husband made a bomb flashing his chest hair, and some have suggested it’s not a terribly nice one….When his career took off, he says, ‘She was thrilled to bits. And she still is. She knows what would be the alternative.’ You fall pregnant at 15 to the local Teddy boy in Fifties South Wales is the subtext, and there are worse things that can happen than ending up married to Tom Jones.
–So the last golf major of the year begins Thursday with the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, and all eyes are on Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, but for very different reasons. The Washington Post’s Michael Wilbon attempts to answer the first question, “What’s Wrong with Tiger?”
“(The) answer is pretty darned simple: His life fell apart.
“It has been a hot mess since Thanksgiving night when word of his dalliances began to trickle out, and it could be for a while longer. He lost, for all practical purposes, his wife, his family life as he knew it, his peace and quiet and everything that went with it, including his athletic precision and whatever competitive advantages he had held over his peers for more than a decade.
“Some folks looked at his pair of fourth-place finishes at the Masters and the U.S. Open as proof he wasn’t that far off form, but Tiger knew better, even as he was scrambling and hustling to contend. That’s why he said Tuesday, ‘I thought I would have been here a little bit sooner, with all that’s going on.’
“By ‘here,’ Tiger meant rock bottom, that hellish destination that describes not only the level of golf he has played this summer, but almost certainly his personal life as well.”
And as I said the other day, there’s no guarantee he can make the cut this week. Plus as Wilbon notes, not only is Tiger’s play a disaster for the PGA Tour, “there’s no Plan B. When Tiger finished tied for 78th last weekend in an 80-man field, television ratings for the Bridgestone Invitational were down 51% from the year before, when Tiger won the tournament and, more important, was playing during the entire television slot.
“What the networks need is another iconic golfer to fall out of the heavens, and it ain’t happening. So, the network executives and the tournament directors and all the sponsors sit there and pray Tiger somehow battles his way out of this….
“(But) as gifted as Tiger Woods is, athletically, passion for practice and training are even more important to his success. And Tiger’s not up to that kind of fanatical preparation right now, and hasn’t been since Thanksgiving.”
As for Phil Mickelson, he announced he is being treated for psoriatic arthritis and is taking weekly shots of Embrel. The pain, which surfaced just five days before the U.S. Open, where he finished tied for fourth, was so severe he had difficulty walking. But it wasn’t until after the British Open that Mickelson made a trip to the Mayo Clinic to find out what was going on and that’s when he got the diagnosis.
“I’m surprised at how quickly (the pain) has gone away, and how quickly it’s been able to be managed and controlled. I feel 100 percent. But when I’m laying there on the couch and I can’t move, you know, yeah, I had some concerns.”
Ah, but the burger king has had to become a vegetarian, and he admits it’s difficult driving by a Five Guys and not stopping.
–Back to Tiger, it seems only one thing can make him smile these days…mention of the movie Caddyshack, which recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of its release. When told a few weeks back how long ago it was, Tiger’s face lit up. “Is it really?” he asked. “I don’t remember the first time (I watched it). As for how many, though, I’d have to say pretty close to a hundred. I’ve got a bunch of lines but for some reason you kind of remember the more times you go through. It’s the little things. That’s what makes the movie so great.”
As noted in a piece by Hank Gola of the Daily News, Caddyshack “debuted to zero fanfare and rotten reviews…Harold Ramis and the late Doug Kenney [Ed. Kenney died in mysterious circumstances a month after the premiere] were looking to follow up on the commercial success of Animal House with another irreverent work. They considered spoofing the Nazis – Mel Brooks had done it with The Producers – before targeting the country club scene outside Chicago where collaborators Brian Doyle-Murray and Bill Murray once caddied.
“The Murrays had seven other siblings in their Irish Catholic family and the Danny Noonan character (played by Michael O’Keefe) was supposed to be the movie’s main protagonist, fighting the system at tony Bushwood Country Club. ‘Slobs against snobs,’ is how Cindy Morgan (sultry ingénue Lacey Underall in the movie) describes the plot. It didn’t exactly turn out that way, not after the sardonically dry Murray, slapstick master Chevy Chase, bug-eyed zany Rodney Dangerfield and the purposefully pompous Ted Knight were brought together to create a perfect storm of comic confusion.
