Story of ‘Mr. 59’ just as fresh 40 years later
At this point, almost 40 years after he earned the nickname “Mr. 59,” Al Geiberger has the story down pat.
He can tell you the temperature, the course conditions and what he thought before each shot during that magical Friday round at Colonial Country Club in Memphis. His telephone number even ends in the numbers 5959, and his business card features the scorecard from that day.
Although Geiberger won a PGA Championship and 21 events total on the PGA and Senior PGA tours, he embraces the fact that one afternoon became the defining achievement of his professional career. In many ways, as he approaches his 80th birthday, it sustains him during a life that hasn’t been all birdies and eagles.
“There’s hardly a day that goes by that somebody doesn’t say, ‘Oh, hey, Mr. 59,’ ” Geiberger said over the phone last week. “I love talking about the 59. Otherwise, nobody would talk to me. I’ve told it so many times I can’t forget.”
If he hadn’t been the first to card a 59 in a PGA Tour event June 10, 1977, at what was then the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic, what happened since might have consumed Geiberger.
During the next 40 years, he lost the golf clubs, the golf ball and even the bucket hat he wore while making history. He lost a son to tragic circumstances and lost his colon to surgery. Over time, he even lost his record when eight others finished with a 59 and Jim Furyk shot a 58 in August.
But Geiberger never lost his memories or his love for the game of golf, and they remain an indelible part of Memphis sports history as the 60th iteration of the event he will always be identified with gets set to tee off this week without him.
“It’s probably the most iconic moment of this tournament,” FedEx St. Jude tournament director Darrell Smith said.
There were signs the 20th annual Danny Thomas Memphis Classic would be an abnormal tournament before Geiberger began his second round in 1977.
Only two days earlier, former president Gerald Ford had made a hole-in-one during the event’s pro-am. Meanwhile, a grass fire raged in the Colonial Country Club parking lot and burned eight cars. Due to winter damage to the course, “winter rules” also were in effect, which meant golfers were allowed to lift, clean and place the ball in the Bermuda grass fairways of the 7,249-yard layout.
But none of that was on Geiberger’s mind as he teed off on the 10th hole along with playing partners Dave Stockton and Jerry Moore in the afternoon. Instead, Geiberger thought about a lesson he’d been giving one of his sons in the days before arriving in Memphis.
Geiberger told his son to lower his hands on the club to help stay down on the ball longer through the shot and, in doing so, realized he should make the same adjustment. Combined with a putting session with his caddie in Atlanta two weeks earlier after missing a second consecutive cut, the then 39-year-old had a newfound confidence.
Then came the opening hole of the round, when he sank a 40foot birdie putt.
“I had a good swing thought coming into the week, both hitting the ball and putting,” Geiberger said. “But if it works, you think, ‘I’ve got it.’ ”
Though he carded two birdies in the first three holes, Geiberger’s chase of history didn’t begin in full until he approached the 15th tee. That’s when someone among the crowd of 22,300 in attendance at Colonial Country Club “gave me some peanut butter and cracker sandwiches on the 14th green,” Geiberger told
The Commercial Appeal that day. What followed was a sevenhole stretch in which he went 8 under par. A 90-foot wedge shot for an eagle at No. 1 — his 10th hole of the round — was the highlight.
In the moment, Geiberger says now, “I felt indestructible. I’m hitting it better and better and I’m holing every putt.”
By the time the surge ended on No. 3 with another birdie, Geiberger was 10 under through 12 holes. Still, Geiberger didn’t know he was approaching history. He claims to have not realized 59 was a record at the time. Being conscious of it all, he explained, likely would have derailed him.
But he did grasp he was in the midst of a special round as the group’s gallery kept getting larger with each passing hole.
So ahead of No. 6 — Geiberger’s 15th hole of the round — he found a spot away from the crowd and began talking to himself. He thought back to his days at Southern California, when his college coach, Stan Wood, would often remind him to be more aggressive, and figured, “Now’s the time.”
So Geiberger proceeded to birdie three of his final four holes of the day, finishing the round with an 8-foot birdie putt on No. 9 to set the record.
“Fifty-nine? That’s just hard to believe,” Geiberger said immediately after the round was complete. “That’s better than winning the tournament.”
He did that, as well. But exactly two weeks after breaking one of golf ’s hallowed marks, Geiberger noted last week, he shot 81 at a tournament in Dallas. From there, he won only once more on the PGA Tour.