50 years

[Patrick_Mucci]

The Golf Channel is showing Masters highlights from 1962, 1972, 1982 and 1992.

These are a fascinating watch.

1962.

Very little in the way of flowers, galleries walking in the fairways, caddies and pros lying down on the grass, club selection is very interesting, slower greens, patchier greens, Rae's Creek running fast and brown.  The general informality of the event.

What a neat recall of 50 years of a great tournament.

Coody making a hole in one on # 6, then leaving his ball in the front bunker three (3) times on # 7.

Palmer and Nicklaus taking double and triple bogies.

Players long forgotten vying for the lead.

Snead in contention at 60, putting sidesaddle.

Sarazen at 70.

What a marvelous collection, especially since the ten year recaps follow one another every half hour.

Chris Schenkle's (sp?) use of language.

If you haven't watched it you should.

It's fun noticing the changes every ten years.

[Peter Pallotta]

Thanks, Patrick.

In passing, I'll note something that, as someone born in the mid 60s, has struck me before.  That, coming of age in the 70s and 80s, the popular conception in the popular presses of my time was that the 1950s in American (under Pres. Eisenhower) was a staid, corporate era of uptight values and mores, of prissy and artifically-neat behaviour.  And yet, time and again -- in the literature and arts, in sports, in the realm of ideas, at Augusta National -- the examples from reality counter (or at least mitigate) that popualr conception, i.e. the reality seeming to be that the 50s and early 60s was actually a period of much less conformity and corporate hegemony/power and the worshipping of idols than we're living in today.  Can you imagine modern day pros even daring to lie down on the grass during the Masters and having a couple of smokes? Can you imagine Rae's Creek running fast and brown today? It is those of of living now -- in the post 1960s, post-modern, post everything, secular age -- that seem to want to make places into shrines and people into gods.  I think I would've enjoyed (and much more comfortable) playing Augusta with Jimmy Demaret and your dad and Arnold Palmer than with anyone (or at Augusta) today.

Peter     

[Dan Kelly]

Thanks, Patrick.

In passing, I'll note something that, as someone born in the mid 60s, has struck me before.  That, coming of age in the 70s and 80s, the popular conception in the popular presses of my time was that the 1950s in American (under Pres. Eisenhower) was a staid, corporate era of uptight values and mores, of prissy and artifically-neat behaviour.  And yet, time and again -- in the literature and arts, in sports, in the realm of ideas, at Augusta National -- the examples from reality counter (or at least mitigate) that popualr conception, i.e. the reality seeming to be that the 50s and early 60s was actually a period of much less conformity and corporate hegemony/power and the worshipping of idols than we're living in today.  Can you imagine modern day pros even daring to lie down on the grass during the Masters and having a couple of smokes? Can you imagine Rae's Creek running fast and brown today? It is those of of living now -- in the post 1960s, post-modern, post everything, secular age -- that seem to want to make places into shrines and people into gods.  I think I would've enjoyed (and much more comfortable) playing Augusta with Jimmy Demaret and your dad and Arnold Palmer than with anyone (or at Augusta) today.

Peter     

Pater --

You said much, much, much more than a mouthful there. I have thought the same thing about the '50s, often, while watching the movies of the 1950s -- but I never extended my thinking to imagine that my kids and I are the ones living through the most conformist age!

This is the one-line synopsis of a book waiting to be written:

"It is those of of living now -- in the post 1960s, post-modern, post everything, secular age -- that seem to want to make places into shrines and people into gods."

I've said before that on my one visit to the Masters, the whole place reminded me of "The Truman Show." No creeks ran brown and fast in "The Truman Show"! You can be sure of that!

I'm not sure I'd have been "comfortable" being at Augusta National at any time in its history or mine, but I'm guessing that, yes, I'd have preferred the years when the club's budget was not unlimited.

Dan

 

[Jim_Kennedy]

Big change - spike marks, really visible in '92.

[Kalen Braley]

Patrick,

Very insightful thread you got started here.

If your description is accurate, and it really was more laid back in those earlier years...it would seem this whole "hushed tones, and reverance thing" that the new group of Green Jackets demand of their telecasts is a relatively modern thing...not the "old-fashioned" throwback that they would have you beleive.

