80 / JANUARY 2018 / GOLFDIGEST.CO.ZA PHOTO BY DAN WINTERS
he threshold of what counts as a miracle is hard
to establish. In my career, I consider Lee Trevino’s
chip-in at Muirfield in the 1972 Open Championship
and Tom Watson’s chip-in at Pebble Beach in the 1982
US Open – both happening on the 17th hole and in the
final round to beat me – as miracles at the time
they happened.T
In some people’s minds, my
win at age 22 over Arnold Palmer
in the 1962 US Open in, basically,
Arnold’s back yard of Oakmont
was a miracle.
Perhaps the same could be said
for the 1-iron I hit at 17 in the
1972 US Open. It was 219 yards,
and my ball hit the flagstick a foot
above the ground and dropped
to six inches – almost went in
the cup. Had it missed, I suppose
it would have gone 12 to 15 feetpast. The ball had to hit flush at
that precise part of the flagstick
for it to stop there. A miracle?
Then there are the miracles
that appear to happen until
reality steps in. One of my
favourite stories happened in
the 1970s at Cypress Point.
I was playing a practice round
with friends Pandel Savic and
Bob Hoag. We invited Howard
Clark, a Ryder Cup player from
England, to join us, especiallyafter hearing that he had never
played Cypress.
I remember that we went
out right behind a group of
Canadian pros, Richard Zokol
and Jim Nelford. We got around
the first 15 holes in gorgeous
weather. Suddenly, this fog bank
rolls in between the 15th and
16th tees. As the golf world
knows, No 16 at Cypress Point
is one of the iconic par 3s of the
world. Well, standing on the tee
we could barely see our hands
in front of our faces, but we all
hit. We found three of our balls.
And then we found Howard’s –
in the hole.
We spent the next 30
minutes or so celebrating
Howard’s ace. Then, we got
to the 18th tee, and there was
a little note on the tee box:
“Great hole-in-one, Howard!
The Crazy Canucks. Ha. Ha.
Ha.” But for a half an hour, we
thought it was a miracle.
Then there are people
you meet through golf, and
situations you come across,
that have the undertones of amiracle at work. In the summer
of 2008, a father in Ohio
reached out to our office with
a request to meet his son. The
father was Marty Bezbatchenko,
and his son, David, was battling
a rare disease, neurofibromatosis.
The disease can attack
numerous parts of the body,
and can lead to tumors all over,
including ones on the brain,
spine and nerves.
David was a college student
at Bowling Green – in fact,
he was a member of the same
fraternity I was in at Ohio State- when, in 2005, he developed
a brain tumor. He waged an
incredible battle, enduring
chemotherapy, radiation and
numerous surgeries. Well, I got
a chance to meet David in July
2008 and spent considerable
time with him and his family.
You could tell he had a love for
golf, family and life.
David lost his battle on that
Valentine’s Day, passing away at
the age of 23. In his obit were
some wonderful memories, but
what I found most interesting
is what he listed as perhaps his
most cherished memory.
It happened the year after he
was diagnosed. David and his
father recorded holes-in-one on
the same hole on back-to-back
swings. Never mind that the ace
helped David break 100 for the
first time, carding a 98. Here is
a young man battling a horrific
disease, whose two biggest
loves in life are his family and
golf, and on one day, one hole
and two swings, they intersect
for something Francis Scheid,
retired chairman of the Boston
University maths department,
calculated for Golf Digest at
odds of 17 million to one – or
greater – to happen.
That, in many ways, is a
miracle, and it could not have
happened to a more deserving
young man.
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JACK NICKLAUS
SOMETIMES I WONDER
Shots you can’t explain