Today is the 105th birthday anniversary for Cary (Doc) Middlecoff, the three-time major champion who was born in Halls, Tennessee. And two of America’s other accomplished golfers were born on this date. In 1957, Nancy Lopez was born in Torrance, California; she won 48 LPGA Tour titles, and in 1960, Paul Azinger, the 1993 PGA Champion, was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Ken Venturi had yet to win a major when he won the Los Angeles Open on this date in 1959. He had won six times in two years when L.A. was played in 1959. He shot 63 in the final round to win by two shots over Art Wall. He finally won a major with the inspiring 1964 U. S. Open. Also, a major champion in professional golf was born on this date in 1969. Shaun Micheel, winner of the 2003 PGA Championship, was born in Orlando, Florida. He is that rare major winner whose only PGA Tour victory was the major.
The 2001 PGA Championship winner David Toms was born on this date in 1967 in Monroe, Louisiana. Toms also won the 2018 U.S. Senior Open and is now mainly focused on the Champions Tour. Also, on January 4 in 1963, Arnold Palmer started his season at the L.A. Open with a 69.
U.S. golf pro Fred Haas, Jr., was born on this date in 1916 in Portland, Arkansas. Haas was a five-time PGA Tour winner but one of his lesser known claims to fame is that he was grouped with Arnold Palmer in Arnie’s second-ever PGA Tour event, the 1948 Dapper Dan Invitational at Alcoma Golf Club in Pittsburgh. Also, golf’s first $1 million event, the Million Dollar World Challenge at Sun City, South Africa, was won on this date in 1981 by eventual World Golf Hall of Fame golfer Johnny Miller in a playoff with Seve Ballesteros.
On this date in 1959, Arnold Palmer opened the PGA Tour season on the earliest date in his career, at the L.A. Open with 72, and would tie for 10th. Also, in 2007, Palmer was the Honorary Orange Bowl captain for Wake Forest; Muhammad Ali was the same for Louisville. Louisville won, 24-13, but Palmer and Ali earned a draw in the nostalgia game. Also, two-time U.S. Amateur champion Marvin (Bud) Ward (in 1939 and 1941), one of America’s standout amateur players, died on this date in 1968 at age 54 after a cancer illness.
Legendary amateur Billy Joe Patton, who had a stirring third-place finish in the 1954 Masters, died on this date, New Year’s Day, in 2011. Also, Jerilyn Britz, the winner of the 1979 U.S. Women's Open, was born on this day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1943. She attended Mankato State College and the University of New Mexico.
The stymie rule officially died on this date in 1951. The rule called for balls to be played as they came to rest on the green; you couldn't mark the ball and pick it up. That meant that if a golfer's ball stopped between the hole and another player's ball, that player had "laid a stymie" and the "stymied" golfer had to putt around the ball or in some instances tried to chip over the ball to hole out. To see an example, search for “Paul Runyan 1938 PGA Championship at Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort” to see old newsreel video of Runyan chipping over a stymie successfully in his victory over Sam Snead. Also, Champions Tour golfer Bob Gilder was born on this date in 1950 in Corvallis, Oregon. Gilder attended Arizona State and won six PGA Tour events.
All-time great Tiger Woods, who survived a potentially fatal car crash in February 2021, will have extra reason to celebrate today since it will be his 50th birthday, Still undergoing occasional surgeries to deal with chronic pain, Woods was born in Cypress, California, and is still presumably attempting to become the all-time winner in tour victories and major championships. He’s tied with Sam Snead for tour victories and is three behind Jack Nicklaus in majors.
Renowned golf course architect Pete Dye was born on this date in 1925 in Urbana, Ohio. Among his most notable designs is the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, venue for the annual Players Championship. The course’s main feature is the island green at the par-3 17th. A member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Dye’s designs also include Crooked Stick, Kiawah Island, and Harbour Town. He died January 9, 2020.
Affable Jimmy Demaret, a three-time Masters winner and good-will golf ambassador, died on this date in 1983 at age 73. He and Jack Burke, Jr., ran Champions Golf Club in Houston. Also, German golf star Martin Kaymer was born on this date in 1984. The one-time No. 1 golfer in the world and current LIV member has won two majors: the 2010 PGA Championship and 2014 U.S. Open.
