Tài liệu Phil Tresidder On Golf pdf

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Phil Tresidder

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First published in 2005

Copyright © Phil Tresidder 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording or by any information storage

and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the

publisher.The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a

maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is

the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its

educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or

body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to

Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.allenandunwin.com

National Library of Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Tresidder, Phil.

Phil Tresidder on golf.

ISBN 1 74114 633 X.

1. Golf - Anecdotes. 2. Golfers. I.Title.

796.352

Set in 11/13 pt Bembo by Midland Typesetters,Victoria

Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group

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CONTENTS

Foreword vii

1 No regrets—just fond memories 2

2 Keeping a lid on our emotions 7

3 Shape up or ship out 12

4 When tempers flare 17

5 A new step in the life of Grady 22

6 Golf’s colourful sidekicks 27

7 A little man with grand plans 32

8 Augusta’s surrender to technology 37

9 Rejuvenated Woosie rekindles flame 42

10 Memoirs of Australia’s ironman 47

11 Mr Anti-golf comes round 52

12 Credit where credit is due 56

13 ‘Thunder’ Bolt strikes again 61

14 Keep it under your hat, Sam 66

15 When a career is a round of golf 71

16 The long and short of pro golf 76

17 Life turns full circle for Ogle 80

18 Greats on a level playing field 85

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19 Golf’s Marco Polo 89

20 Gary Player’s KO win 95

21 Golf’s great coup 103

22 Ben Hogan’s perfect round 108

23 Ghosting 113

24 Red Braces 119

25 Royal Melbourne’s jovial skeletons 124

26 Golf’s firecracker 128

27 The genius of course design 134

28 Alpine palpitations 139

29 Nice bear, give the ball back 142

30 Fun on the world fairways: 147

United States 147

Australia 148

Canada 149

Japan 150

Ireland 151

England 152

Scotland 154

France 155

Hong Kong 155

Wales 156

China 156

Italy 156

Germany 157

New Zealand 157

Phil Tresidder tribute 1928–2003 160

Acknowledgments 170

PHIL TRESIDDER ON GOLF

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FOREWORD

My many visits to Australia were made much more enjoyable

by my friendship with Phil Tresidder. Phil was a press man who

covered it as it was. He wasn’t a sensationalist and he didn’t

manufacture things. I have so many great memories of Phil and of

Australia.

I well remember playing the Augusta course with Phil the

morning after my last US Masters win in 1978, and in turn

playing several rounds at his home course, Bonnie Doon, in

Sydney. I used to meet him at various golf tournaments around

the world and enjoyed finding out what was happening in

Australia. I just love Australia and still miss it terribly.

But Phil loved all sport, not just golf. He was a great rugby

supporter the same as I am. We used to have little bets on South

Africa versus Australia—in those days South Africa used to beat

them regularly. Now results have turned about considerably, but

he’s not around to see it—I’m sure he’s watching from heaven

though, so I can’t escape him.

I have so many great memories of Phil and of his family. He

was a lover of sport and particularly of golf. He loved professional

golfers and they in turn respected him. Phil Tresidder was a

real gentleman and he will be missed. He has left a legacy both to

golf and to journalism.

Gary Player

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Mac O’Grady: I’m all in favour of a tough open

championship course.A smooth sea never develops a

skilful sailor.

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NO REGRETS—JUST

FOND MEMORIES

The gold medal they presented him wasn’t much bigger than

a ten cent piece but Tony Gresham fondled it proudly in his hand.

He was the new Australian Senior Amateur champion and in

sports-speak he was ‘stoked’. Gresham had led the field through

two rounds of medal play then marched through the match play

stage, culminating with his victory against Tasmania’s Max Robi￾son in the final at the Yowani Country Club course in Canberra.

So it seems that a new era of achievement is launched for

Australia’s most remarkable amateur since World War II. At

57 years of age he is sturdy in frame and gimlet in eye, and the

highly efficient game that has served him so well down the years

shows little sign of decay.

Like Ol’ Man River, he just rolls on cheerfully. It was as far back

as 1967 that his name first bobbed up into prominence as a medal￾list winner in the Australian Amateur Championship. He won the

national amateur title ten years later at Victoria Golf Club, and

finished runner-up twice.

In 1972 the name of Tony Gresham became an international

golf talking point. On the Olivos Country Club in Buenos Aires

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he won the Eisenhower Trophy medal, beating Ben Crenshaw by

two strokes. All told, Gresham played seven times in the Eisen￾hower event for Australia and his score counted in all 28 rounds.

