Nick Seitz Legend on the loose - Samuel Jackson Snead - Brief Article

Golf Digest, Jan, 1999

Samuel Jackson Snead was on his way to do a clinic for a group of executives, which would earn him a fast $8,000. But he was waylaid by an eager tourist who proposed a game. Snead's eyes widened and his homey mountain twang went up an octave with interest. All his pigeons are dead, he has lamented, but a live one had just landed.

"How about a hundred dollars?" the old game-ster began.

"I need strokes," the pigeon parried.

"I'm 86," said Snead. "We'll play even."

As they headed for the first tee, Robert Harris, the Greenbrier resort's director of golf, interceded to steer Snead back toward the clinic. "He can't resist a game," Harris says. "It's not the money. He was going to forget an $8,000 clinic to play for $100. He just loves a match."

Snead is golf's rejoinder to John Glenn. The Greenbrier, his five-star employer in West Virginia, is a National Historic Landmark. Snead deserves the same designation. This year, like most years, marks a cornucopia of anniversaries that dramatize his career. Fifty years ago, in 1949, he won the first of his three Masters titles, donning the first green coat the tournament presented, previous winner Claude Harmon helping him into it. Forty-five years ago he won his seventh and last major, beating Ben Hogan in a clas-sic Masters playoff. Forty years ago he shot the first 59 in competition. Twenty-five years ago he finished third in the PGA Championship at age 62. Twenty years ago he shot his age in a PGA Tour event. Ten years ago he came out No. 1 in an all-time ranking by the tour. Pause for breath and perspective.

Late in 1998 a visitor to the Greenbrier found its golf professional emeritus engorging a thick hamburger with a long table of corporate- outing attendees in the clubhouse restaurant named for him. The panoramic windowing showed off all three courses against a colorfully wooded mountain backdrop. The conversation bounced randomly across Snead's storied career. Somebody brought up golf-ball technology, and Snead remembered a Los Angeles Open when, with balls hard to come by because of the war, he played the entire tournament with one ball-a Dot that Bing Crosby gave him. "You could squeeze it," he said, gesturing with gnarled hands. Somebody else asked about Tiger Woods. Snead marveled that Woods won the Masters without three-putting, as he considers Augusta National's greens the most difficult in the world. He is not a fan of recent changes Woods has made in his full swing.

"I don't like the way he's shortened it. He doesn't give himself enough time now, and he moves on it a little, rushing to catch up. He comes with a fast swing. I remember playing with him when he was 6. His swing was whoosh-whoosh then."

The lunch disbanded, and on the way out Snead passed a comely young woman with striking red hair.

"Don't see many redheads," he said appraisingly.

She seemed flattered.

The next morning the visitor stopped by the tasteful, wood-paneled shop that carries Snead's name in the main hotel building. A fascinating crossroads of the commemorative and the commercial, the place fairly bursts with Snead-endorsed products and memorabilia, from clothing to prints to miscellanea such as duck decoys carved from wooden clubheads. One day a week Snead sinks into a cushy leather chair and signs everything that will hold still, including the decoys.

A replica of his outsized first book Sam Snead's Quick Way to Better Golf sold for a dollar in 1938. In the shop it's $29, or $54 if Sam signs it for you.

The typical customer appears delighted to buy something and exchange a few words with the legend as he signs it.

Snead: "How you playing?" Customer: "I can't get out of the sand."

Snead: "Keep your weight on your left foot."

Another man recalls watching Snead play a Shell's match in Atlanta decades ago.

Snead: "At Peachtree?" Customer: "Yes."

Snead: "Against Boros?" Customer: "That's right."

Snead went on to recap the match.

"This is just great," the man said as he left, thrilled. "A living slice of history." A large slice.