Geiberger Returns to the Winner's Circle
Ends eight year drought with a win at the Sahara Invitational in Las Vegas
It is tough at this time of the year to follow much golf. Professional and college football and the MLB playoffs make it a challenge to view what’s going on in professional golf. However, there were some pretty cool things that happened this past weekend with the Sanderson Farms Championship going into a five-way playoff and players trying to earn their PGA TOUR cards via the Korn Ferry Tour Championship.
Congratulations to Luke List who prevailed in a five-man playoff by sinking a 45-foot birdie putt on the first extra-hole.
Congratulations to the 30 Korn Ferry Tour players who earned their PGA TOUR card for next year. A special shout-out to Joe Highsmith, one of our favorites on the Korn Ferry Tour. We followed Joe as he qualified for the 2022 U.S. Open and you can read about it HERE.
And then this is just brutal.
Who hasn’t had this happen to them?
Bill Murray is pretty good at this game of golf thing.
The PGA TOUR is in Vegas, baby! The Shriners Children’s Open is in Las Vegas at TPC Summerlin where players will be trying to enhance their positioning for next year’s events. It will also feature the appearance of Lexi Thompson who will be playing on an exemption. Thompson is the first LPGA player to appear in a PGA TOUR event since Brittany Lincicome received an exemption to play in the 2018 Barbasol Championship.
We turn back to 1974 when Al Geiberger ended an eight-year winless drought by capturing the Sahara Invitational in Las Vegas. Scroll down to read.
In last week’s Tour Backspin Poll, 80% of respondents hated the NBC coverage of the Ryder Club because of too many commercials, while 20% loved the coverage and watched every minute of it.
Davis Love III thinks that Tiger Woods should be the next Ryder Cup Captain. What say you? Weigh in on this week’s Tour Backspin Poll.
Tour Backspin Poll
Clip You Might Have Missed
Nice content from Wesley Bryan.
How much did the “most expensive golf outfit” cost in 1974? Check it out in this week’s Vintage Ad.
We’re continuing with our live music playlist project. I remember setting up the cassette recorder to capture these live shows that were broadcast on the radio, and I’m so appreciative that they are available on the internet. This one is from KSAN-FM, San Francisco and it features Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefer Band. This performance proves, once again, that nobody had more fun than Jimmy Buffet. Thank you to pastdaily.com (click on the links or the album cover we created) or click HERE. Let us know if you liked this change in the comments section below.
Al Geiberger’s silky smooth swing is featured in this week’s Swing Like a Pro. Scroll down to view.
Get the Tour Backspin Newsletter delivered to your email inbox for FREE.
The Tour Backspin Show with our guest, Frank Beard, is now available to all subscribers. If you would like to get early access to The Tour Backspin Show please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Upcoming episodes will include interviews with Lee Trevino, Chuck Courtney and Jim McLean. Paid subscribers enjoy other subscriber benefits as well.
Listen to The Tour Backspin Show podcast on Substack with the above links, or on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Podcast.
If you like golf history, check out the Your Golfer’s Almanac podcast. Host Michael Duranko celebrates birthdays, milestones, and other accomplishments that occurred on the day in golf history. Listen HERE.
Congratulations to Ryan Ross who correctly identified hole #17 at the Sheep Ranch course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, in Bandon, OR, in last week’s WHAT HOLE IS IT? Ryan beat out four other correct answers in the random drawing. We have a prize pack in the mail to Ryan. Check out the 2023 leader board and scroll down for your chance to win in this week’s WHAT HOLE IS IT?
Save The Date! The next meeting of the Tour Backspin Show Book Club will be on December 14th at 5:30 (PST). We will be talking with the author of The Age of Palmer, Patrick Hand. This is a great book right in the wheelhouse of the era we cover here at Tour Backspin. You can buy the book at Amazon or Barnes and Noble and then join us to talk about it with Patrick on the 14th. Sign up HERE.
We’re playing Sahara Invitational Trivia in this week’s Tour Backspin Quiz. Scroll down to play.
Did you miss a previous newsletter? You can view it HERE. Forward this email to a friend. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? You can sign up HERE.
Okay, we're on the tee, let's get going.
Enjoy!
