Bob Rosburg Gives Cary Middlecoff a Prescription

Take a cup full of this to relieve nervousness

Dec 30, 2021

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We’ve got one more story on a couple of personalities from the 1960s and 1970s before we return with stories that delve into the DNA of the tournament being played. This one is about Bob Rosburg and his partner for the first Legends of Golf tournament, Cary Middlecoff. The year is 1978.

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Bob Rosburg Has Just The Prescription to Calm Cary Middlecoff’s Nerves

Fred Raphael, who helped create “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf” as an executive with the production company, Filmways, and Jimmy Demaret came up with an idea. Why not have tournament for the 50 and over stars who once played on the PGA Tour? The idea germinated and sprouted into what came to be known as The Legends of Golf tournament and the inaugural event was held at the tricky Onion Creek Country Club in Austin, Texas, in 1978.

The tournament was played under the best ball format and some of the featured teams included Sam Snead with Gardner Dickinson, Kel Nagle and Peter Thompson, Julius Boros and Roberto DeVicenso. The tournament featured a $100,00 first place prize to the winning team. The tournament was a three round affair.

Dr. Cary Middlecoff came out of retirement to pair up with Bob Rosburg. Middlecoff had been out of competitive golf longer than many of the other players in the tournament due to his work in television where he provided analysis for PGA Tour events.

After the first round, Nagle and Thompson held a one-stroke lead over Snead and Dickenson. Rosburg and Middlecoff were four strokes back after shooting a 69 (Rosburg shot 69 with his own ball). In the second round, Rosburg chipped in on the first hole for an eagle and the team went on to shoot a 62. Snead and Dickinson matched that 62 and held a two-stroke lead over the team of Boros and DeVicenso. Rosburg and Middlecoff sat four strokes off the lead. Nagle and Thompson shot a 66 and trailed the leaders by three-strokes.

Rosburg explained to Golf Digest for a September 26, 2007 “My Shot” column, that Middlecoff’s nerves were shot. Rosburg continued to anchor the team in the third round by shooting a 33, on his own ball, on the front nine. It looked like they could win the event—if Rosburg could get a little help from Middlecoff. At the turn, Rosburg had an idea.

“I want you to go into the locker room and get a paper cup full of vodka,” Rosburg told Middlecoff. “We have got to calm your nerves.”

Middlecoff wasn’t too keen on the idea, but he reluctantly went into the locker room and followed Rosburg’s instructions. Rosburg noted that Middlecoff came out of the locker room looking much healthier and then boomed a huge drive off the 10th hole. His ball was just 90-yards from the green while Rosburg’s drive wound up in a water hazard. For better or worse, the team would have to rely on Middlecoff’s ball on the hole.

Middlecoff eyed his 90-yard pitch shot selecting a wedge for the straightforward shot. He waggled the club for a minute before he backed off the shot. He returned the wedge to the bag and selected a 5-iron for the shot. Instead of a 90-yard pitch shot, he would now play a 90-yard chip shot.

He proceeded to run the ball up and onto the green just 18-feet from the pin and made the putt for a birdie. Rosburg birdied the next hole and then Middlecoff birdied the 12th and 13th holes, and they were tied for the lead. The team couldn’t make another birdie coming in and finished tied for third with the Boros and DeVicenso team. Snead and Dickinson won the tournament by one-stroke over the Nagle and Thompson team.

The paper cup full of vodka helped Middlecoff to win the largest check of his career taking home half of the winning total of $36,500 the team earned.

Bobby Nichols (l), Tony Lema (2nd from left), Dr. Cary Middlecoff (3rd from left), Jack Whitaker (3rd from right), Bob Charles (2nd from right), Bruce Devlin (r) prior to the start of the final match in the 1964/1965 CBS Golf Classic.

Check out the bonus fact below for more about the Legends of Golf Tournament.

The playlist this week is for New Year’s Eve, 1978. Listen HERE .

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Bonus Story

History repeated itself in the 1978 Legends of Golf tournament in a very unfortunate way. The event was billed as an event that would “turn back the clock” and it did. Charlie Sifford did not receive an invitation to event.

Sifford fought the “Caucasian clause” which was in effect on the PGA Tour until 1961. After 1961, some events on the tour, especially in the South, hid behind an “invitational only” status to exclude blacks from the field. Look back and you will see tournaments designated as an “open invitational” to effectively keep the Caucasian clause in effect.

Sifford played in tour events eventually becoming the first black golfer to win a PGA Tour event, but he was forced to put up with racial epithets and other discriminations every step of the way during his career.

Sifford felt he was deserving of an invite to the Legends Of Golf tournament and he enlisted the help of LA Times sports columnist, Jim Murray, to see if he could convince the organizers of the event to change their minds and invite Sifford.

Murray called Fred Raphael who gave vague reasons for the exclusion of Sifford and offered up the “maybe next year” explanation. Murray reported the results of the call back to Sifford and asked him if he wanted to drop it or put it on the record.

Sifford responded, “If you want to write about this in your column, it’s perfectly all right with me, as they might think of an excuse not to invite me next year anyway.”

He didn’t get an invite to the event until 1981, three years after the efforts of Jim Murray to secure an invite for Sifford to the inaugural event. He went on to win the event six times (1988, 1989, and 1991 in the Legendary Division, a 54 hole tournament for players over 50, paired with Roberto DeVicenzo and 1998, 1999 and 2000 in the Demaret Division, a 36 hole tournament for players over 70, paired with Joe Jimenez).