Then again, put me clearly in the camp of realizing "the good-old days" actually weren't so good for most....

[Andy Stamm]

In a related note, I was watching an Open Championship video (I think it was '72 at St Andrews), and the caddies were dressed very casually. One in particular was wearing bell bottom jeans, long hair, and a beard. Not only was it notable because of the 70s style (plenty noticeable on the players, too), but I just thought to myself, you couldn't have a caddie like that today, but it was refreshing to see jeans on the most holiest of grounds on the most holiest of days.

[Bill_McBride]

Patrick,

Very insightful thread you got started here.

If your description is accurate, and it really was more laid back in those earlier years...it would seem this whole "hushed tones, and reverance thing" that the new group of Green Jackets demand of their telecasts is a relatively modern thing...not the "old-fashioned" throwback that they would have you beleive.

Then again, put me clearly in the camp of realizing "the good-old days" actually weren't so good for most....

Kalen, not sure exactly what you mean by the last sentence.

With exception of civil rights, the '50s and '60's were a great time for most Americans.  Many moms could afford to stay home, so kids weren't in as much trouble.  Families could afford to live on one salary unlike today.   Unions kept wages high.  For six months in 1964 after I graduated from college and went to Navy OCS, I worked as a union laborer on a street construction gang in San Francisco, at a wage of $8.64 an hour.  What do you think that laborer makes today - assuming he can find a job?   Tuition at the University of California was free.  Today I think it's close to $15,000, not sure but it's tough out there.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Peter,

Agreed, there was a casuallness that was far more natural, far more comfortable than today's structured environment.

Kalen,

What I think you and others may miss is the impact that TV, especially color TV had on the event.

The Masters is BIG TIME ENTERTAINMENT, not just a great golf tournament.

The color of the water, use of filters, prepping of the course are all part of SHOWTIME on TV.

Just look at the area behind the 12th green for comparison.

You and others seem to want to blame the green jackets, when, except for one, they had little or no say in anything at ANGC.
Cliff Roberts knew he had a great product and he ferociously guarded and nutured it to make ANGC and The Masters so special.

As to the 50's it was a wonderful time to grow up in America.

Other than medicine, I'd prefer the times in the 50's to today's times, for myself, but more importantlly, for my children and grandchildren.  It was an age of innocence, honor, respect and fun, co-opted by the advent of the drug culture and other influences of the 60's and the rest is, as they say, history.  

[Peter Pallotta]

Dan, Andy - you reminded me of something an old sportswriter wrote (I wish I could remember who it was).  He said that, in the 40s and 50s, baseball players and athletes in general -- including the stars -- made a good living, a very good living, and yet most were not paid a huge amount more than their white collar professionals in general, including senior sportswriters.  And that meant, in his words, that he could meet with and ask questions of athletes like Mantle and Hogan "man to man" -- i.e. that he could interact with them in an environment of mutual respect and understanding.  Those guys might have been making double what he was making, maybe even three times as much, but they weren't making 10 and 20 and 30s times as much (as they are today); the sportswriter and the star of the 1950s were living in the same basic universe, they could 'understand' eachother.   I think of golfing greats like Hogan and Palmer and Nicklaus -- they might've been driven to succeed, they might've come to expect/demand much from those around them...but they would never think of telling a man (a caddie, say) how to dress or whether to smoke or not, and I think they dealth with sportswriters not as tools but as people.  The "machine" wasn't as well oiled with billions of dollars back then, and so people weren't rushing -- or at least as willing -- to sell their souls, and conform, so as to be a part of the big show.

[Kalen Braley]

Patrick,

Very insightful thread you got started here.

If your description is accurate, and it really was more laid back in those earlier years...it would seem this whole "hushed tones, and reverance thing" that the new group of Green Jackets demand of their telecasts is a relatively modern thing...not the "old-fashioned" throwback that they would have you beleive.

Then again, put me clearly in the camp of realizing "the good-old days" actually weren't so good for most....

Kalen, not sure exactly what you mean by the last sentence.

