Maltbie Makes Up Seven Strokes To Win
Roger Maltbie made up seven strokes to win the Ed McMahon-Jaycees Quad Cities Open
While the big name stars where in Scotland for the Open Championship, Roger Maltbie won his first PGA TOUR event as a rookie at the 1975 Ed McMahon-Jaycees Quad Cities Open. The Tour Backspin journey through the past explores how the fun-loving Californian managed to come from seven strokes back in the final round, and how he was working with less than his full wardrobe that week in July.
Another exciting finish on the PGA TOUR as Aldrich Potgieter prevailed in a three-way playoff. Potgieter was matched against Chris Kirk and Max Greyserman and, after Kirk was eliminated on the first playoff hole, Potgieter won on the fifth playoff hole. Scroll down for my take on the week in the PGA TOUR Wrap-Up. We’ve also got some entertaining social media posts in the Clips I Loved.
PAST TOUR BACKSPIN ARTICLES ON THE QUAD CITIES OPEN
Dave Stockton isn’t buying any of what Sam Snead is selling in the 1974 Quad Cities Open.
Sam Adams becomes first left-hander to win since 1968 when he won the 1973 Quad Cities Open.
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Enjoy the John Deere Classic this week!
It’s not too early to do a little head-to-head prognosticating and letting everyone know ‘who ya got’ in the Open Championship. First matchup is Rory and Scottie. Let us know in this week’s The Tour Backspin Poll. This week’s Vintage Ad from 1975 (below the paywall) stars Tom Shaw and the Sansabelt slack. Scroll down to view.
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The Tour Backspin Poll
After Keegan Bradley won the Travelers Championship the U.S. Ryder Cup captain put himself into the discussion about being the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963. Last week, we asked you if you thought he could be effective as a player-captain and opinions were very evenly expressed with 56% of respondents who felt he could do both jobs while 44% thought there would be too many off-course distractions to do both jobs well.
Let’s do some head-to-head matchup picks for the Open Championship. Who ya got? Rory or Scottie. Let us know in this week’s Tour Backspin Poll.
We’re playing John Deere Classic/Quad Cities Open Trivia in this week’s Tour Backspin Quiz. Scroll down to take the challenge. Give us your best guess in this week’s WHAT HOLE IS IT? and if you get it correct you may win a prize from the Tour Backspin Golf Shop.
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Larry Baush
Roger Maltbie Builds Rookie of The Year Case Winning the Quad Cities Open
It’s the second week of July in 1975 and the eyes of the golf world are focused on the Open Championship being played at Carnoustie Golf Links in Scotland. The field included the game’s superstars, stars, and well-known names in the game. Back on the PGA TOUR, the rookies, rabbits, grinders, and players in the twilight of their careers gathered in Moline, IL, for the playing of one of the lengthiest named events; the Ed McMahon-Jaycees Quad-Cities Open.
Former champion Dave Stockton, who didn’t like going to the British Open and loved going to the upper Midwest during the summer, was a headliner in the field as were the aging Sam Snead, Frank Beard, Doug Sanders, Dave Hill, and Tony Jacklin. But the rest of the field consisted of veteran journeymen, local qualifiers, and young rookies.
In 1975 there were two Q-schools held where players could earn their playing cards, one in the spring and another in the fall. The spring class of 13 players graduated in June and ten of those players were playing in the Quad-Cities event. For some, it was their first event as card carrying member of the PGA TOUR. There were also a lot of players in the field who earned their card at the 1974 Q-School including Roger Maltbie and John Abendroth, both from California.
Maltbie was right out of the mold of Tony Lema when Lema first went out on tour. Both were bachelors, had a great sense of humor which featured self-deprecation that made them masters of the press gaggle, and enjoyed an adult beverage from time to time.
“Write anything you want about me. Just make me controversial.”