Larry Baush
Miller’s Final Round 65 Cannot Catch Geiberger
Johnny Miller arrived in Las Vegas the first week of October 1974, to play in the Sahara Invitational and he was fresh off a win at Silverado in Napa at the Kaiser International. It was his eighth title of the year and, with three tournaments remaining on the PGA TOUR schedule, he had already set a record with the $346,933 he had won.
With plans to play only one more tournament after the Sahara, Miller was looking forward to a long rest. In fact, he was only playing in the Sahara as a personal favor to a friend who was an executive at the Sahara Hotel.
“I’d be lying to you if I said I was pepped up for this tournament,” he told reporters upon his arrival. “I’m sorta tired now. But I’m trying to get up for this for the Sahara’s sake.”
Al Geiberger arrived in Las Vegas under very different circumstances as he hadn’t won a PGA TOUR title since the 1966 PGA Championship at Firestone Golf and Country Club in Akron, OH. His game had suffered due to off-course factors after his major win in 1966. That year he was inflicted periodically with an inflamed colon and in 1969, his marriage broke up. In 1973 he remarried, and things began to look up for Al. He came to Las Vegas with that positive mindset.
“I’ve been beating my brains out all year long. I decided not to worry about anything in this tournament and relax.”
The sun baked the 6,800-yard, par 71, Sierra Nevada Country Club during the opening round on Thursday. An unknown tour rookie, Bobby Heins, grabbed the first-round lead with a 66 and credited a new relaxed attitude for his good score.
“I’ve been beating my brains out all year long,” he told reporters. “I decided not to worry about anything in this tournament and relax.”
Heins had won $5,067.13 so far in his rookie year—a far cry from the almost $400,000 won by Miller. He was playing in his 35th tournament of the year, but he had only made five cuts. But things were different in Las Vegas that day.
“Every time I looked up the ball was going in the hole,” Heins told reporters after his round. “My putter was really hot today.”
Meanwhile, Miller opened with a lackluster even-par round of 71, while Al Geiberger could do only one shot better. Dave Eichelberger and J.C. Snead shared second place shooting 67, while Chi Chi Rodriguez, Ken Still, Mike Hill, and John Schroeder were all at 68.
Temperatures remained hot and soared into the 90s for Friday’s second round. Dave Eichelberger also continued to stay hot shooting a 68. Eichelberger had been mired in a slump ever since this same Sahara tournament the prior year.
Charles Coody, whose only victories since he won a green jacket at the Masters in 1971, had come abroad, shot a first round 69, and then birdied three of his last four holes to record a second round 66 to tie Eichelberger for the lead.
Geiberger climbed the leader board by shooting a 68 and was three strokes off the lead, tied with Tom Watson who shot rounds of 72-66. Miller shot a 69 and was five shots off the lead. Chi Chi Rodriguez was still in the hunt, just one off the lead, after shooting his second straight 68. He was tied with Art Wall and Bob Rosburg, two veterans of the tour. Heins slipped to a 74 and fell well down the leader board.
“I drove the ball extremely well today and, of course, when you drive it well, everything falls into place. I think the ball carried further today, but I don’t know why.”
There was no letup to the heat on Saturday, both regarding the weather, but also relating to the scoring. Homero Blancas tied the course record with a 64 and grabbed a share of the lead with Geiberger and Dave Hill (not to be confused with his brother Mike Hill who was also playing this week). Hill shot a 65 while Geiberger recorded a 66.
“I played real well,” Blancas, a 10-year veteran said after his round. “I drove the ball extremely well today and, of course, when you drive it well, everything falls into place. I think the ball carried further today, but I don’t know why.”
Jerry Heard, who started the day four shots off the lead, hooked his tee shot out of bounds on the 18th hole and blew sole possession of the lead as he had to settle for a 66 and a three-round total of 205, one off the lead.
Miller shot a 72 for a 212 total, eight strokes off the lead and according to the UPI, “fell out of contention.”
The beautiful weather that blessed the Sahara did not disappoint for Sunday’s final round conducted under sunny conditions. But the scoring cooled off for many of the contenders coming down the stretch.
Al Geiberger spent the final round munching on peanut butter crackers and playing steady golf. He did it by being his own advocate.
“If I don’t keep talking to myself, all the time, I tend to back off,” he said later. “I kept telling myself that second place doesn’t do me any good at this stage of my career.”
