Nicklaus and Palmer top their generation
This is the fourth in a five-part series From Maine to Alaska, from Minnesota to Texas and from Florida to California, there have been champion golfers produced by all 50 states in America.
To help commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Players Championship, the Times-Union took on a daunting task: pick the best native-born golfer from each state.
Well, some were daunting. Naturally, looking for professional winners from Delaware, Idaho or Wyoming wasn’t easy. But we found World Golf Hall of Fame members in Connecticut and Kansas, PGA Tour winners in Alaska and North Dakota and in several cases, LPGA winners were the top players from their state.
So be it — as are the two states whose best players were career amateurs who no doubt would have made a mark professionally had they taken their games in that direction.
The ground rule was simple: to be considered, a player had to have been born in that state — even if he spent most of his life, including his professional life, in another state. (Hint: Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods are not the best golfers from Florida).
We’re going alphabetically, 10 states at a time:
New Mexico
Steve Jones, Artesia (Born Dec. 27,
1958, age 65)
The 1996 U.S. Open champion won eight times on the PGA Tour and had his best season with three victories in 1989. A dirt-bike accident that severely damaged tendons and a joint in his left ring finger cost him nearly three seasons as a professional but he earned PGA Tour comeback player of the year after winning the Open at Oakland Hills. Jones also turned in one of the most dominant victories in Tour history when he won the WM Phoenix Open by 11 shots in 1997.
New York
Walter Hagen, Rochester (Dec. 21,
1892 – Oct. 6, 1969)
One of the most colorful figures in the early days of professional golf, Hagen was a showman who loved golf and the nightlife, not necessarily in that order. But he had the game, enough to be third behind Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods
with 11 professional major championships, including five PGA titles in seven years from 1921-1928.
Hagen, an enthusiastic participant in exhibitions across the country, was at the top of his game at a time when professionals were treated as second-class citizens at some clubs, and not allowed entry to the clubhouse or locker room. He famously parked a Pierce-Arrow in the front driveway of the Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club in Kent during the 1920 British Open, and changed in the car. Hagen became the leading spokesman for Wilson Sporting Goods and was the first club pro for Oakland Hills near Detroit. When he tied in 1976, Arnold Palmer was among his pallbearers.
North Carolina
Raymond Floyd, Fayetteville (Born Sept. 4, 1942, age 81)
A four-time major champion and the winner of the last Players Championship to be held at the Sawgrass Country Club in 1981, Floyd was raised on the enlisted man’s golf course at Fort Bragg, N.C., where his father was the head pro. He learned to play well enough lefthanded to hustle servicemen and later unsuspecting golfers at clubs around North Carolina, spent one semester at the University of North Carolina, then turned pro and won the first of his 22 PGA Tour titles at the 1963 St. Petersburg Open.
Floyd won the 1976 Masters with a record score of 17-under par and used a 5-wood to reach the greens of the par-5 holes — prompting a run on 5-woods nationwide. A decade later he won the 1986 U.S. Open at Shinnecock. He later won 14 times on the PGA Tour Champions and teamed with his son Robert Floyd to win the Father-Son Championship five times.
North Dakota
Mike Morley, Minot (Born June 17, 1946, age 77)
Golfers are a rare breed in North Dakota, but Morley was a good one. He found his way to Arizona State and was a two-time first-team All-American in 1967 and 1968, then turned professional and captured two PGA Tour titles. Morley is in the state sports Halls of Fame in Arizona and North Dakota, has won the state opens in those two states, plus Minnesota, and has designed golf courses in the Midwest.
Ohio
Jack Nicklaus, Columbus (Born Jan. 21, 1940, age 84)
The son of a druggist, Nicklaus played football, baseball, basketball, tennis and ran track during his youth. He chose golf and immortality followed.
Nicklaus won 117 professional tournaments, with 73 on the PGA Tour and eight on PGA Tour Champions. He also won two U.S. Amateurs and an NCAA title at Ohio State. He still holds the record with 18 major championships and it’s scary to think of what a shot here or there might have meant to his record: he was a runner-up in 19 majors and third in nine more.
Nicklaus has the career Grand Slam, with six Masters titles, five PGA Championships, four U.S. Opens and three British Opens. He is also the only three-time winner of The Players Championship and an eight-time PGA Tour money leader. He has also carved out a solid career as a golf course architect and raised millions for charity.