With the golf world focused on the Open Championship, the Ed McMahon-Jaycees Quad-Cities Open flew way under the radar. In fact, it had trouble gaining much traction with the local golf fans. The pro-am, played at the short 6,305-yard, par 71, Oakwood Country Club, attracted less than 1,000 spectators. The Jaycees waited until the last possible moment before finally committing to their sponsorship of the event, so organizers got a late start. There was also no television coverage of the tournament.
Dave Hill offered to do his part to attract fans to the course.
“We’ll get some people out here one way or the other,” he told Nolan Hurt, golf writer for The Rock Island Argus. “Write anything you want about me. Just make me controversial.”
The tournament’s host, Ed McMahon, who couldn’t make it onsite until Friday, too late to invite his celebrity friends for the pro-am, spoke about getting the community more involved in the event.
“This area has a great history, and there are enough people to put anything over if they just wake up,” he told reporters. He had big plans for enlarging his role in 1976, as 1975 was the first year of his hosting the event.
One advantage of being off the radar was that it was a relaxing week, one where the players had a lot of fun and enjoyed themselves. The perfect setting for a player like Roger Maltbie who was in his rookie season. He teed off at 9:02 from the 10th tee playing with Richard Crawford, and Gary Sanders. He came in with a 74 in the first round, far down the leaderboard from the leader, Howard Twitty at 66. Twitty was playing in his first event as a PGA TOUR member. Terry Dill, who joined the tour in 1963, was at 67 as was Dave Eichelberger whose last win on tour came in 1971. Frank Beard was alone at 68 and a slew of players, including Sam Snead and Dave Stockton were at 69. The course played easy due to heavy overnight rain.
Twitty admitted to being more nervous after his round facing reporters than he was during his round. He had to Monday qualify to get into the field, his first event on the tour.
“I hadn’t even thought of anything like this,” he said as he looked at the throng of reporters. “I was just trying to get this week out of the way.”
Dave Eichelberger rode a hot putter making seven birdies on his way to a record-tying 65 in the second round that gave him a total of 132 and a five-shot lead over Homero Blancas (67), and 63-year-old Sam Snead (68). Frank Beard had a very up-and-down day coming in with a 70 and stood at 138, tied with Mark Hayes, Gary McCord, and Terry Dill. The first-round leader, Twitty, shot a 73 and was tied at 139 with four other players including Dave Stockton, who had a 70, and Roger Maltbie who scorched the course for a 65 vaulting him up the leaderboard.
Eichelberger continued to lead after the third-round shooting a 72 for a total of 204. He held a one-shot lead over Beard who came in with a 69, and Twitty who had a 68. Maltbie also recorded a one-over 72 in the third-round and sat at 211. He had eight players between him and the leader including Stockton, Blancas, and McCord. Snead blew to a 77 and was far out of contention.
As the tournament progressed, the size of the crowds attending grew and the weekend crowd was estimated to be around 15,000. Those on Sunday had to wait through an hour and a half rain delay when play was halted at 11:45 when lightning was seen in the vicinity of the course. With lightning hitting Lee Trevino, Jerry Heard, and Bobby Nichols at the Western Open just two weeks prior, officials were not taking any chances once lightning was in the area.
The rain delay occurred just as the threesome of Maltbie, Stockton, and Blancas, were about to tee off the first hole. When play resumed, Maltbie hit driver and three-wood on the 510-yard, par 5, 1st hole. His three-wood approach ended up 15 feet from the hole and he made the putt for eagle. He was then off and running.
He almost aced the par 3, 3rd hole making birdie and added another birdie at the 9th hole to make the turn four-under. Eichelberger struggled through the front nine making three bogeys and no birdies. The top of the leaderboard was getting crowded. Eichelberger, Dill, Twitty, and Maltbie were all tied at six-under while McCord was at five-under, and Beard, Hayes, and Stockton at four-under.
Maltbie bounced his sand wedge from the rough at the 11th hole off the pin and made birdie and followed with another birdie after an approach shot from the rough at the 12th. He two-putted the par 5, 15th hole for another birdie to go nine-under for the tournament.
“On the 18th, I just played for a four. I was very thankful I got it because I didn’t play the hole very well.”
