The goal was to turn Billy into a right-to-left player, which would give him more distance, to make it easier on his body, and to repeat. The attempt came within a few shots of foundering on the shoals of exasperation. Casper just couldn’t get the knack of it and was on the verge of giving up the idea. But on the very last day of the effort Casper got it. He began to hit a nice draw and with it went on to win nine times on the official senior circuit, three times otherwise, and just over $2 million. Most significant of all his victories as a senior was the 1983 U.S. Senior Open, his fourth career major and once again in a play-off, on this occasion outgunning Rod Funseth at Hazeltine CC. In recounting the highlights of his career for this profile of a great champion, Casper said there were five moments that counted most. The first, not surprisingly, was his first PGA Tour victory, the 1956 Labatt’s Open. First victories, even if it’s a much smaller event than those that come after, have a way of etching themselves most deeply on the competitive psyche. But Casper’s achievement at the Labatt’s had even more significance than a maiden breakthrough into the winner’s circle. He also got from it a piece of advice that helped write the rest of his superb competitive career. “I was going to the twelfth hole with the lead in the last round at the Labatt’s and was paired with a seasoned veteran named Ted Kroll. As we walked off the eleventh green Ted told me that from then on to the end of the round to put a club in my hand off the tee that would get me in the fairway. I did for a couple of holes—went with the two-iron—but on the fifteenth hole I took the driver and put the ball in the rough. I got a look from Ted that said everything needed to be said. On the sixteenth and seventeenth holes I went back to a two-iron off the tee and kept my lead to the end. I’ve always been grateful to Ted for that counsel and made it a for-all-time part of my game plan.” The second significant moment in Casper’s career was when he won the 1959 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, doing so with a miserly 114 putts over the seventy-two holes, an average of 28.5 putts per round. He had threeputted just one green, the tenth, a surface even more severely sloped then than today. “I was always a good chipper and putter,” Casper said, “simply because I was too lazy to practice the long game. I just hung around the green chipping and putting.” Pool Hall Bill • Billy Casper 53 Then there was the momentous incident when Casper suffered a serious hand injury after hitting a nine-iron out of a divot during the 1963 Greensboro Open. “A bone in my left had was moved out of place, and it affected the little finger of the hand. I played the following week, in Las Vegas, and was close to the lead but had to pick up. I was worried about my career being over. But a young man who had come to live with our family knew of a retired osteopath who manipulated the hand and effectively fixed it.” Indeed. The first time out after the rehabilitation, Casper won the Hartford Open. “That answered all my doubts about my future.” We have already reviewed Casper’s victory over Arnold Palmer in the 1966 U.S. Open, but Billy here adds a most interesting comment. He saw with his own eyes, and to his everlasting surprise, Arnold Palmer panic. “I had seen other guys tense up, panic under pressure, but not Arnie. But once it looked like I might get into his lead, his swing got shorter and faster, and even with a two-iron he was pull-hooking into the rough, which was very deep at Olympic that year. “It began on the sixteenth hole. I drive in the fairway, he pull-hooks into deep grass beyond where the gallery trampled it down. I get three shots back right there. On the next hole he pull-hooks another one and makes a bogey six with a great putt. I pick up another shot, and we’re tied. “On the eighteenth he pull-hooks again into deep grass; that’s three in a row. I drive it up the right side in light rough. Arnie hits his second to the back of the green and putts down to four feet. He asks me if he should mark his ball, and I tell him to knock it in. He does, I two-putt, and into the play-off we go next day.” The fifth great moment came in 1970, at age thirty-nine, when he captured the Masters in a play-off with Gene Littler, a contemporary who had emerged from the same outstanding San Diego junior golf program as Casper. That Augusta National victory also produced the most unforgettable single shot in Casper’s career. “I played in my first Masters in 1957, and once I had the experience I wanted to go back forever. But in 1959 I missed the cut and worried that I wouldn’t get back to Augusta next year. But I won the U.S. Open that same year, and I always remember that when I next came into the Augusta clubhouse Cliff Roberts didn’t congratulate me so much as he thanked me. He liked my being there, and that made me feel pretty good.