‘Nobody will beat that,’ he says. Why? ‘Because the young guys

won’t stay long enough in the amateur game.’

And that saddens Gresham a little. Right now, he says,

Australia has three brilliant teenage amateurs—Adam Scott

(Queensland), Aaron Baddeley (Victoria) and Matthew Jones

(New South Wales)—but he fears they will be lost to the profes￾sional ranks in a year or two.Too many young amateurs see the

dollar signs and rush into the pro ranks and many don’t make it,

Gresham says.

Which brings us back to the tiny gold medal they handed

Gresham at the presentation ceremony following the Australian

Senior Amateur final at Yowani. Its value? ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t

even guess,’ said Tom Duguid, the deputy executive director of the

Australian Golf Union.‘It’s symbolic and that’s its value.’

Gresham has never regretted his decision to stay loyal to the

amateur game, not even after he proved his class by beating full

professional fields in the New South Wales and South Australian

Opens. Not even after Crenshaw went on to win the US Masters.

And not even when Gentle Ben won a second green jacket

at Augusta National.

As a schoolboy at Sydney’s Barker College, with a six handicap,

he spent a few weeks in the Avondale Golf Club pro shop

sweeping out the back room. If that was how young professionals

started off, well, it wasn’t for him.‘I just didn’t enjoy it,’ he recalls.

In truth, in those early days there wasn’t so much incentive to

turn pro.The money just wasn’t there. Gresham flourished along￾side such classy amateurs as Kevin Donohoe, Phil Billings, Kevin

Hartley, Des Turner and Harry Berwick, the last name making a

belated tilt at the money game at the 50-year mark.

When leading Pro,Billy Dunk won the New South Wales open

and was handed a cheque for a mere $5000, Gresham remembers

thinking, ‘I’m glad I haven’t turned pro.’ He recalls that, ‘They

NO REGRETS—JUST FOND MEMORIES

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PHIL TRESIDDER ON GOLF

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were busting their butts for small prize money. Mind you, that’s all

changed now.’

Gresham’s father Syd was Canadian born,while his mother Lola

came from Wellington, New Zealand.Tony worked for his father,

who was a national cigarette distributor, and he was encouraged

to work hard on his golf game. A 6 a.m. start and 3 p.m. finish

enabled him to hurry to the golf club to practise after work.

His father’s constant advice was to ‘work on your short game’.

And he did. ‘I chipped, putted, chipped, putted, played bunker

shots—and hit more chips and putts,’ says Gresham. ‘My short

game has been my strength. My long game was no more than

adequate but my short game got me out of all sorts of trouble.’

This was no better illustrated than at Yowani’s 17th where, from a

bad lie, he bent a recovery shot 15 metres around trees to win the

hole and clinch the title.

Gresham reckons in his heyday he could get up and down from

bunkers 80 per cent of the time. Probably 60 per cent nowadays,

he says. He was briefly a member of the Australian Golf Club,

where he won three championships in his only three appearances.

The Pennant Hills Golf Club on Sydney’s north side has been his

home and he has won the club title some 25 times. A cursory

examination of the various honour boards will reveal his name

some 60 times.

This year the members elected him club captain. ‘His name’s

on every other board, so it may as well be on the club captains

board, too,’ quipped a member.

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Golf stories

How would you like to hit a golf ball with the flight of angel’s wings?

Of course you would.

Florida scribe Jim Fallon reported in Delray Beach, Florida that

lost balls are pennies from heaven for needy nuns, who sell them

back to wayward golfers with a smile and a saintly salutation. The

resourceful Second Order of Franciscans—Poor Clares—have turned

a minor hazard into a small financial plus at Christ the King

Monastery, which is separated by a fence from the Lakeview

Golf Club.

It seems errant shots started flying into the monastery more than

twenty years ago when the executive eighteen-hole course was

opened to the public. Golfers can buy balls back at a cheap $3.50

for a pack of six, although the balls are not merchandised with the

promise of divine intervention for the hapless hacker.

Fallon related that on one occasion, however, a ball bounced

at the feet of a walking nun, who picked it up and flung it back over

the fence. The fortunate golfer then hit it into the hole from where

it lay!

NO REGRETS—JUST FOND MEMORIES

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Reverend Billy Graham: I never pray on the golf

course.Actually, the Lord answers my prayers

everywhere except on the golf course.

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