With exception of civil rights, the '50s and '60's were a great time for most Americans.  Many moms could afford to stay home, so kids weren't in as much trouble.  Families could afford to live on one salary unlike today.   Unions kept wages high.  For six months in 1964 after I graduated from college and went to Navy OCS, I worked as a union laborer on a street construction gang in San Francisco, at a wage of $8.64 an hour.  What do you think that laborer makes today - assuming he can find a job?   Tuition at the University of California was free.  Today I think it's close to $15,000, not sure but it's tough out there.

Bill,

Perhaps I should not have dropped that last line in this forum.  Without going into the details and that ensuing debate...I will leave it as "it was certainly nice for a few"

[Dan Kelly]

Dan, Andy - you reminded me of something an old sportswriter wrote (I wish I could remember who it was).  He said that, in the 40s and 50s, baseball players and athletes in general -- including the stars -- made a good living, a very good living, and yet most were not paid a huge amount more than their white collar professionals in general, including senior sportswriters.

This was certainly true well into the 60s, if not the 70s.

The local papers would report what the Twins players were doing during the winter -- and it wasn't playing golf and going to Vegas. They would take actual wage-paying jobs -- because they couldn't afford not to.

I got to know one of the Twins' original stars, Bob Allison (American League Rookie of the Year, 1959), because he worked during the off-seasons and after his career ended at the Twin Cities Coca-Cola bottling company, which was one of my dad's clients (my dad also did some legal work for Allison; a will or something routine), which was how I ended up with summer jobs there, and which might also be how Allison ended up there. Who knows?

Allison was physically god-like, but not financially. And in the latter respect, he was typical.

[Sean_A]

Dan, Andy - you reminded me of something an old sportswriter wrote (I wish I could remember who it was).  He said that, in the 40s and 50s, baseball players and athletes in general -- including the stars -- made a good living, a very good living, and yet most were not paid a huge amount more than their white collar professionals in general, including senior sportswriters.  And that meant, in his words, that he could meet with and ask questions of athletes like Mantle and Hogan "man to man" -- i.e. that he could interact with them in an environment of mutual respect and understanding.  Those guys might have been making double what he was making, maybe even three times as much, but they weren't making 10 and 20 and 30s times as much (as they are today); the sportswriter and the star of the 1950s were living in the same basic universe, they could 'understand' eachother.   I think of golfing greats like Hogan and Palmer and Nicklaus -- they might've been driven to succeed, they might've come to expect/demand much from those around them...but they would never think of telling a man (a caddie, say) how to dress or whether to smoke or not, and I think they dealth with sportswriters not as tools but as people.  The "machine" wasn't as well oiled with billions of dollars back then, and so people weren't rushing -- or at least as willing -- to sell their souls, and conform, so as to be a part of the big show.

Pietro

No question about it, I grew up with a few Tigers in the neighbourhood and not too far from a Wing. 

Concerning the 50s, no question it was a time of change.  It was the first time teenagers had money to spend and become a serious target market.  Its also the first time kids started to dress differently from their parents.  Nothing has really much changed since! 

Ciao

[Patrick_Mucci]

Getting back to the Masters, did you notice the blotchy greens in 1962-1972 ?

Also, were you surpised by the club selections into various greens ?

I know they were highlights, but, it seemed like a good number of very long putts were holed.
Do you think this is more likely on slower greens ?

[bstark]

How bout the putting strokes? All wrists and hands......

[Peter Pallotta]

Pat - didn't mean to sidetrack the thread, sorry. On a related subject, but one we can't really 'see' on the old videos. In 1962-72, I think the course played at just over 6900 yards. In 2011, it played at just over 7400.  You've played golf at a high/competitive level. Would you have preferred to play it -- in competition -- with persimmon and blades at 6900, or titanium and technology at 7400?

Peter

[Jeffrey Conners]

What do you think the green speeds were in 1962 - 8 or 9?  I loved the people behind the 12th green (on Augusta CC I presume) watching the action through the trees.  Interesting that there were no 18th green handshakes for the caddies.  Great insights by Peter into America circa 1962.  I couldn't agree more.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat - didn't mean to sidetrack the thread, sorry. On a related subject, but one we can't really 'see' on the old videos. In 1962-72, I think the course played at just over 6900 yards. In 2011, it played at just over 7400.  You've played golf at a high/competitive level. Would you have preferred to play it -- in competition -- with persimmon and blades at 6900, or titanium and technology at 7400?

