“What Am I Doing With My Life?”
New serious approach lands Chi Chi Rodríguez in the winner's circle at 1973 Greensboro Open
All aboard the Tour Backspin journey through the past as we navigate back to the 1973 Greater Greensboro Open. The GGO shares DNA with the Wyndham Championship being played this week on the PGA TOUR including being played at the same Sedgefield Country Club course in Greensboro, NC. Scroll down to see how Chi Chi Rodríguez, who was known as the “Crown Prince of Golf,” used a new more serious approach to help him win that week.
The golf world lost a great one last week with the passing of Bob Bubka, long-time correspondent for TalkSport in the United Kingdom for more than a quarter of century, passed away on July 20th from cogenative heart disease. Bubka was also a veteran XM Radio announcer for the PGA TOUR and co-host of the “Musings on Golf” podcast.
He will be missed. Read the obituary from Adam Schupak of Golfweek HERE.
Kurt Kitayama made 20 birdies over the weekend, shot a 60 on Saturday, tying the course record, and won his second PGA TOUR title. Scroll down for my take on the week in Sunday at the 3M Open, aka the Sticky Note Open (behind the paywall). While many of the stars of the PGA TOUR took the week off, the internet did not. We spotlight some of the best in the Clips I Loved.
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Enjoy the golf from Greensboro this week. It is the last regular tour event before the FedEx Playoffs begin.
We’re talking the PGA TOUR playoffs in this week’s The Tour Backspin Poll so check it out. This week’s Vintage Ad from 1973 features an ad that highlights an alternative use for a pull cart (below the paywall). Scroll down to view.
Okay, we’re on the tee. Let’s get going.
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Chi Chi Rodríguez Gets Serious and Wins at Greater Greensboro Open
In 1971, Chi Chi Rodríguez finished the Bahamas Open, the final tournament on the schedule, with rounds of 76 and 77 winning only $200. For the year he won $30,390 and failed to make it inside the top 60 money winners losing his exempt status on tour. In 1972 he had to Monday qualify or receive a sponsor exemption to play. He was able to earn $113,499 in ’72 earning his way into the top 60 and his exempt status.
He kept his momentum going, winning $62,181 in the first three months of 1973. What changed between the Bahamas Open in 1971 and the Greater Greensboro Open in 1973?
“I’ll never forget that,” Rodríguez told Dave Anderson for a Golf Digest feature that ran in the June 1973 edition. “I went to the locker room after that last round [at Greensboro] and stared at my locker. I asked myself, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ But there in the locker room, I had a meeting with myself. I told myself that I was going home and that I was going to train.”
His doctor advised that the best training he could do was run on the beach and that would make his legs strong. Chi Chi followed his doctor’s advice, spent hours running on the beach back in Puerto Rica, built up the strength in his legs, and practiced hard gaining confidence.
Rodríguez came back to the tour in 1972 with a renewed body and mind determined to get serious about his game and cut down on the joking and other antics that he was so well known for. He realized that he had a problem when it came to his clowning when he noticed that the double bogeys turned away more fans than his jokes attracted. While he would still occasionally do his matador act after sinking a birdie putt, he was now more concerned about focusing on the next shot and making a good swing.
It seemed to be working as he came into the Greater Greensboro Open, played on the Sedgefield Country Club course that measured 7,021 yards and played to a par of 72, with two top ten finishes and earnings of $16,756.
The GGO was playing under lift, clean, and place rules for the week due to heavy rains. The Wednesday pro-am featured celebrities including Glen Campbell, Bobby Goldsboro, and Roy Clark.
“I feel so good it’s almost frightening.”
Teeing off at 8:02 on the first tee in the opening round, Rodríguez opened with a respectable 68 that put him four strokes behind the leader, Lee Elder. Elder came into the event after 18 Congressmen had urged the Masters chairman, Clifford Roberts, to include him in the 1973 field. Roberts responded that the club would be happy to welcome Elder to the field—if he secured his spot via the traditional method of winning a tournament.
