Bert Yancey Makes it to the Tee Just in the Nick of Time
A putting tip from his wife and two caddies saved the day for Yancey at the 1966 Memphis Open
It’s playoff time on the PGA TOUR! The regular season concluded with a non-elevated event, the Wyndham Championship, that contained a lot of drama for players trying to make the playoffs, the Ryder Cup, or saving their tour card. Justin Thomas was in the playoffs, and then out of them, as he came down the stretch with an eagle on 15 followed by a bogey on the 16th. He came to the 18th hole needing a birdie to finish inside the top 70. After missing the green short, he watched in horror as his chip shot hit the pin and bounced out of the cup. He missed the playoffs by one spot.
Adam Scott suffered a similar fate when, after shooting a final round 63, he could do no better than finishing in the 72nd spot. This is the first time Scott has missed the playoffs since the inception of the format in 2007.
Congratulations to Lucas Glover for overcoming a long bout with the yips to win for the first time in two years. The victory propelled Glover from the 112th spot on the FedEx Cup points list to the 49th spot and he will be playing in Memphis next week in the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first playoff event.
Did you catch the broadcast premier of Camilo Villegas calling the action at the Wyndham? Pretty good except for one rookie mistake. The fist bump is classic.
I’m glad somebody was filming this shot on Tik Tok:
In last week’s Tour Backspin Poll 64% of respondents thought that the announcement by the PGA TOUR that they would not be adapting the Model Local Rule with a rollback of the ball had now made the issue officially a mess. Those respondents that liked the announcement because they want to play what the pros play came in at 36%.
In this week’s Tour Backspin Poll, weigh in on your feelings of reducing the number of players making the playoffs from the top 125 to the top 70 FedEx Cup point earners.
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This week the PGA TOUR begins the playoffs with the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis, TN. This tournament stop shares DNA with the Memphis Open that debuted in 1958. We’re going back to 1966 when Bert Yancey arrived at the first tee of the final round with just two minutes to spare before being disqualified. Explore how a caddie helped him avoid disqualification and another caddie helped him secure the victory in this week’s main story.
You’ve got to check out the dialog between Bob Hope and Bobby Nichols (and the price of those shirts!) in this week’s Vintage Ad. Scroll down to see.
Get your kicks in 1966 in this week’s Tour Backspin Spotify playlist. Listen HERE.
Gene “The Machine” Littler shows off his swing in this week’s Swing Like a Pro. Scroll down to view.
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Larry Baush
Getting to the Tee Just In Time for Second Tour Win
Bert Yancey woke up in his motel room on the morning of Sunday, June 6th, 1966, just one-stroke behind Gene Littler, the leader in the Memphis Open. Littler was setting a torrid pace on the par 70, 6,466-yard, Colonial Country Club course shooting three straight 66s to post the first sub-200 54-hole total for the year on the PGA TOUR. Yancey shot rounds of 63, 69, and 67, which featured an eagle on the 18th hole in the third round.
“She’s a pretty good golfer.”
Yancey liked his chances in the final round. His wife had given him a putting lesson at the Colonial National Invitational in Fort Worth two weeks prior to the Memphis Open. The tip his wife gave him was paying big dividends.
“She’s a pretty good golfer,” Yancey explained. “She suggested I move the putter back. It really worked.”
In addition to his wife, Yancey had a couple of caddies, both named Roy, to thank for his showing in Memphis that week, especially on Sunday.
Despite winning his first PGA title just a month prior at the Azalea Open, an alternate event, Yancey was relaxed on that Sunday morning in Memphis. He slept in late before rising and then tuning into television coverage of the Gemini 9 space adventure.
Then the phone rang and jolted him out of his relaxed state. On the other end of the line was Roy Stone, a member of the touring caddie corps. Although Stone was not working on Yancey’s bag that week, he still had the young Yancey on his radar as the two were good friends.
“When I didn’t see him on the putting green, I got worried.”
Stone had grown concerned when he did not notice Yancey around the putting green to warm-up for his final round.
“I was to get his car and drive it to Michigan for the Buick Open,” Stone explained. “When I didn’t see him on the putting green, I got worried.”
Yancey either forgot, or was never informed, that the tee times had been moved up to accommodate the television coverage.
“At 11:10, Roy called me and said I was due off at 11:20,” Yancey told reporters after his round.
He gulped down a glass of orange juice before speeding off to the course, a short distance from his motel. He arrived at the first tee with eight minutes to spare before he would have been disqualified (the Rules of Golf allow for a 5-minute grace period for arriving late, so Yancey made the trip from his motel room in seven minutes).
