2 Gene Sarazen
1935 Masters, Augusta National Golf Club
Dubbed “the shot heard ’round the world”, Gene Sarazen's albatross (double eagle) at the 1935 Masters is credited with dramatically raising the profile of the tournament and it eventually being awarded Major status.
Born Eugenio Saraceni in the same year as Bobby Jones (1902) it was appropriate that Sarazen’s most famous shot was played at his great rival’s tournament. Trailing leader Craig Wood by three shots late on in the final round, the ‘Squire’ decided to go for the green at the par-5 15th in two rather than lay up. Incredibly, he struck his 4-wood 235-yards straight into the cup to eliminate the deficit at a stroke (pun intended!). He eventually took the title after a 36-hole playoff with an understandably flabbergasted Wood. The news of the shot itself was transmitted by CBS in their radio coverage of the tournament (they had initiated limited coverage the year before) and it was this that made the shot so memorable: people heard it happen “live”.
It is worth noting that almost 60 years later, American journeyman pro Chip Beck found himself at the same hole in exactly the same position — three strokes back of leader Bernhard Langer with the option to go for the green and a much-needed eagle. Instead, Beck elected to lay up short of the water guarding the green and was roundly criticized for doing so. He ended up parring the hole and eventually lost by four shots.
3 Bobby Jones
1923 US Open, Inwood Country Club
Jones had been tipped as a future great ever since his first Major appearance as a 14-year-old in 1916. But when he still hadn’t won a title by 1923, many doubted if he could control himself enough to do so.
At Inwood Country Club in New York, it looked like another tournament had been lost when he threw away his lead, finishing bogey-bogey-double bogey to fall into a playoff with Bobby Cruickshank. Jones later said: “I didn’t finish like a champion. I finished like a yellow dog”.
Putting cowardly canine concerns aside, the following day Jones and Cruickshank matched each other through 17 holes of the playoff. After his drive on the 18th, Jones was facing what he used to call a “sheer delicatessen” shot, one requiring touch and aggression from a difficult situation that only a truly gifted golfer could pull off.
His ball was lying in dirt at the edge of the rough, with 192-yards to the pin over water. While Cruickshank chose to lay up, Jones drilled a 2-iron to eight feet, setting up his first major and kickstarting a dominance of the game that had never been seen before.
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