There were 61 players who took advantage of the preferred lies and perfect greens, and broke par. Doug Sanders, Rod Funseth, and Mason Rudolph were tied for second with first round 65s that were one shot behind the leader, Elder. Six players came in with a score of 66 including Sam Snead. There were another five players at 67 including Johnny Miller, and Rodríguez was tied with 16 other players at 68.
After his second round 66, Rodríguez waltzed into the locker room with a constant stream of chatter.
“Man, I feel so good I can’t stand it,” he said in front of a group of players and reporters including David Lamm, sports editor of The Greensboro Record. “I feel so good it’s almost frightening. And I feel better every day.”
Lamm quoted an anonymous fellow player saying, “That Rodríguez is really something ain’t he? He ought to feel good after a 66. But he doesn’t feel too good after a bad round. Yeah, he’s always got a gimmick.”
While the colorful and flamboyant Rodríguez was a crowd favorite during his time on tour, he wasn’t universally accepted by the other players. He’d had his dustups with some of them including Dave Hill. The two almost came to fisticuffs at the 1970 Kaiser International Open when Hill felt that the antics of Rodríguez cost him the tournament where he was in contention to win. Players took a wait-and-see attitude concerning the new and more serious Chi Chi.
“I’d checked the scoreboard and knew he was going for a 64, too.”
Lou Graham faced a five-foot putt at his final hole for a round of 64 that would put him in the running for the $2,000 prize for the low round each day. Playing behind Graham was Billy Casper.
“I looked back and saw Billy Casper at the crest of the hill,” He said to reporters including Lamm. “I knew he’d get on in two and probably make birdie. I’d checked the scoreboard and knew he was going for a 64, too.”
Graham made his putt for the 64 and Casper also made his birdie and the two shared the $2,000 daily prize. Casper led on the leaderboard with a two-day total of 131. The ageless wonder, 60-year-old Sam Snead, sat at 133 tied with Doug Sanders. Rodríguez was tied with Ken Still, George Knudson, and Rod Funseth at 134.
There were 10,000 to 15,000 fans who showed up at Sedgefield for Saturday’s third round. They waited, under umbrellas and milled around restlessly awaiting the weather-delayed start of the round. Instead, they received word, around 11:45, that the round was cancelled and 36 holes would be played on Sunday and would begin at 6:22 am. The chance of rain on Sunday was at 20 percent and Jack Tuthill, the tournament director for the PGA, felt that they would get in at least 18 holes on Sunday. If needed, they would complete the tournament on Monday, but with the Masters starting on Thursday, finishing the GGO on Sunday would be the best outcome for all concerned.
“It wasn’t bad in the fairways. But I pity the spectators. It wasn’t any fun playing.”
One third of the television revenue from Hughes Sports Network was lost due to the cancellation of the third round, but attendance was so good that it covered much of the loss.
“The pro-am crowd on Wednesday, about 35,000, probably the largest in PGA history, gave us a great start,” Steve Brodie, the General Chairman of the GGO told Lenox Rawlings, staff writer for The Greensboro News and Record.
Many felt that the cancellation favored the 130-pound Rodríguez because of his stamina and playing 36 holes over a soggy Sedgefield course would be taxing. That roadwork he did that strengthened his legs back on the beaches of Puerto Rico was paying off.
In the morning, on the putting green, Ken Still loaned Rodríguez $50 as he discovered he was out of cash.
Mason Rudolph teed off the 10th tee at 6:46 am and once he completed his third round, he held up a pair of soaked golf shoes.
“They’re brand new,” he told reporters as he held up the muddy shoes. “That’s how bad it was out there today.”
“It wasn’t bad in the fairways,” Lebron Harris, Jr. said. “But I pity the spectators. It wasn’t any fun playing.”
Billy Casper came in with 68 for a total of 199 and he was tied for the lead with Lou Graham who carded a 67. Rodríguez also shot a 67 and was two strokes back at 201. Doug Sanders, with a 69, and Rod Funseth, with a 68, were another shot back. Sam Snead shot 70 and was at 203, tied with Mike Hill (67), and George Knudson (69).