“Caddyshack didn’t win any Oscars. But who’s quoting from Ordinary People these days?”
And golfers on the PGA Tour love it, even if some won’t admit it. Joe Durant says “I travel with it. I pop the DVD in any time I’m feeling down. It’s a great pick me up.”
“For my money, the true measure of a movie is how accurately you remember the scenes. Every sick bastard I know can recite at least half the Caddyshack script. Then there are some people who quote from it and don’t even know what they’re quoting from. It’s become part of the modern vernacular.”
“In fact, Ty Tryon, the one-time phenom who got his PGA Tour card at age 17, was actually nicknamed after playboy golfer Ty Webb, Chase’s character.”
Cindy Morgan wrote a book, “From Catholic School to Caddyshack,” that is about to be published, if it isn’t out already.
“We get on the set and four of the funniest men on the planet show up even though two of them (Murray and Chase who feuded on SNL) were not allowed to be on the set at the same time,” Cindy recalls.
“Rodney…sat down next to me at lunch one day and he’s sweating and tugging at his collar just like you’ve seen a million times on the Tonight Show saying, ‘Am I OK, am I OK? This is my first movie.’ And I said, ‘Rodney, you’re stealing it.’”
“Rodney was one of the most lovable guys you’d ever want to meet. The first day he’s filming, everybody went to see him, not only all the comics in the film but all the comics from the general area,” said Scott Colomby, who played smartass caddie Tony D’Annunzio. “All of a sudden, he starts to sweat. I thought he was ill.
“I said, ‘Rodney, you OK?’ He said, ‘No, I suck. I suck. I’m dying out there. Nobody’s laughing.’ I said, ‘Rodney they can’t laugh.’
“ ‘No, because I suck.’
“He was in scenes with Ted Knight, and Rodney was saying whatever popped into his head and Ted Knight was hanging on to the script, saying, ‘Wait a minute, I’m the funny guy here,’ Morgan adds. “By the end of filming, Ted Knight was angry with everybody. We had all evolved into versions of our characters.”
As for Murray, he ad-libbed his entire six days on the set, including the Dalai Lama scene.
“We were almost finished and I was with Doug and Harold when Bill Carruth, the film editor came up and said he’d just done a rough cut of what we’ve got,” Colomby said. “He said, ‘I’ve got good news and bad news.’ The bad news was this film makes no sense whatsoever. The good news was ‘remember that one scene where a gopher sticks his head out of the ground? I just talked to some buddies over at Disney and they can build us a mechanical (one) for about $50,000. Whenever the film doesn’t make sense, we just insert the gopher.’”
So they just kept threading through the story of Bill/Carl and the gopher.
And, oh, the parties on set were legendary. As one said, “I’m going to answer that like I answer that to everybody. It was Florida. It was 1979.”
“It was when people didn’t have any idea what drugs could do to you,” says Colomby. For his part, Rodney got “really, really stoned.”
As for Bill Murray, he’s never been far from golf ever since. His longtime Pebble Beach Pro Am partner, Scott Simpson, recalls his favorite story. One year the two needed a par on the par-5 18th to make the Pro Am cut. Simpson three-putted for bogey which meant Murray had to sink a three-footer for a net five.
“We all knew it,” Simpson recalls. “He’s about to hit his putt. He’s looking at it, asking ‘what do you think, is it going to break right or straight?’ I think he was kind of nervous – of course you’re nervous – and some drunk guy in the gallery stands up and yells out, ‘Hey Bill, how about doing that Caddyshack thing?’
“I thought Bill was really going to be PO’d and he just turns around, looks up there and then does the whole Carl the greenskeeper thing – ‘Last hole, Pebble Beach, the AT&T Championship. Former actor, putt-making machine. Got about three feet, he’s gonna make it. Cinderella boy, about to make the cut at the AT&T Championship.’ And he turns around, steps up and drains it in the middle of the hole. The crowd just went bonkers. It was hilarious.”
