Was George Low Jnr the GOAT at putting?

I READ a lot of golf magazines and websites, purely because I love the game, and I often find items and stories that I share in this publication, especially when the weather is bad and there’s nothing happening on the local golf scene.

Recently I came across an article about a certain George Low Jnr (whom I must admit I’d never heard of) and it claimed that he was the Greatest Putter of All Time!

Low’s father, George Senior, came from Scotland and was the head Professional at Baltusrol, where George grew up, for over twenty years. George Junior spent his childhood playing on the putting green at Baltusrol and didn’t hit a golf ball on a course until he was 15 years old. He was a tour player from 1930 to 1945 and went on to become a putting instructor and a designer of putters.

His playing career was little to boast about, but he didn’t need to worry because he won more money on side bets from his fellow professionals on the practice putting green than he would have had he won tournaments.

Former Masters champion Doug Ford famously said of Low: “He was the greatest putter I ever saw, and that includes Tiger Woods. George could putt better with his foot than most of his compatriots could with their putters.”

Ford also claimed that he once saw Low (a compulsive gambler) take $35,000 off a guy in Florida, putting with his foot while his opponent used a putter.

Another great story involving Low, and one which he dined out on for years, took place at the 1945 Memphis Open. The legendary Byron Nelson had won 11 consecutive tournaments and was going for number 12, but a little-known amateur at the time, Fred Haas, won the tournament, with Low in second place and Nelson in third.

As an amateur, of course, Haas wasn’t allowed to take the prize money and Low waltzed off with the cash, claiming for years after that he was the man who stopped Nelson’s winning streak at 11 tournaments.

After he finished playing, Low followed the tour hustling professionals on the putting green and he became something of a putting guru to the likes of Arnold Palmer and others of that era, as well as taking hundreds and even thousands of dollars off professionals in putting games which was how he made his living.

When Palmer won the 1960 Masters he finished birdie-birdie and gave the credit to Low saying: “On those last two putts I just kept thinking of what George Low said to me about keeping my head down and steady.”

Following Palmer’s win at Augusta, Low decided to cash in on his fifteen minutes of fame and invented a putter, introducing the George Low Wizzard 600 putter to the market, but when Palmer lost the Masters to Gary Player the following year by missing a makeable putt on the last, the South African was using one of Low’s putters.

Low continued to advise players right into his late seventies but by then his putting stroke had deserted him so his hustling came to an end and he died in 1995 at the age of 82.

Low was once asked who he thought was the greatest putter of all time and he answered Bobby Locke.

Interestingly, if you could get your hands on an original George Low Wizzard 600 putter from the 1960s, it would be worth somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000 to a collector.