“All of sudden everybody laid down. Usually they’re going the other way—they’re coming at you. But this time they backed off. It’s a good feeling.”
And he talked himself into a final round 69 that was good for a four-round total of 273 giving him a three-stroke victory. But he got a little help.
“All of sudden everybody laid down,” he observed. “Usually they’re going the other way—they’re coming at you. But this time they backed off. It’s a good feeling.”
Rodriguez was the last player with a chance to catch Geiberger when he was just one shot behind at the 18th tee. Then, he hit his tee shot in the water, put his next in the woods, took a couple of shots to get out, and had to make a 15-foot putt for a triple bogey 8. He finished at 277, four strokes behind Geiberger.
Dave Hill finished at 276, as did his brother Mike, and they were both tied with Heard.
Miller made a last-gasp bid shooting a blazing 65, but it was too little too late as he finished a 277. He packed up his locker and headed for Napa for a long rest.
Bobby Heins finished well down the leader board at 289 after a final round 77 and won $320.
After such a long drought of eight years for Geiberger he could only say, “Johnny Miller wins eight in one year, I win one in eight years.”
His relief was evident when he said, “When you go so long without winning, you begin to think you can’t.”
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Threads
Tour Backspin Playlist
Thanks for reading! Please help us grow by sharing this article with your friends and family. Or, share this link.
Bonus Story
Al Geiberger was bothered by periodic health problems, starting in 1966, with an inflamed colon that affected his golf game.
"Ulcerative proctitis is the name of the disease," Geiberger told Sarah Ballard of Sports Illustratd in 1989. "When it flared up it was very painful, but you lived with it."
In 1978 a physical exam revealed a growth that required the removal of a section of his colon. After he recovered, he returned to the tour and won the 1979 Colonial National Invitational, but within a year, the problem returned.
At the 1980 Jerry Ford tournament in Vail, CO, the pain became so acute that emergency surgery was required. A collection of polyps, the size of a fist, was blocking his colon and required the removal of his entire colon.
A radically new appliance to eliminate waste was introduced to Geiberger by former touring pro Tony Sills, who underwent the same procedure, an ileostomy. Rolf Benirschke, then the field goal kicker for the San Diego Chargers and had an ileostomy, provided morale support to Geiberger. The two became spokesmen for ConvaTec, the maker of the appliance, as well as cochairmen of the National Foundation of for Ileitis and Colitis Sports Council.
"I wasn't going to talk about it," said Geiberger, "but I realized it was no big deal and I could probably help a lot of people."
Geiberger has since led a mostly normal life in the Palm Springs area.
To learn more about Al Geiberger, check out The Tour Backspin Show podcast interview with him and Dave Stockton HERE.
WHAT HOLE IS IT?
Are you on the leader board?
Tour Backspin Quiz | Sahara Invitational Trivia
Who won the 1962 Sahara Invitational that was an unofficial tour event, but has since been changed in the record books to an official event? It would have been this player’s first official tour victory, which came three weeks later.
Scroll down to for answer
Swing Like a Pro
Blind Shot
Click for something fun. 👀
How much are your expenses when you play on the PGA TOUR? Ben Griffin breaks it down for you. Learn more HERE from Golf Digest.
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?
The most expensive golf outfit of 1974. Yours for just $6,529 in 1974 dollars, which is close to $40,000 today due to inflation. Includes the clubs, the gold plated putter, bag, luggage and rain suit. (photo: composite|Golf Digest)
Tour Backspin Quiz Answer:
Tony Lema won the 1962 Sahara Invitational, called at the time the Sahara Hotel Invitational, an unofficial event. The records now reflect that it is an official win for Lema. He won, what he thought at the time, was his first official event at the Orange County Open three weeks later and treated the press to a champagne party after winning a playoff against Bob Rosburg and forever became known as Champagne Tony Lema.
Thank you for reading this far, I know your time is valuable and choosing to spend some of it on what I’ve created is gratifying. If you want to help support the work we’re doing, please consider upgrading. It’s just $36 a year and you’ll be helping to tell the stories from one of golf’s golden ages.
Vintage Ad
Final Thoughts
Who do you think Tiger would name as vice captains if he were the captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team?
Bill Murray also made an eagle at the Dunhill. Would love to play 18 with him.
How many sponsor exemptions do you think Shad Tuten will get next year on the PGA TOUR?