Rodríguez remained upbeat after his round and was eager to get the final round, the second 18 holes of the day, started. He would later credit divine intervention in his success in the final round. He played in a threesome that included Doug Sanders and Lou Graham.
The leaderboard became very crowded during the first nine holes of the final round as Casper was still in contention as he played the 9th hole. He needed a birdie at the easy par-5 to offset a bogey at the 5th hole. He knocked his second shot into a greenside bunker, took two shots to get out, and then two-putted for a bogey. This gave new life to Ken Still, who was five-under on the front and added a birdied at the 10th. Also still in the hunt were Lou Graham, Lee Elder, Mike Hill, Rod Funseth, Doug Sanders, Sam Snead, and Bud Allin.
“God is on my side. He told me to chip it in.”
Rodríguez was making his own move on the front nine birdieing four of five holes beginning at the 5th hole where he sank a 35-foot putt. He hit an 8-iron to two feet for another birdie at the 7th hole and then chipped in from 25 feet at the 8th hole. This is where he was sure that he had divine intervention.
“God is on my side,” Rodríguez later said to reporters including Smith Barrier, columnist for The Greensboro News and Record. “He gave me goose-pimples out there on No. 8. He told me to chip it in.”
As the back nine played out, the competition came down to Rodríguez, Graham, and Still, who made it to the clubhouse with a 64, tied for the lowest round of the day with Gay Brewer. Still paced around the 18th green waiting to see if his 268 total would hold up.
Rodríguez secured a two-putt birdie at the 15th hole that gave him a one stroke advantage over Still and Graham. Graham and Rodríguez came to the 16th hole, a dangerous par 3. Rodríguez hit a 4-wood left, barely avoiding a water hazard, and faced a tricky chip shot with not much green to work with.
“It was a terrible lie, and I didn’t have much green to hold,” Rodríguez recalled for reporters after his round. “But it was the key to my victory, without any question. It was the greatest chip shot I ever made under pressure.”
He chipped into a hillside between him and the green which took the speed off the shot and the ball rolled to two feet below the hole saving his par. At the 17th hole, Rodríguez hit a 9-iron to eight feet and made the birdie putt giving him a two-shot lead over Graham and Still, who immediately departed to catch a plane.
“I was glad to see him hit it.”
Rodríguez then surprised many, including his playing partner Graham, when he hit a 2-iron off the 18th tee.
“I felt like I had a chance when Chi Chi used an iron off the tee at 18,” Graham said to reporters after the round. “I was glad to see him hit it.”
Rodríguez knew what he was doing and explained it saying later, “I am a percentage man. The percentage of Graham making a three are one in five. The percentage of me making a four with two 2-irons is four out of five.”
Both players missed the green, Graham with a 7-iron, and Rodríguez with a 2-iron. Rodríguez bogeyed the hole while Graham got up and down for his par, but it wasn’t enough and Rodríguez had his first victory since the Byron Nelson Golf Classic in April of 1972.
Rodríguez toned down his clownish persona becoming more serious and it paid dividends at the 1973 Greater Greensboro Open.
“Sometimes I can’t keep from telling a joke,” he admitted to Anderson in the Golf Digest feature. “But when I do, I’ll make extra effort to concentrate, to block it out. Which before I never did. And it’s helping me. Absolutely. Golf is a very strange game. It’s hard to tell a good joke and be a big hero. It’s like politics. You’ll never have a comedian be the President of the United States.”
PAST TOUR BACKSPIN ARTICLES ON THE GREATER GREENSBORO OPEN
Vietnam War veteran, Buddy Allin, wins the 1971 Greater Greensboro Open as a rookie.
Doug Sanders wins the 1966 Greater Greensboro Open in a playoff over second year pro Tom Weiskopf.
Coming Next Week: Dave Hill beats Lee Trevino to win his fourth Memphis Open title in 1973
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Tour Backspin Quiz | Greater Greensboro Open Trivia
What did Charlie Sifford accomplish at the 1961 Greater Greensboro Open?
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In 1961 Charlie Sifford became the first Black player to be permitted to play a PGA-sponsored event in the South.
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