‘Peacock of Fairways’ Sanders dies at 86

Doug Sanders, who missed one of the most heartbreaking potential winning putts in British Open history, died on Sunday of natural causes.

Known as the “Peacock of the Fairways”, Sanders was one of the most colourful personalities on golf’s US PGA Tour, capturing 20 titles including the 1956 Canadian Open. He had four close runner-up finishes in Majors with the 1970 Open Championship at St Andrews ingrained in the memories of many golf fans.

When he reached the 72nd green, he was left with less than three feet for par to beat Jack Nicklaus by one shot.

But Sanders nervously pushed his putt right of the hole, sending the tournament to an 18-hole playoff the next day when Nicklaus prevailed at the final hole.

“I missed a 30-inch putt on the last green that would have won the 1970 British Open. It’s all anybody wants to talk about,” Sanders said. “I won 20 times on the PGA Tour, and if you gave me one birdie, four pars and a bogey wherever I could put them, I’d have five Majors.

“But it’s that putt that everybody remembers.”

Sanders likewise finished a stroke behind Bob Rosburg in the 1959 US PGA Championship at Minneapolis Golf Club. He was a stroke back of Gene Littler at the 1961 US Open at Oakland Hills, and one short of Nicklaus in the 1966 Open Championship at Muirfield.

Esquire magazine once chose Sanders as one of the “10 best-dressed jocks” in the US.

He liked to say that the two most frequent questions on tour were: “What did Arnold Palmer shoot?” and “What’s Doug Sanders wearing?”

Sanders also played in 218 events on the senior Champions Tour. But it was the St Andrews miss for which he became most famous.

Years later, when Sanders was asked if he ever thought about having missed that putt, he replied: “Only once every four or five minutes.” /