The change of pace from relaxation to the hectic arrival at the course didn’t seem to affect Yancey’s play. The final round was played under sunny skies with temperatures in the mid-80s. Yancey carded five birdies and only one bogey while Gene Littler began to fade on the back nine.
It was now that the other caddie named Roy in Yancey’s life stepped up and played an important role in the round. Roy Sanders, Yancey’s caddie in Memphis, talked strategy during the round and the young Philadelphian suggested a 2-iron for what Yancey called, “my best fairway swing of the day.”
“I was putting real well.”
And that putting tip from his wife was still working for him.
“I was putting real well,” Yancey said after his round.
Yancey’s final round 66 gave him a total of 265, 15-under-par, was one-stroke better than the course record set by Cary Middlecoff when he won the 1961 Memphis Open. Yancey’s four round total was the lowest score posted on the 1966 tour to that point (Tony Lema’s -17 at the Oklahoma City Open the week before was the lowest score relative to par for the year, so far). The win in Memphis earned Yancey $20,000, while Littler earned $12,000 for his runner-up finish.
After almost missing his tee time in one of the most important rounds in his short PGA TOUR career, Yancey used the aid of two caddies named Roy, and a putting tip he received from his wife to secure his second victory on tour.
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Bonus Story
Bert Yancey suffered from a debilitating disease that first manifested itself when he was attending the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY, where he was the captain of the Cadet golf team. At the time the disease was known as manic-depressive illness, but today the more common name is bipolar disease.
After the disease first manifested itself at West Point, Yancey was hospitalized in the Army psychiatric hospital for nine months before being discharged. The disease then went into remission until 1974 and during this time Yancey played competitive golf and won seven PGA TOUR titles in 13 years, including top-ten finishes in six major championships (third in the ’67 and ’68 Masters, third in the ’68 U.S. Open, fourth in the ’70 Masters, fifth in the ’73 Open Championship and a tie for third in the ’74 U.S. Open).
His life then started to spin out of control in 1974 with a series of bizarre incidents that led to his being arrested, being incarcerated, and institutionalized. The strangest occurred at LaGuardia Airport in 1975 when Yancey commandeered a ladder in the terminal and ordered all white people to one side and all black people to the other before he preached the evils of racism. At the same time, he stated that he had all of Howard Hughes’ money and that he was going to use it to cure cancer.
He was finally prescribed lithium, but the drug caused him to have hand tremors that forced him from competitive golf. When the drug Tegretol became available, and relieved Yancey from the hand tremors of lithium, he was able to resume his competitive career playing on the PGA Tour Champions tour upon turning 50-years-old in 1988.
At the 1994 Franklin Quest Championship at Park City, UT, Yancey felt discomfort while on the practice tee and made a visit to the first aid station. He went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at a local hospital a short time later.
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Tour Backspin Quiz | Greater Greensboro Open Trivia
Who was the first player to successfully defend their title at the Memphis Open? How many times did this player win the event?
Scroll down to for answer
Swing Like a Pro
Gene “The Machine” Littler (photo: Getty Images | Leonard Kamsler)
Blind Shot
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Lucas Glover was quite joyful on Sunday after winning the Wyndham Championship. Not so much on Friday when he had some stuff to get off his chest concerning the PGA TOUR. Read it HERE.
Uncorked, The Life and Times of Champagne Tony Lema tells the story of one of the tour’s biggest stars in the mid-1960s. A fascinating glimpse into the traveling caravan that was the PGA TOUR during an era where the fields were full of “Mad Men” era personalities. From a hardscrabble youth spent on the “wrong side of the tracks” in the Oakland suburb of San Leandro, to the temptations of Elko, Nevada, to the bright lights of the PGA TOUR, Uncorked tells a story of determination, redemption and, above all else, a love story that documents how Betty, Tony’s new wife, provided the direction and motivation for him to become a top star. Order on Amazon.
What is Hip?
These were the best dressed men on the golf course in 1966.
Tour Backspin Quiz Answer:
Dave Hill was the first player to successfully defend his title at the Memphis Open when he followed up his win in 1969 with a win at the 1970 event. Hill won the Memphis Open four times (1967, 1969, 1970, 1973).
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Vintage Ad
Look at the prices of those shirts! Six bucks!
Final Thoughts
How brutal were the breaks that Russell Henley got down the stretch at the Wyndham? Spinning the ball off the green into that divot was hard to watch.
That was quite the television coverage of Justin Thomas trying to make it inside the top 70 to earn his way into the playoffs.