ON the day Gene Sarazen died, Tiger Woods shot 61 from the GTE Byron Nelson Classic. To anyone who recalled a conversation at the 1996 Masters, it had been as much a relationship as a coincidence. At the time, Eldrick (Tiger) Woods was a two-time United States Amateur champion, a 20-year-old golfing phenom who would win another Amateur title that summer as well as the Masters a year later. And after hitting a ceremonial tee shot at the 1996 Pros, Sarazen, afterward 94 and wearing his and fours, was answering inquiries about the Augusta National clubhouse porch. "Contemplating Tiger's era," somebody asked, "how would you rate him?" "Well," Sarazen stated, "once I was 20, I won the U.S. Open and the P.G.A." golf rangefinder watch USA Sarazen was not bragging; he was just reminding his listeners that golf has had additional phenoms and he was one of them. It's called perspective. And as somebody who spanned the 20th century prior to perishing Thursday in 97 of complications of pneumonia, his perspective on golf was unique. He will always be remembered for his double-eagle 2 with a 4-wood in the par-5 15th hole which put the Masters on the golf map in 1935. "One time in Hong Kong, someone introduced me as 'Mr. Double Eagle,' " he said with a laugh. " They have to have thought I was an Indian." Nevertheless, the feisty little man born Eugenio Saraceni at Harrison, N.Y., the son of a German Italian magician, hit several other significant shots in winning seven big names -- the 1922, 1923 and 1933 Professional Golfers' Association Championships, the 1922 and 1932 United States Opens, the 1932 British Open and 1935 Masters. He had been the first to win all four major titles; Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player are the only others. "But the best shot I ever hit," Sarazen once said, "was at the 1931 Ryder Cup at Scioto. With this short hole, I hooked my tee shot over the green into a refreshment stand. I found my ball at the middle of the stand in a crevice at the concrete. No free drops back then, but a window toward the green was open. I played with the ball through the window on the green about eight feet in the pit." Read more Golf range finder google plus Sarazen left his putt for a diploma. When his competitor, Fred Robson, three-putted, Sarazen won the hole. "Robson laughed and said, 'That was a pleasant toss,' " Sarazen recalled. " I said: 'That was no throw. I played the shot out of there.' He dropped another five holes." Sarazen said golf was cutthroat back in the 20's and 30's. "We did not tell anyone anything," he remembered. " When the green was fast, we hoped they wouldn't find out until it'd cost them a few strokes. And the only thing we hoped about another fellow was he would break both legs. This sort of soul made golf" His creativity produced the sand wedge, which made golf somewhat simpler for everyone. "I went with Howard Hughes in his plane and he told me, 'Gene, pull on that stick,' " Sarazen once stated " Plus it flashed into my head that some weight on the rear of a niblick could make a club and a ball bounce from the sand the same way that plane bounced into the atmosphere." More than anybody else, Sarazen could evaluate the century's finest golfers because he watched and played with all of them. "I even played with Harry Vardon," he said, speaking to the six-time British Open winner of a century past. " It was in the 1923 North British in Royal Lytham and St. Annes. On the first hole, a par 3, the wind was coming from the left. Vardon floated a baffy in there about 10 feet by the cup. "I struck on a 1-iron, a low, boring ball which stayed left despite the end and wound up at a bunker. Walking off the tee I remember saying, 'I can not understand how the wind did not take that ball,' and that I heard Vardon state, 'The way you hit it the wind had nothing more to do with it.' I took that as good information." best laser rangefinders for golf medium victor
