Sarazen is remembered as much for his life off the course as he is for his results on it. He was the first player to win all four majors in his career and invented the sand wedge as we know it...

 

Gene Sarazen holds two distinctive records that will never be duplicated – he was the first man to achieve the modern Grand Slam, of all four Majors in his career, and he almost single-handedly established a Major by hitting the ‘shot heard around the world’ in the 1935 Masters. When the ‘Augusta Invitational’ was instituted it was a friendly get-together for friends of its creator, Bobby Jones, and while the inaugural 1934 event was reported, its winner, Horton Smith, is almost forgotten. But 12 months later Sarazen ensured his own, and the tournament’s immortality by hitting a 4-wood into the hole of the par five 15th in the last round for an albatross, making up with one stroke the three by which he trailed Craig Wood, who he beat next day in a playoff.

It proved to be Sarazen’s swansong in Majors but he is remembered as much for the way in which he lived his life as for its achievements. Born Eugenio Saraceni he was a cheerful, colourful, bantam cock of a man who started as a caddy but became good enough quickly enough to win his first two majors at the age of 20. Standing only 5’ 5” he was never going to be a long hitter but he had a superb short game (apart from bunker play – at which he was lousy) and was a fearless putter.

He added another Major 12 months later, the 1923 US PGA, but then went into relative decline for almost a decade before roaring back – largely thanks to the fact that he had invented the sand wedge. On a private flight with billionaire Howard Hughes, Sarazen observed how the tail of the plane went down and the nose went up during takeoff, and when he got home, soldered a lump of metal to the bottom of a niblick (8 or 9-iron) to make it deeper and broader at the back. He had also eliminated a grip problem that had left him vulnerable to a hook.

In 1973, at the age of 71 and celebrating the 50th anniversary of his win in the Open Championship he took part in the Open at Royal Troon. To the delight of everyone he aced the par three 8th (the Postage Stamp) in the first round, and birdied it from a bunker in the second – three-under par on one hole and he never used his putter.