Interviewed By Guy Yocom
Photo By Ben Van Hook May 2007

I came to the last hole of the 1957 Masters with a two-stroke lead. My approach shot to the last green was close to being real good, but it just catches the bunker and plugs. I couldn't go at the pin, and Lord knows anything can happen from a lie like that. I played out at an angle, into the tier. The ball broke beautifully and fell into the hole. End of story: I shot 66 and beat Sam Snead by three. I'm not a sentimental guy. I've never cried in my adult life, and don't remember crying as a boy, either. But I remember feeling real bad for Sam. I'd started the day three shots behind him, and I thought it was kind of sad that he shot 72 and got beat.

What helped me on that shot was my background playing pool. Growing up on Manhattan island, I spent a lot of time in pool rooms. My uncle was a New York state billiard champion, and I spent the winters cleaning tables for a little money and free pool. I came to realize that pool is a great game for a young golfer. It really is. It gives you such a natural feel for angles. You tend to aim the putter very squarely, and of course you have nice touch. It's funny, you hear players talk all the time about how good greens are "just like a pool table." But none of them play pool.

I grew up in sort of a rough neighborhood.I ran with a gang of about 10 other guys, and it was funny how we all turned out. Of the 10, six became FBI agents, and the other four went with the mob. I was the only one who didn't end up carrying a gun as an adult. In that neighborhood, to survive you had to have guts. You had to be street smart; you really had to learn how to read people and size up situations. Now the bright guys, the ones who came from pretty good homes and did well in school, the FBI found them and recruited them right away. The troubled guys, they simply put their street smarts to work in the way they could make the most money. I got along with all of them, and in a way we weren't much different from each other. It's just funny how life works out for people.

I was an amateur until 1949, though I had the game to turn pro. But in the years right after the war I saw no need to turn pro whatsoever, because I made as much money in gambling matches as a lot of the guys made on tour. That's the truth. I was stationed in Florida during the war, and when it was over all the hustlers were around Miami Springs. One time, Al Besselink, who was in college at the time, told me there were a couple of rich kids from New Jersey who were looking for some action. They were pretty good players, but everyone knew I was better, so they wanted me to play their best ball. "I need some odds on that," I said, and after a little negotiating we settled on 4-1. I had $800 to my name, but the kids wanted to play for more than that, so Al found a way to put up $3,200 more. We played the match, and I birdied the last hole to win. I now had $3,200 as my share, and the kids wanted to play again the next day. I laid off some of the bet just to stay safe but beat the kids real badly. So I got $1,600 more, bringing my total to $4,800. It was honest golf. Nobody gave me strokes; it was always a matter of how many I had to give.

You're going to see some outrageous things in a gambling environment. After I turned pro, I was in a pro-am at Miami Beach, and there was a big calcutta. There was $10,000 in the pot, but I wasn't entitled to any because the pros were playing for a small purse. You don't know who you're going to be given, but when we went to tee off, I noticed one of my amateur partners looked awfully familiar. Turned out I'd won a pro-am in Detroit with him as a partner, with him playing at scratch. His handicap in Florida: 8. It turned out the other two guys were every bit as bad—or good, as the case might be. They both were excellent players but were getting a bunch of strokes. I holed my second shot on a short par 4 for an eagle, and it was the only time I helped them all day. My father, who was following me, was horrified. "These guys are cheaters, Doug," he said. Was he ever right, but it's the job of whatever committee they had to enforce handicaps, not the players in the field. Still, the looks I was giving the guy must have made him nervous, because he sidled up to me and said, "Don't worry, we'll take care of you." Well, when it was over and they'd won the 10 grand without breaking a sweat, I'm standing in the clubhouse when the amateur walks by me, accompanied by a cop, and leaves the building. When the cop came back in alone, I asked him, "Did he just leave?" The cop said, "Yeah, and I should have let him get hit over the head in the parking lot. He didn't even tip me." I'll tell you, Florida was a wild place.

If you want to be a good tournament player, you've got to learn to handle the heat. The only way to prepare for that is to play for your own dough. You play for an amount you can barely afford to lose. When Jerry Barber came out on tour, he habitually lost money to Sam Snead and a few others. After watching him pay off Sam yet again one day, I said, "Jerry, what the hell are you doing? There's no way you can beat Sam Snead. He's the best player in the world. What are you thinking?" Jerry said in a matter-of-fact way, "If you're going to attend the university, you've got to pay tuition." Jerry became a very successful tour player, and for whatever weaknesses he had, he sure as heck knew how to handle pressure.