He was very calm at this point of his round, but as he came to the 17th hole, where there was a leaderboard, he saw that he had a two-shot lead. The nerves started to kick in at that point.
“There was a leaderboard there and I could see I had a two-shot lead,” he related to reporters after his round. “I thought that was a pretty good advantage to have. I wanted very much to make birdie at 17 and I did have the opportunity.”
He hit a 7-iron at the 155-yard, par 3, 17th hole to 15-feet and just missed the birdie putt.
“On the 18th, I just played for a four,” he said. “I was very thankful I got it because I didn’t play the hole very well.”
His round added up to a course-record 64 and a one-shot victory over Eichelberger, who birdied the final hole to secure a solo second-place finish. Maltbie came from seven shots off the lead, the largest comeback on tour for the year, and his opening round of 74 was the highest of any winner so far in 1975.
Maltbie credited his playing partners, Homero Blancas and Dave Stockton, for helping him get over the finish line.
“I don’t believe I could have won the tournament, or held up as well as I did, if it weren’t for Dave Stockton and Homero Blancas,” Maltbie said to reporters including Tom Bergstrand sportswriter for The Dispatch newspaper out of East Moline, IL. “They are two beautiful people to play golf with.”
There was a malfunction with the scoreboard at the 18th hole as it showed that Mark Hayes was nine-under which would have put him in a tie with Maltbie. Instead of a two-shot lead, he thought he was now tied.
“I’ll tell you, that was the hardest five-foot putt I have ever made in my whole life.”
“Roger, hang on,” Stockton said to Maltbie in the 18th fairway. “You can’t do anything at all about what Mark Hayes is doing out there.”
“Yeah,” Blancas chimed in. “You just get it close to the hole and make your four if you can and see what happens.”
Maltbie had missed the green and was hitting his third shot to the par-4 final hole when he got this pep talk from Stockton and Blancas. He then hit his third shot to five feet and made the putt for his par.
“I’ll tell you, that was the hardest five-foot putt I have ever made in my whole life,” Maltbie said.
Maltbie spent a great deal of time with the press after his round exhibiting his sense of humor and answering all their questions. Again, very much in the Tony Lema mold of press relations (minus the champagne that Tony would have supplied to the press).
For a tournament that got a late start in organizing and struggled to attract much attention, the new champion provided a blast of color and excitement coming from seven strokes off the lead on Sunday to capture the $15,000 first-place check.
Maltbie scored another win at the 1978 Ed McMahon-Jaycees Quad Cities Open when he met Ed McMahon’s assistant for the week, Donna Davis. The two hit it off and they were married in November of 1980. They will celebrate their 45th anniversary this year.
In Scotland, at Carnoustie, Tom Watson beat Jack Newton in a playoff to win the Open Championship. But it was a quiet little tournament that lined up its sponsor at the last minute, and whose celebrity host did not show up until the weekend, that produced a rookie champion who would also go on to win the next week at the Pleasant Valley Open. Roger Maltbie would also go on to be named Rookie of the Year.
Coming Next Week: Gary Player wins his first tournament in the U.S. at the Kentucky Derby Open in 1958
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Tour Backspin Quiz | John Deere Classic Trivia
How many foreign players have won the John Deere Classic (under all the various names) since the tournament was first played in 1971?
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Clips I Loved
Tempers were flaring in Detroit last week.
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More Clips I Loved below the paywall.
Tour Backspin Quiz Answer:
Nine foreign players have won the John Deere Classic, under its various names, since first played in 1971. They are John Lister (New Zealand) in 1976, Victor Regalado (Mexico) in 1978, Dave Barr (Canada) 1981, David Frost (South Africa) in 1992 and 1993, Vijay Singh (Fiji) in 2003, Mark Hensby (Austraila) in 2004, John Senden (Austraila) in 2006, Dylan Frittelli (South Africa) in 2019, and Sepp Straka (Austria) in 2023.
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PGA TOUR Wrap-Up
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More Clips I Loved
Blind Shot
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