Dave Marr was born on this date in 1933 in Houston. He won the 1965 PGA Championship but more indelibly he was a longtime ABC-TV golf analyst (later NBC) who set the standard for analytics that successors are still trying to achieve. He died in 1997. Also, steady middle-of-the-road American golf professional Charley Hoffman was born on this date in 1976. The San Diego native has four PGA Tour victories and two top-10s in majors. His highest world ranking was 20th.
On this date in 1993, the Senior PGA Tour, repped by Raymond Floyd, Jack Nicklaus and Chi Chi Rodriguez, won the Wendy’s Three-Tour Challenge at Colleton RIver Plantation at Hilton Head Island, S.C., shooting 11 under par. Also, born one year after the death of Young Tom Morris in 1875, fellow Scot Willie Smith was born and would develop into one of the game’s best players, along with brothers Alex and MacDonald, and win the 1899 U.S. Open. But like Morris, he would die young, age 40, from pneumonia on this date in 1916 in Mexico City where he had relocated.
May all Golf History readers have a blessed Christmas! This date in golf history will always be observed primarily as the Christmas Day Young Tom Morris died in 1875 at just age 24 in St. Andrews, Scotland. A four-time winner of the Open Championship by then, four months before he died his wife, Margaret, and newborn son had died while she was giving birth. Young Tom was distraught and is commonly believed to have died of a broken heart but in medical verbiage it was listed as a pulmonary hemorrhage. But Young Tom’s breathing may have been affected by a match he played in poor weather a few weeks earlier, which may have also compounded his deteriorating health.
At this festive season of the year, today and tomorrow’s day in history will feature a couple of deaths. Today on Christmas Eve, in 2003, Herman Keiser, the surprise 1946 Masters champion and Springfield, Missouri, native, died at age 89 in Akron, Ohio. Also, Margaret Curtis passed away on this date in 1965. She and sister Harriot were not only excellent players but were very charity minded. They were the ones to donate the cup that is played for in the Curtis Cup biennial competition between women amateurs from the U.S. and Great Britain & Ireland. In 2026 it will be held on June 12-14 at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, California.
Herman Barron was born on this date in 1909, in Port Chester, New York. He was a club pro at the Fenway Club in Westchester County, New York, and taught for many years but he was successful as a pro player as well. He won the 1963 PGA Seniors Championship and his victory in the 1942 Western Open is viewed as the first time a Jewish golfer won a PGA tour event. Barron also played in the 1947 Ryder Cup and finished fourth in the 1946 U.S. Open.
In a meeting in New York City on this date in 1894, the United States Golf Association was born with five charter member clubs. They were Chicago Golf Club; Newport Golf Club in Rhode Island; St. Andrew's Golf Club near New York City, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club near Southampton, Long Island, and The Country Club near Boston in Brookline, Massachusetts.
On this date in 1996, the Lexus Challenge ended at La Quinta Resort, with Hale Irwin and actor Sean Connery winning at 21 under par. Arnold Palmer and actor Chris O’Donnell shot 68-64—132, to tie for 8th in the team event. Also, the great showman Walter Hagen, winner of 11 majors including five PGAs, was born on this date in Rochester, New York in 1892.
On this date in 1954, Arnold Palmer married Winifred Walzer in Virginia. She was the woman he’d met on a Monday and proposed to on a Friday in September 1954, within a couple weeks of winning the U.S. Amateur, and would be the mother of his two daughters. Also, an LPGA Tour member, Hannah Green, the 2019 PGA champion, was born on this date in 1996 in Perth, located in Western Australia.
On this date in 1976, Arnold Palmer wrapped up a tournament partnership in the Pepsi-Cola Mixed Team Championship with scores of 73-73-67-71—284 at Doral in Miami, Florida, for a tie for seventh and $2,016.67. His partner? Sandra Palmer. The two weren’t related but had to field questions about being kin and siblings and had fun pairing up in the event. The winners were JoAnn Washam & Chi Chi Rodriguez with 275. The format had the team members tee off from corresponding tees for their normal course length, pick the drive they wanted for best strategy, then play alternate shot from there.
Bobby Jones, the great amateur champion, Grand Slam winner and president in perpetuity of Augusta National, home of the Masters Tournament, died on this date in 1971 at age 69 of the crippling disease syringomyelia. And on this date in 1983, Arnold Palmer and Laura Baugh Cole shot a final-round 71 at Monte Carlo Country Club in Fort Pierce, Florida, for a four-round total of 281 and tie for sixth place behind the winners Bobby Clampett and Betsy King at the World Mixed Championship, Dec. 15-18. Arnie and Laura had 145-65-71—281.