—NASCAR continues to struggle, as outlined by Ken Belson and Dave Caldwell in the New York Times. While the product on the track has been better this year with NASCAR loosening some of its restrictions (for example, an average of 12 leaders per race and 26 lead changes, both records), the sport is suffering disproportionately from the sorry economy. Incredibly, the 140,000 fans who attended the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis this year was half that of 2007. Television ratings for this particular race were down 12% from last year.
–Uh oh…us Jets fans are getting a little queasy about the Darrelle Revis holdout situation as owner Woody Johnson said he doesn’t believe the All-World cornerback will sign before the start of the season after all and that Revis could sit out the entire year. The last contract talks went very poorly and without Revis, talk of a Super Bowl goes out the window.
Both parties supposedly have 10-year proposals on the table, but are said to be a cool $40 million apart. The Jets are at $120 million and the Revis camp at $160 million, with $30 million guaranteed. It’s the guaranteed money that is the big hang-up.
–As I go to post, there is no word whether the NBA is going to void Isiah Thomas’ contract. If the league does, will owner James Dolan then make Thomas a full consultant, with Thomas leaving FIU and Donnie Walsh left in limbo? As a Knicks consultant under the current arrangement that the NBA is examining, he would be helping out with the college draft, but as FIU coach he would be violating NBA rules by having contact with high school and draft-ineligible players.
–Washington Nationals hurler Stephen Strasburg returned from a 19-day layoff and got shelled in the worst start of his young career, allowing 6 runs in 4 1/3 while taking the loss to Florida. Chalk it up to rust. His arm was fine and he did touch 100 mph. But it seems the breaking stuff was totally ineffective.
–The other day Derek Jeter passed Babe Ruth on the all-time Yankees hit list when he banged out No. 2,874, and the Daily News’ Filip Bondy correctly pooh-poohed it, talking about how it was a misguided comparison of the two players, at least the way some were portraying the accomplishment. But in bringing up the 1927 Yankees, and comparing them to today’s edition (Bondy’s point being of course there is none), he mentioned the Yankees’ main reliever in 1927, Wilcy Moore. Now I’ve got to admit I didn’t remember Moore’s name so had to look him up on baseballreference.com. The guy was born in Bonita, TX, and grew up in Hollis, OK.
It turns out Moore was a 30-year-old rookie in ’27 and it was far and away his best season in an otherwise mediocre career that ended in 1933. In ‘27, though, Moore was 19-7 in 50 games and led the league in ERA at 2.28.
Ah, but of his 50 appearances, just 12 were starts and 6 of these were complete games. So let’s say he averaged 8 innings per start, that means in his 38 relief appearances he threw 117 innings, or 3 innings per game, which is pretty awesome. And he had 13 saves, when a save was meaningful. In other words, Wilcy Moore had one helluva season.
Alas, he wasn’t as good at the plate, going 6 for 75, .080, and was just a .102 hitter for his career.
But quaff an ale to one Wilcy Moore, because we’re always looking for an excuse to do so.
QB Jeremiah Masoli out for redemption at Mississippi
Poor choice of words in the eyes of your editor. How can former Oregon quarterback, and one-time Heisman Trophy candidate, Jeremiah Masoli be out for “redemption”? Redemption is the word you use when, say, a team trades you away because they believe your play has slipped, but someone else picks you up and when you first go against your old club, you’re out for both revenge and redemption.
But Jeremiah Masoli pleaded guilty to second-degree burglary, was placed on probation by the Oregon football team, and then was cited for marijuana possession in June. The Oregon coach rightfully kicked him off the team for good and Masoli went shopping for another school to pick him up, which Ole Miss did.
But what he does from here is not “redemption.” If he led Mississippi to the SEC title, he’s not redeeming himself. It’s not like Oregon demoted him to No. 3 on the depth chart, at which point Masoli transferred to another school that gave him a chance to start. No, the guy broke all kinds of rules and was told to hit the road.