Peter, that's a difficult question to answer at my age, but, as a purist and advocate of a roll back, I'd have to opt for 6,900 with persimmon & blades.

I think one of the substantive loses in golf is the movement of the golf ball, intentional and unintentional.
When watching the 1962 and 1972 highlights, I could relate to many of the golfers as I had played in tournaments with them and could identify and equate/interpolate our games.

When Tiger won one of his Masters he never hit any club lower than 7-iron into any par 4.

I don't think that was the architectural/playabilityb intent.

There's something special about those old highlights, I think they show a course that didn't have such a big gap between where the members played and where the pros played.  Today, that gap is enormous.
That's why I've advocated for another set of tees between 6,345 and 7,400.

Peter

[jeffwarne]

Pat - didn't mean to sidetrack the thread, sorry. On a related subject, but one we can't really 'see' on the old videos. In 1962-72, I think the course played at just over 6900 yards. In 2011, it played at just over 7400.  You've played golf at a high/competitive level. Would you have preferred to play it -- in competition -- with persimmon and blades at 6900, or titanium and technology at 7400?

Peter, that's a difficult question to answer at my age, but, as a purist and advocate of a roll back, I'd have to opt for 6,900 with persimmon & blades.

I think one of the substantive loses in golf is the movement of the golf ball, intentional and unintentional.
When watching the 1962 and 1972 highlights, I could relate to many of the golfers as I had played in tournaments with them and could identify and equate/interpolate our games.

When Tiger won one of his Masters he never hit any club lower than 7-iron into any par 4.

I don't think that was the architectural/playabilityb intent.

There's something special about those old highlights, I think they show a course that didn't have such a big gap between where the members played and where the pros played.  Today, that gap is enormous.


Peter

+1
It's very hard for me to understand why all the defenders/deniers of modern technology can't embrace the fact that the scale of the game has changed for the worse. (even if it hasn't made THEM any longer, or the game any easier)

[Andy Stamm]

There's something special about those old highlights, I think they show a course that didn't have such a big gap between where the members played and where the pros played.  Today, that gap is enormous.
That's why I've advocated for another set of tees between 6,345 and 7,400.[/b][/size][/color]

What about approach shots into par 4s. Where do the pros play them vs members?

[Pat Burke]

I watched the first two today Pat, was quite fun.
Palmer blasting it out of the front bunker on 12, into the rough (secondary cut?)
over the green.  Mad as hell, contemplated the bunker for a bit, headed out of the bunker,
walked back to the spot and slammed a beautiful overhead/backhand into the sand!

Then proceeded to thin it back in to the bunker

made triple, visibly angry as he headed to 13.

Good thing there was no interent then!!!

BTW, I am an Arnold fan, just thought it was funny!

[Jim Nugent]

Pat (M. and B.), and despite the triple, Arnie went on to win that year.  Did Arnie have to get down in two from the back bunker for his 6? 

[Pete Blaisdell]

Jeffrey
  I, too, was noticing the speed of the greens. I would be surprised if they were more than 9, maybe 81/2. Some of those putts were really hammered and came up short. I also noticed the ever present rules official with the bright red blazer and straw hat on 18. Reminded me of a carnival barker giving out stuffed toys to any player who made a putt on 18. Great stuff!!

[Patrick_Mucci]

I watched the first two today Pat, was quite fun.
Palmer blasting it out of the front bunker on 12, into the rough (secondary cut?)
over the green.  Mad as hell, contemplated the bunker for a bit, headed out of the bunker,
walked back to the spot and slammed a beautiful overhead/backhand into the sand!

I thought that was a great clip..
We've all experienced that frustration and Arnie's "release" was part of his fabric, his burning competitive drive.

I was shocked at Coody leaving his ball in the fronting green side  bunker three (3)  times after making a Hole in one on # 6

I wonder if today's highlights aren't sanitized to the degree that we're deprived of those displays


Then proceeded to thin it back in to the bunker

made triple, visibly angry as he headed to 13.

Good thing there was no interent then!!!

BTW, I am an Arnold fan, just thought it was funny!

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Pat, nice observations on the Masters and the times.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tiger,

I wish they'd show more highlights with ten year intervals.

55, 65, 75, 85, 95 and 05 would be great, but I'd settle for any deci-series