Oklahoma
Tommy Bolt, Haworth (March 31, 1916 – August 30, 2008)
Nicknamed “Terrible Tommy” for a legendary temper, Bolt had a ton of game coming out of the U.S. Army and learned to play as a caddie and later a club pro in Shreveport, Louisiana. He won 20 PGA Tour titles, capped by the 1958 U.S. Open in his home state at Tulsa’s Southern Hills. Bolt added five top-10s in The Masters and was one of the early pioneers for the PGA Tour Champions.
Oregon
Peter Jacobsen, Portland (Born March 4, 1954, age 70)
The amiable, affable Jacobsen is known more by a generation of golf fans for his TV commentary on Golf Channel and NBC but he won seven times on the PGA Tour and on a fictitious basis, won a U.S. Open — portraying himself in the movie “Tin Cup,” where he beat Kevin Costner’s character Roy McAvoy.
Jacobsen also became famous for his spot-on imitations on the swings, walks and other mannerisms of fellow pros such as Lanny Wadkins, Arnold Palmer, Hubert Green and Craig Stadler. He is also a good guitarist and formed a band with Payne Stewart and Mark Lye called “Jake Trout and the Flounders.”
Pennsylvania
Arnold Palmer, Latrobe (Sept. 10, 1929 – Sept. 25, 2016)
He’d be the King regardless of where he was born. The son of the superintendent of the Latrobe Country Club outside Pittsburgh, Palmer developed huge forearms and shoulders doing manual labor and driving a tractor with steel wheels while growing up.
He became a legend in Western Pennsylvania as a junior player and went to Wake Forest to play.
Palmer left school, spent three years in the Coast Guard, then won the 1954 U.S. Amateur. He turned pro later that year, won the first of his seven major championships at the 1958 Masters, and went on to carve out a fierce rivalry with Nicklaus. Palmer won 64 PGA Tour titles, led the money list four times and with his fearless play and daring recovery shots, was the perfect star to grab golf by the scruff of its neck, out of the country clubs and to the masses.
In the process, Palmer was never known to have turned down an autograph seeker, was perhaps the most photographed sports star of his era, was sought by corporate America to endorse golf clubs, suits, cars and motor oil, and joined another competition with Nicklaus: designing golf courses.
Palmer also joined Nicklaus in raising millions for charity, especially at the children’s hospital in Orlando that bears his wife Winnie’s name. The King died in 2016. Golf may never know his like again.
Rhode Island
Lawson Little, Newport (June 23, 1910-Feb. 1, 1968)
Little might have made the list purely on his amateur career. In 1934 and 1935, he became the only man to win the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur in back-to-back years, the highlights of 19 amateur titles. He crushed his opponent in the 1935 British
Amateur, James Wallace, 15 and 14, then beat David Goodwin 8 and 7 in the U.S. Amateur.
But Little then turned professional and won eight times. He won the U.S. Open in 1940, beating Gene Sarazen by three shots in an 18-hole playoff, and also added the L.A. Open title. Little also had seven top-10s in the Masters.
South Carolina
Dustin Johnson, Columbia (Born June 22, 1984, age 39)
He came out of a bluecollar background, played college golf at Coastal Carolina and with a prodigious game of the tee and one of the most accurate wedge players on the PGA Tour, went on to win 24 times on the PGA Tour, 30 on a worldwide basis, and two major championships, the 2017 U.S. Open at Oakmont and the 2020 Masters, which was moved to the fall because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson is a two-time PGA Tour player of the year and was one of the biggest signings by the LIV Golf League. He’s won twice there and was its first money leader, in 2022.
Next: South Dakota through Wyoming.
Previous players
Alabama, Hubert Green; Alaska, Danny Edwards; Arizona, Billy Mayfair; Arkansas, Paul Runyan; California, Tiger Woods; Colorado, Wyndham Clark; Connecticut, Julius Boros; Delaware, Porky Oliver; Florida, Brooks Koepka; Georgia, Bobby Jones.
Hawaii, Michelle Wie West; Idahoa, Shirley Englehorn; Illinois, Bob Goalby; Indiana, Fuzzy Zoeller; Iowa, Zach Johnson; Kansas, Marilyn Smith; Kentucky, Justin Thomas; Louisiana, Hal Sutton; Maine, David Peoples; Maryland, Fred Funk.
Massachusetts, Henry Picard; Michigan; Leo Diegel; Minnesota, Lee Janzen; Mississippi, Pete Brown; Missouri, Tom Watson; Montana, Alice Ritzman; Nebraska, Mark Calcavecchia; Nevada, Robert Gamez; New Hampshire, Jane Blalock, Portsmouth; New Jersey, Vic Ghezzi.