Sorry to go on a rant here, but I’m stuck with all my Duckwear, Oregon was going to be a national title contender with Masoli, and he blew it. I am thus one college football fan who couldn’t give a damn if he has any success whatsoever from here. Plus it wouldn’t be redemption.
—Floyd Little, the former Denver running back who was just placed in the Football Hall of Fame, was asked about the fact St. Louis Rams rookie quarterback Sam Bradford is receiving $50 million in guaranteed money. Little was a first-round pick in 1967 and received a $10,000 signing bonus. His salaries his first three years were $23,000, $26,000 and $28,000.
“I cashed my checks at 7-11, got two Slurpees and the rest in $20s.”
Dick LeBeau, who was also placed in the Hall of Fame last weekend, said that after being drafted by the Cleveland Browns (who cut him before the season) in 1959, he “went down to the bookstore, bought a windbreaker and thought, ‘This is the coolest I’ve ever looked in my life.’”
Russ Grimm, the former Washington Redskins guard, recalled that the five members of the famed “Hogs” offensive line had a total salary of less than $150,000 in their Super Bowl year of 1982. [Nate Davis / USA TODAY]
–After Tyson Gay defeated Usain Bolt in the 100-meter race in Stockholm, Bolt said, “This is my easy season. If you don’t beat me this season, it’s not going to happen next season because next year is a championship year.”
Well, turns out no one will beat him the rest of the summer…because he’s going to miss it due to a lower back ailment, which his people are going to be extra cautious with.
So picture that just like in my case when I was supposed to see him at a meet in New York in June, only to have him pull out, he was responsible for huge advance ticket sales for upcoming meets in Zurich and Brussels. I’m imagining these folks aren’t happy, either.
–How about this British chap Ed Stafford, who spent 859 days walking the entire length of the Amazon River, evidently the first person to do so? Stafford said he was “no eco-warrior,” though he hoped his feat would raise awareness of destruction to the rain forest, but rather it was simply a grand expedition of endurance. The 34-year-old army captain did it because it hadn’t been done before.
Stafford and a British friend started the trip on April 2, 2008, on the southern coast of Peru, with the pal leaving three months later, and after that he would walk stretches with locals, plus a Peruvian forestry worker decided to tag along to the Atlantic.
So how did the guy live? Off piranha he caught, it turns out, as well as rice and beans and store-bought munitions along the way. The trip cost over $100,000, and I’m just having a hard time visualizing how he handled money along the way.
Stafford and the forestry worker, “Cho” Rivera, “encountered every conceivable danger, from 18-foot long caimans, enormous anaconda snakes, illness, food shortages and the threat of drowning.” One community was asked for permission ahead of time to walk through and the response came back, “If a gringo walks into their community they will kill him,” wrote Stafford of this time.
“He decided to plan a route around the village, but he was still captured by Indians from another village and taken to their leaders.
“After being dressed down and having their possessions thoroughly picked over – only a machete was confiscated – Stafford and Rivera’s repeated explanations of the point of their expedition won over the Indians. They were allowed to walk on the land, but only if they hired guides from the tribe.”
Stafford said he is planning something unique for September 2011, but won’t tell anyone what it is for fear he will be beat out. [AP]
–We note the passing of the actress Patricia Neal, 84. Neal was an immensely acclaimed actress who also triumphed in her personal life, surviving three strokes in 1965 at age 39. Back then, her efforts to talk and walk again were regarded as epic in the annals of stroke rehabilitation as she returned to the screen to earn an Oscar nomination and three Emmy nominations, including for her portrayal of Olivia Walton in “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story,” which was one of my favorites. Speaking of Oscar, Neal won in 1963 for her role in “Hud.” Patricia Neal is remembered for her immense courage and class.
–So after my mention of “The Deer Hunter” the other day, Johnny Mac told me of the actor John Cazale, who played a memorable part in the film, and I had no idea that Cazale was in just five films, and, get this…each one was a Best Picture nominee!
