Sarazen, Eugene

▪ 2000

Eugenio Saraceni; “Gene” 

      American professional golfer (b. Feb. 27, 1902, Harrison, N.Y.—d. May 13, 1999, Naples, Fla.), won each of the four major golf tournaments (the Professional Golfers' Association, or PGA [1922–23, 1933], the U.S. Open [1922, 1932], the British Open [1932], and the Masters [1935]), played on six Ryder Cup teams (1927, 1929, 1931, 1933, 1935, and 1937), and invented the sand wedge (sand iron). Sarazen, the son of an immigrant Italian carpenter, began caddying when he was eight. In 1922, at the age of 20, he became one of golf's youngest champions with his first victory at the U.S. Open. In 1931 he had metal soldered to the back of a niblick (nine iron) to create the sand wedge, an idea inspired by the “lift” of the flaps on Howard Hughes's airplane. Four years later he holed with a four wood from 215 m (705 ft) at the fledgling Augusta National Invitation Tournament (the Masters). That “shot heard round the world” tallied as a double eagle—two shots on a par-five hole. What he considered the best shot of his career, however, came during the 1931 Ryder Cup, when he swatted the ball through a refreshment stand's open window to the green. His feat of winning golf's four major championships was matched only by Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Ben Hogan. At his last tournament, the 1973 British Open, the 71-year-old “Squire,” as Sarazen was nicknamed because of his elegant style and diminutive size, hit a hole in one. He admonished pros who avoided the British Open, and he decried the replacement of caddies by golf carts because poor youths were thus excluded from the game. Sarazen was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974 and received the PGA's lifetime achievement award in 1996. His autobiography, Thirty Years of Championship Golf, appeared in 1950.

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