The details of a gritty U.S. Open win remain vivid nearly five decades later, but there’s not even a hint of hyperbole when Hale Irwin replays a memorable week that’s recorded in history as the Massacre at Winged Foot.
“It was difficult,” he said.
With a little encouragement, Irwin offers a little more.
“It was very difficult,” he added.
Many of the best players in the game walked off the West Course scarred – Johnny Miller, Gary Player and Tom Watson among them. Irwin’s assessment is typically accurate. The cut was 13-over par. Irwin was resolute from wire to wire, playing through all the grumbling and grousing directed at the USGA.
He posted a 7-over total of 287 to capture the first of his three U.S. Open titles.
“I think Winged Foot was certainly the hardest course I’ve ever played where weather was not an issue,” Irwin said last week from his home in Arizona. “It was trying. You got on the first tee and knew it was just going to get harder from there. Every shot was going to be challenging. You couldn’t get upset with a bogey because you were going to make them. My goal was to be very happy with par, on any hole. What I wanted to escape was making anything worse than a bogey. If you made a double or more that was a killer because you couldn’t make up enough strokes to offset that.”
That game plan suited the setup.
Peter McGarey is noticeably more enthusiastic when he recalls the details of that victory, right down to a stellar 2-iron on the 72nd hole that locked down the victory. He was there. Up close. Inside the ropes for every shot.
The 62-year-old home builder from Cincinnati was on the bag.
“Very few people believe me when I tell that story,” said McGarey, who grew up in Larchmont and began to work at Winged Foot at the age of 9. “And my wife is tired of hearing it.”
In those days, the USGA mandated players use loopers from the host club.
“Early on, you could shag balls at the range,” McGarey said. “My older brother started caddying so I did, too. It was a pretty good way to make money, plus you got to play on Mondays. Gene Hayden was the caddie master back then and he rewarded people for showing up on a regular basis. It was $6.50 a loop, plus tips. They always had tournaments and not just the member-guests. I was there for the 1972 U.S. Women’s Open and drew Jane Booth, who came in tied for sixth as an amateur.”
The family later moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, but wrote Hayden and the board at Winged Foot asking if McGarey could return to work the U.S. Open.
“I barely knew who Irwin was, to tell you the truth,” said McGarey, who was 16 years old that June and got the loop in a lottery. “He did have a couple of wins. You couldn’t Google things back then. Word of mouth was he’d done well in Philadelphia a week or two before.”
The relationship inside the ropes was cordial, but quiet.
“I wanted a caddie who was on time and not one who might attempt to influence how I was going to play,” said Irwin, who read the greens and picked clubs even. “I had a plan. Peter was a good caddie in the sense that he did what he was supposed to do. One day he may have been a little bit tardy and I mentioned that, but he did everything I asked of him. Peter kept up well, he was a nice young man and I enjoyed having him there.”
A little tardy?
“Hale was very nice, very strict,” McGarey said. “He was disciplined and expected the same from me. There was a set of expectations. I’m sure it was on Monday, I wanted to see Arnold Palmer. You wore those blue jump suits and Hale’s name was pinned to my back. Palmer was coming up to nine green so I was waiting. I had the bag with me and Hale grabbed the back of my jumper. He was not very happy.”
Irwin laughs about it now.
“Who wouldn’t want to watch Arnold Palmer?” he said. “We all did. I got to know Arnie better and better over the years. He was a great man and I don’t blame Peter one bit.”
McGarey went stride for stride with Irwin the rest of the week.
“Hale was a great player and only got better from there,” he said. “I’ve often thought, with the chances of winning a U.S. Open being so narrow, even if he needed to focus more because I was so young, I figure I contributed in some way. I was probably the youngest caddie on the course. Some of the my friends did not get the chance. They were spotting balls in the fairway. Hale was quiet. He was very focused. It was pretty intense. Saturday we were with Raymond Floyd and Sunday we were with Tom Watson and Hale prevailed both days against very stiff competition.”
Even a slight miscalculation came with a hefty price that week.
Many of the players swore the USGA was exacting payback after Miller shot a final-round 63 to win at Oakmont the previous year and the debate raged for years.
Gary Player was tied for the lead after 36 holes, but closed with rounds of 77 and 73 to finish in an eighth-place tie.
“I’ll never forget Winged Foot that year, it was so hard, the rough was so high,” he said. “I was leading the championship and hit the most beautiful approach on No. 4 and the ball went half an inch out of bounds. That really hurt. What a test that course was.”
Watson had a one-shot lead after 54 holes, but closed with a 79 and finished in a fifth-place tie.
And with the weather cooperating, the conditions are perfect for another week-long struggle. The rough is healthy and menacing. The greens are undulating and slick.
“The doom and gloom in the locker room several days prior to the tournament was palpable,” said Irwin, who collected 20 PGA Tour wins, including the 1990 Buick Classic at Westchester Country Club. “We were all walking around like, ‘How in the world am I going to make it through this week?’ You had to hit the ball in the fairway and I think these guys have seen that this season. Jack Nicklaus had the rough up at the Memorial and the rough was up for the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields. You’ve got to hit the ball in the fairway. That was kind of up my alley. I drove the ball straight and hit a lot of greens. I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes. We all made mistakes that week. It was very difficult that week and the greens were Winged Foot greens. Even by 1974 standards, they were very quick, so it had all the ingredients.”
And what happens if there’s a repeat.
“Well, there will probably be a lot of fines,” Irwin said with a nod to social media habits.
Twitter would no doubt be ablaze with commentary.
Irwin, is 72 now and plays select PGA Tour Champions events. He is also beginning a new venture with Keeler1930, a multi-channel digital platform that will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
“They have me kind of be up front, telling stories and bringing forth some of the history, talking about the individuals who have been instrumental in making golf what it is and some of the things that have happened through the years,” he said.
Irwin has no issue with the Massacre at Winged Foot label, which maybe credits the win more to attrition than skill.
“It was a massacre,” he said. “You can’t deny that. It’s like Custer and Little Big Horn. It was a massacre. There’s no better way to describe it and it does make for a title you can remember so that’s OK.”
McGarey is coming back to Winged Foot this week and will be a USGA volunteer on the driving range alongside his son after they go through all the COVID-19 testing protocols.
A flashback or two is entirely possible.
“The whole experience was incredible,” McGarey said. “When they got in the rough that week they were hacking it out. It was tough even finding golf balls in there. It was a large stage and being in the last group in a Sunday in a major was unreal. I had my own little mini crowd of followers cheering us on the entire weekend. After every tee shot there was a lot of, ‘Go Peter.’ I think Hale was in a zone. And on the last hole, there was a tee shot to the top of the hill, right side of the fairway, and then he hit that 2-iron right over the stick. Boom. It was crazy.”
Mike Dougherty covers golf for The Journal News/lohud.com, part of the USA today Network. He can be reached at mdougher@lohud.com or on Twitter @hoopsmbd and @lohudgolf.
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