Godfather I and II (Fredo), Deer Hunter, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Conversation.
How awesome is that? Sadly, Mr. Cazale died of cancer while filming The Deer Hunter. I remember this vividly at the time but can’t believe it was 32 years ago! [And then the depression set in….]
Johnny reminded me I missed a recent HBO documentary, “I Knew It Was You: Remembering John Cazale,” that was evidently terrific…and touching.
And speaking of touching, that is unless you don’t have a pulse, the single most beautiful piece of music in movie history is Stanley Myers’ ‘Cavatina’ from The Deer Hunter. [Warning: If you forgot this one, don’t listen to it in the office, unless you can close the door and you have some Kleenex handy.]
–I mentioned the passing of the founder of the Cheez Doodle, Morrie Yohai, the other day, and then the New York Times’ Manny Fernandez had a piece on some of the other “Great Men of Junk Food.”
Frederick and Louis Rueckheim, who sold a popcorn, molasses and peanuts confection at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, later perfected it and voila! Cracker Jack.
“One unusually frigid night in San Francisco in 1905, 11-year-old Frank W. Epperson accidentally left a powdered-soda drink he had made for himself on the porch with the stirring stick still in the cup. The next morning, he awoke to find a frozen concoction, on a stick.
“He tasted it. He showed it to his friends at school. And then he went on with his life, eventually going into real estate. It was not until 1923 that Mr. Epperson finally applied for a patent for his discovery. These days, Unilever sells two billion of them in the United States each year. Mr. Epperson initially called his product Epsicles. His children had another name: Pop’s ‘sicles.
Walter Diemer invented Dubble Bubble in 1928, but received no royalties. He did retire as a senior vice president at Fleer, however.
James Dewar invented the Twinkie in 1930. Hostess would go on to bake 500 million a year. [When bananas were rationed during World War II, the banana cream center was replaced with vanilla cream.]
–OK, guys. Why does A-Rod seem to get all the ladies? Granted, some of them are a little different, but they’re A-listers. According to Details magazine’s Alex Bhattacharji:
“Outside the arena of sports and celebrity, some of the things that make a guy a real catch are good looking, great body, makes a ton of money, enjoys partying and is super confident. He has all those attributes.”
“There’s a sense of entitlement about him that probably makes him incredibly appealing as a bit of a bad boy to women,” adds Bhattacharji. “He has a certain amount of personal charisma, at least one-on-one, if not the ease in front of the camera that we see in movie stars. He’s very charismatic and likeable in person.”
Drat. And then for a second time, the depression set in….
“A venomous fish whose sting is excruciating could cause a nasty surprise to swimmers in Irish waters.
“The combination of a new moon and a spring tide is likely to bring swimmers and surfers into contact with the toxic weever fish over the next two weekends.
“The weever is a small poisonous fish that is found under the sand on Irish coasts. It usually lives beyond the tide line but with the waters low for the next few days people are going to walk into its territory.
“The fish is about 15cm long (6 inches) and has a row of black venomous spines along its dorsal fin….
“Its sting is extremely painful. The agony is the most intense for the first two hours and the foot swells and goes red. People have been known to die from anaphylactic shock.”
Goodness gracious! I’m about to go to Ireland for an 18th time and here I never knew I could be killed by a freakin’ weever.
–Army Times has a note on the Afghan war-zone documentary “Restrepo,” as in it’s attracting “legions of viewers.” Normally, a flick like this would be shown in just a few theaters, but over the coming weeks it will be hitting at least 50, including, as you’d imagine, some venues near military bases, such as Fort Benning, Ga., and Fort Bliss, Texas. Go to restrepothemovie.com for screenings in your area.
The film was directed by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, two wartime journalists, and it sounds phenomenal. I’m just bummed that a glance at the schedule doesn’t reveal any showings near my home. If you happen to see it, please send me your thoughts. For starters, sounds like this one cleans up come Oscar time in the documentary category. And with the new extended list for Best Picture nominees, I wonder if it can slide into these as well.
