Lietzke’s life well lived, well played
The other Bruce won the Canadian Open twice at Glen Abbey
My business partner Rick is the biggest Bruce Springsteen fan I know. The kind of super fan that will go to five or six concert stops in a row on every tour. New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, it doesn’t matter where.
When I told him I was writing about Bruce he didn’t understand why. And of course, he didn’t golf and so had never heard of Bruce Lietzke.
In a strange and eerie twist of fate, Lietzke died a few days ago on the very weekend of the Canadian Open at Glen Abbey. The exact place where he became relatively famous in Canadian golf circles, as he won the event twice over a 5 year period in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
His kindness, casualness and relaxed attitude about tour golf was the stuff of legends. He rarely played even 20 events in a calendar year, didn’t practice much at all, and seemed more than anyone I have ever heard of, to have his life priorities in order. On the CBS broadcast on the weekend, good friend and former Houston team mate John Mahaffey described a man who had placed his wife, kids, friends, hunting and fishing all ahead of his golf game for as long as he had been on tour.
There’s a famous story of Lietzke telling his caddy in September to take everything out of his golf bag except his clubs as he wouldn’t be using them again until the tour resumed in January. His caddie didn’t believe him and put a banana in his driver head cover to prove it. Sure enough, when the tour started again in California in January, Lietzke took the cover off his driver and there was the rotten, mouldy banana. It was so bad that it had eaten into the wood in his driver which had to be thrown away. Lietzke hadn’t even hit a practice shot in four months.
My dad and I attended the first few Canadian Opens at Glen Abbey together in the late 1970s. We saw Trevino win in 1977 and came back the next year to see Lietzke win over Pat McGowan with a one-under par score of 283.
The last two winners at Glen Abbey have been 23-under par and 21 under par. It has become a pitch and putt course for the best and longest hitting professionals.
Times have changed. And Bruce Lietzke the man is a great example of that. Can you imagine in today’s game someone taking three or four months off without hitting a ball? Can you imagine a player at the top of his game, as Lietzke surely was in that era, deciding to fish instead of hit balls, coach little league instead of playing in the Greater Greensboro Open?
Mostly I think about that swing of his. He played with a cut or slice. He never tried to hit it straight. He didn’t fight his signature ball flight. He grooved his cut action so that it was as dependable as a pet dog, whether he had played three events in a row or not at all for three months. I miss the era of unorthodox swings and contrarian approaches to any and all aspects of the game.
The first two winners of our national open at Glen Abbey were great examples of the individuality of golf. That you didn’t have to swing like Ben Hogan or Sam Sneed back then, or today Tiger Woods or Adam Scott.
It’s cool that this year’s winner Dustin Johnson is cut from that same cloth. Pure athleticism and comfortable in his own shoes. A little quirky.
Cheers to Lieky, as Bruce was known by his best friends on tour. Although cut short, a life well lived and well played. Friends and family first.