They wore metal spikes, signed autographs in ballpoint and shared cars and rooms on the road. “We’d get to a motel with a rate of $11.00 a night—
that’s $5.50 apiece,” said 74-year-old Al Geiberger, recall-
ing the PGA Tour of the 1960s. “We’d say, ‘Let’s go find one
for $10.’ It mattered.”
From room rates and club specs to golf shoes and tour-
nament purses, not much in professional golf is the way
it was four or five decades ago. “But we didn’t know any
different,” Geiberger said. “Everything that’s better now,
we thought was good then.”
For Geiberger and the rest of the three-dozen golfers
70 and older who were competing in the Demaret divi-
sion of the Liberty Mutual Insurance Legends of Golf in
Savannah, Ga., the 36-hole, better-ball event was an
opportunity to recall the past by returning inside the
ropes, their older selves reconnecting with old feelings
that caused them to follow the sun in the first place.
“Competition always lingers inside you,” said 75-year-
old Butch Baird, his sunglasses, wide-brimmed hat,
long sleeves and classically functional swing taking an
observer back decades. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have
been out here to begin with.”
Mike Hill, an 18-time winner on the Champions Tour,
walked away from regular competition five years ago, when
he was 68, after finishing T- 22 in the Commerce Bank
Championship. “You get to a certain age, you know when to
quit,” Hill recalled. “I told my son, Mike, who was caddieing
for me, ‘That’s the best I can play. I need to go home.’ ” At
the Legends of Golf, though, where he paired with long-
time partner Lee Trevino to finish third, two strokes out
of a playoff in which Gibby Gilbert-J.C. Snead beat Frank
Beard-Larry Ziegler after the duos tied at 21-under 123, Hill
admitted, “You don’t ever get over competing.”
Coming back each spring to The Club at Savannah
Harbor, located just across the Savannah River from the
historic city’s downtown, is both balm and reality check for
these staples of the game whose names, faces, mannerisms
and swings still resonate strongly with those who grew up
in golf in the 1950s, ’60s or ’70s. “Of course,” said 82-year-
old Don January, “a leopard doesn’t change his spots.”
By the winter of their careers—although early autumn is
the season evoked at the sight of 80-year-old Jim Ferree hit-
ting one 280-yard drive after another—the old equipment is
typically wearing out. Homero Blancas and Bobby Nichols
finished 15th out of 18 teams at even par but led in artificial
joints. “I’ve got two hips, he’s got two knees,” Nichols said.
“We’re just trying to figure out how to survive.”
It was remarkable even to see Nichols playing, if a bit
stiffly, at 76. His career was a battle with the aftereffects
of a devastating car crash during high school that left
him temporarily paralyzed. Though he managed to win
11 PGA Tour events, including the 1964 PGA Champion-
ship, the toll from the accident increased with advancing
years. “I’ve had both hips replaced and I’ve got arthritis
bad in my hands, but I’m not complaining,” Nichols said.
“A lot of my friends aren’t around, and I still am. I’m
pretty fortunate.”
Geiberger too was pleased to be playing 50 years after
his first PGA Tour victory (Ontario Open Invitational),
35 years since his landmark 59 at Memphis and 30 years
after his silky swing became immortalized in the famous
SyberVision instructional video, which featured multiple
views of Mr. 59’s action. Post-surgical infections late last
year weakened the 1966 PGA champion, who had an ileos-
tomy three decades ago. “I’m light, and a bit weak still,”
said Geiberger, who teamed with Jimmy Powell to finish
T- 6. “But it’s fun to come here and see the guys. You’re
looking at what you might be looking like in a few years.
You see who’s walking good, who’s walking bad.”