–The Wall Street Journal had a great review of Los Lobos’ new album “Tin Can Trust.” Just thought I’d pass this along. This “very fine album…is so tight and clean that it must have come from long, arduous sessions in which they labored over their parts in search of perfection.” I had no idea these guys have been together for 37 years.
–Reader Shu wrote in to say my mention of the song “Little Bit O’ Soul” last time brought back memories of his days on the high school baseball team back in ’67, and going through a box of mementos from his father the other day saw a clipping of his exploits, mild though they were, so as Shu put it, being a journeyman pitcher/third-sacker, for his senior year he opted to join the golf team, which meant he got out of class earlier. See what one song will do? [Shu remembers the tune because of someone cranking up a transistor radio on one of the bus trips when this song was big.]
–So on Monday, I received one of those emails from a ticket agency I deal with, showing what artists were playing in the New York area, and lo and behold there’s one of my all-time favorites, Shelby Lynne, the country singer with an edge who was once New Artist of the Year and a Grammy winner. Heck, she’s playing on Wednesday, I read, can’t do it…but what is this place where she’s appearing? Mexicali? Where’s that?
Well, one thing led to another (OK, my thought process took all of 2 minutes) and when I found out Mexicali is in Teaneck, about 45 minutes away, I had to figure out a way to be there…and so I got a ticket…and now I’m very fired up to see Shelby Lynne…a baaad girl. Very baaad girl.
I have no idea if she’s just solo, or with a band, or playing the spoons….at least I get to see Shelby Lynne up close and personal.
When I talk of my all-time favorite songs, I have a rule that it must have charted in the top 40, otherwise all of us could bring up totally obscure tunes and say it’s a favorite and no one would know what you’re talking about.
[For instance one of mine that still might be obscure, Beverly Bremers’ “Don’t Say You Don’t Remember” from 1972 is eligible because it hit No. 15 on the Billboard chart. Or The Sapphires’ No. 25 hit from 1964, “Who Do You Love.” New Colony Six’s No. 16 from ’69, “Things I’d Like To Say.” And The Skyliners’ No. 24 from 1960, “Pennies From Heaven,” simply the best version ever of that tune.]
But in the case of Shelby Lynne, despite her awards, she doesn’t have a top 20 country tune, yet go ahead and YouTube “Your Lies.” Awesome song. [Or “Killin’ Kind,” a rather sexy video and another great tune.]
Shelby’s life itself has been a classic country song…but more on her next time.
PGA Championship Quiz Answers: 1) Jack Nicklaus, 3, and Dave Stockton, 2, dominated the 1970s. 2) In the 80s, only Larry Nelson won more than one in winning two. 3) Jim Jamieson was tied for second with Tommy Aaron as Gary Player won in ‘72. I remember Jim Jamieson, but I forgot how 1972 was far and away his best year on tour as he picked up his only win at the Western Open (when this was the most important event after the majors…at least in terms of respect garnered) plus Jamieson had eight other top-ten finishes, including a T-5 at the Masters as well as the PGA runner-up. But then Jamieson broke his hand at a hotel in Phoenix in 1977 and his career was essentially over, though he then went on to a number of top club jobs. Jamieson served in Vietnam before joining the tour in 1970.
Top 3 songs for the week of 8/10/68: #1 “Hello, I Love You” (The Doors) #2 “Classical Gas” (Mason Williams) #3 “Stoned Soul Picnic” (The 5th Dimension..ooh, Marilyn McCoo)…and…#4 “Grazing In The Grass” (Hugh Masekela) #5 “People Got To Be Free” (The Rascals…now we know they are Bill Murray’s favorite group) #6 “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (Donovan) #7 “Lady Willpower” (Gary Puckett and The Union Gap) #8 “Turn Around Look At Me” (The Vogues) #9 “Sunshine Of Your Love” (Cream) #10 “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (The Rolling Stones)
Next Bar Chat, Monday. One of these days I’ll get to Stan Musial…but I can already tell, not Monday.
