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Steve_ Shaffer

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Mickey Wright RIP
« on: February 17, 2020, 03:37:46 PM »
Ron Sirak just reported on Twitter...


https://vimeo.com/242079015
"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses ... "  Adlai Stevenson
Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone: "We're bigger than US Steel."
Ben Hogan “The most important shot in golf is the next one”

Tommy Williamsen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2020, 04:01:16 PM »
Mickey Wright was in her heyday when was in High school. She introduced me to Women's golf. I watched her play Arnold Palmer and Gary Player in an exhibition. She played from more forward tees tees but was not outplayed. I think she tied for first. Her swing was graceful and powerful. It seems Ben Hogan said she had the best swing in the country male or female.
Where there is no love, put love; there you will find love.
St. John of the Cross

"Deep within your soul-space is a magnificent cathedral where you are sweet beyond telling." Rumi

Steve_ Shaffer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2020, 09:21:49 PM »
"Some of us worship in churches, some in synagogues, some on golf courses ... "  Adlai Stevenson
Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone: "We're bigger than US Steel."
Ben Hogan “The most important shot in golf is the next one”

Kevin Pallier

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2020, 09:28:03 PM »
RIP golfing Legend.

Arguably - the best woman golfer the game has seen.

David Harshbarger

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2020, 02:14:45 AM »
NY Times obit:


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/obituaries/mickey-wright-dies.html


"We didn't play golf for much money in the 1950s and 60s but that wasn't important," The Columbus Dispatch quoted her as saying. "We laid out the courses, set the pins, made the pairings, did the statistics and clinics and still managed to play a little golf."



The trouble with modern equipment and distance—and I don't see anyone pointing this out—is that it robs from the player's experience. - Mickey Wright

David_Tepper

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2020, 11:38:45 AM »

Jon Wiggett

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2020, 02:06:51 PM »
Sad to hear of her passing. She was one of the golfers I remember reading a lot about as a youngster.

Peter Pallotta

Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #7 on: February 18, 2020, 02:24:27 PM »

Seems like she was a very good person, and, judging from these three quotes, the truest of golfers:

"I think athletes have a moment, a tiny little window, where they are at their absolute peak. A high-water mark of their skill and ability to execute. For me, it would be the 16th hole, final round of the 1957 Sea Island Open. I had a narrow lead and faced a 2-iron shot to a green with a huge, yawning bunker. It was 48 degrees, and the wind was blowing 20 miles per hour, just difficult as you can imagine. Long irons were always the strength of my game, and that shot, which I hit to 10 feet, gave me goose bumps. It had a surreal quality to it. It came off exactly how I saw it in my mind's eye, the quality of the contact and the ball flight, with the perfect trajectory and curvature, as good as it got for me. I won the tournament, and though it was far from my greatest victory, I spent the rest of my career trying to duplicate the feel of that shot."

"I watched a lot of the recent U.S. Women's Amateur. It was at San Diego Country Club, a tremendous course and a special one to me. On the par-4 18th hole, a California girl, Haley Moore, boomed a drive out there and had a wedge left to the green. At my best, I needed a 2-iron. The trouble with modern equipment and distance—and I don't see anyone pointing this out—is that it robs from the player's experience. With that 2-iron, I was presented with strategic choices. Which way do I curve the ball? Do I hit it high or low? Should I maybe hit a fairway wood? For Haley, there really was one option: hit the wedge. So, though the game is interesting to watch and always will be, it's less cerebral for the player."


"There's got to be golf in Heaven. I hope I get there and that it's just me and my 2-iron. Or maybe a couple of angels will be looking on. Everything will look like Sea Island Golf Club did in the old days, sedate and beautiful. I'll be facing that shot to a well-trapped green again, trying to duplicate that shot from 1957. If it's really heaven, I'll pull it off."

BCrosby

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2020, 03:06:58 PM »
Thanks for posting Peter. I had not seen the quotation.


Some of the most insightful comments in the history of the game.


Bob
« Last Edit: February 18, 2020, 03:13:47 PM by BCrosby »

Garland Bayley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2020, 01:08:28 AM »
...
"I watched a lot of the recent U.S. Women's Amateur. It was at San Diego Country Club, a tremendous course and a special one to me. On the par-4 18th hole, a California girl, Haley Moore, boomed a drive out there and had a wedge left to the green. At my best, I needed a 2-iron. The trouble with modern equipment and distance—and I don't see anyone pointing this out—is that it robs from the player's experience. With that 2-iron, I was presented with strategic choices. Which way do I curve the ball? Do I hit it high or low? Should I maybe hit a fairway wood? For Haley, there really was one option: hit the wedge. So, though the game is interesting to watch and always will be, it's less cerebral for the player."
...

The USGA should pay more attention to Mickey, and ditch that play it forward garbage.
"I enjoy a course where the challenges are contained WITHIN it, and recovery is part of the game  not a course where the challenge is to stay ON it." Jeff Warne

John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #10 on: February 19, 2020, 08:02:16 AM »
The truth of the matter is that great players work harder and are driven by forces that can not be artificially imposed.

JESII

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2020, 10:57:27 AM »
It really does tie in to the line Tom Paul used to post from max Behr (Bob Crosby may have as well)...about the challenge meeting the equipment being the ultimate reflection of skill.

BCrosby

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2020, 12:32:24 PM »
Jim -


What struck me about the Wright comments was her humility. Her recollection of how a 2 iron at Sea Island in a minor tournament came off the club face perfectly, faded as she had envisioned and ended 10 feet from the hole. It's wonderful stuff. But its poetic power comes from what she said next - that shot haunted every shot she hit for the rest of her career... Mickey knew, even that day at Sea island, that she had touched perfection, but that the golf gods would not allow her to do it again. But she thought that was ok. She was grateful that she had been allowed to go there once and humble enough to understand that it was all she had the right to ask.


More than Behr, the above brings to mind John Low. One of his themes was that golf is hard and that facing up to its difficulties is always a maddening struggle, however good or bad a player is. But that struggle is at the heart of golf's appeal, Low thought. The key was facing up to it, as Mickey did at Sea Island and later, and the extraordinary pleasure of overcoming it - if only for one shot. Low would add that the such pleasures are undermined when golfers give in to the temptation overcome golf's difficulties with longer, straighter balls and clubs. As Low put it, you are heading down the wrong road if your ambition is to "conquer" golf.


Bob


P.S. In yet another thread on "does par matter?", I was pleased to see that the lonely, often mocked  Sullivan/Crosby pro camp attracted support from some other posters. Maybe all is not lost. ; )     


     
« Last Edit: February 19, 2020, 01:00:08 PM by BCrosby »

Tom Bagley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Mickey Wright RIP
« Reply #13 on: February 27, 2020, 02:55:17 PM »
Regarding Mickey Wright's golf swing, she did a wonderful article for Sports Illustrated in 1962:

https://www.si.com/vault/issue/42198/41

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