Sam Snead dies at age 89

[Cartman88]

Farewell to one of the all time greats ......

Sam Snead, the golfing great known as "Slammin' Sam" who used the sweetest swing in the game to win seven major championships and a record 81 PGA Tour events, died Thursday at age 89, five days short of his 90th birthday.

Many said Sam Snead had the greatest golf swing ever.

Snead died at 3:38 p.m. at his home in Hot Springs, Va., said Lynn Swann, a spokeswoman for the nearby Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. Snead was pro emeritus at the resort and started working there as its head pro in 1936.

Snead was raised during the Depression in the backwoods of western Virginia and blessed with as much raw talent as anyone who played golf. He grew up playing in bare feet with clubs made from tree limbs, but his swing was a combination of grace and power.

The late Gene Sarazen once said of a young Snead, "I've just watched a kid who doesn't know anything about playing golf, and I don't want to be around when he learns how."

Snead was ageless, the only player who won sanctioned tournaments in six decades, from the 1936 West Virginia Closed Pro to the 1982 Legends of Golf, which he won with Gardner Dickinson as his partner.

He was famous for his straw hat, cocky grin and homespun humor. A three-time Masters champion, Snead had been an honorary starter since 1983. He would jaunt to the first tee, show off that flowing, flawless swing and then tell stories outside the clubhouse.

This year was different.

Snead's son said he was recovering from strokelike symptoms, and for the first time, he needed someone else to tee up the ball at the Masters. The ceremonial shot flew into the gallery and struck a fan in the face, breaking the man's glasses.

Snead wrote two books on golf. How to Play Golf came out in 1946, and one of his swing tips was to "take it easily and lazily, because the golf ball isn't going to run away from you while you're swinging."

He also wrote The Education of a Golfer in 1962.

"Some of the things I didn't have to be taught as a rookie traveling pro were to keep close count of my nickels and dimes, stay away from whiskey and never concede a putt," he wrote.

For all his victories -- independent record keepers place his total at 160 - Snead never won the U.S. Open, which haunted him the rest of his career.

He was a runner-up four times, but his most infamous U.S. Open occurred in 1939 at Philadelphia Country Club.

 

[lostinamerica]

IN MEMORIAM

Columnist Jim Murray:

-- Sam Snead came walking out of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where, Sam says, the hollows were so narrow the dogs had to wag their tails up and down.

-- His pleasures are biblical and simple. Once, when he went to a nightclub, he ordered soft drinks all night -- then took the bottles home in his pocket to claim the deposit.

-- Sam Snead once said the only thing he feared on a golf course was lightning -- and Ben Hogan.

Comedian Bob Hope:

-- I'd rather have the money buried in Sam Snead's back yard than his sweet swing.

Golfer John Schlee:

-- Watching Sam Snead practice hitting golf balls is like watching a fish practice swimming.



In his own words:

-- Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot.

-- The sport was different from all the others I've played (said the one-time pro baseball player). You can take your frustration out by sliding hard into second, throwing an elbow like in basketball or something. In golf, it's just you and the ball. You can't take it out on the ball, I've tried that.

-- You know those two-foot downhill putts with a break? I'd rather see a rattlesnake.

-- Until you play it, St. Andrews looks like the sort of real estate you couldn't give away.

-- That Wentworth is a sonofabitch.

--You watch his backswing, and it comes right down on that same line. A lot of fellows come over the ball or dip around. Hogan said, "I got something I'll take to the grave," but I knew what it was. It was the right arm that would point toward the flag. You're not going to get off track very far. And that's the same with Tiger.

-- The greens are so fast I had to hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow.

-- Lay off for three weeks, and then quit for good.

-- If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they'd starve to death.


My dad's favorite. An American Original.