Jim McGovern was fuming. As he walked off the 14th green during Sunday’s final round of the 1993 Houston Open, McGovern’s chances for winning his first-ever PGA Tour title seemed to be slipping away after an ugly three-putt.
McGovern knew it. His caddie, Mark “Ziggy” Zyons, knew it, too, and mumbled to himself as the two exited the green, or at least that’s how McGovern remembers it.
The next 80 yards were contentious, to say the least.
“I snapped,” McGovern told Golfweek. “We were jawing at each other and it was more me than him. I was angry with myself and he mumbled a little and I just snapped. I told him, ‘I didn’t want to three-putt and I don’t want to hear it from you.’ We kept walking and I just vented over the whole walk to the next tee.”
As they arrived at the 15th tee box, Zyons showed why caddies can be as instrumental as the clubs they carry.
“He dropped the bag and said, ‘It’s over. Let’s restart this and play.’ So we did,” McGovern remembered.
Indeed, the reboot worked.
McGovern hit driver off the tee, then hit another driver off the fairway to just a few feet away from the cup. He buried a short eagle putt and on this day in history — May 2, 1993 — McGovern went on to capture his only PGA Tour victory.
Even after the eagle on 15, though, there was plenty of work to do.
McGovern, who grew up in a home next to Hackensack (N.J.) Golf Club, went to a playoff with John Huston. On the first hole, Huston had a short putt to win the event, but missed.
On the second hole, both players had lengthy birdie putts — McGovern remembers his was around 35 feet.
When McGovern drained his, he assumed he’d won the tournament.
Huston’s putt of about the same length came in on a perfect line, but finished just a half-rotation short of dropping in the cup.
“I’ll be honest, I never thought he’d miss the first putt and I never thought he’d make the second one,” McGovern said. “I was almost wrong on both counts.”
McGovern never won again on Tour, although in his 386 starts he did crack the top 10 on 14 occasions.
The University of Arkansas grad is now the head pro at White Beeches Golf & Country Club in Haworth, New Jersey, which sits just a few miles from downtown Manhattan. On the anniversary of his big win, McGovern was back in the pro shop, as New Jersey reopened golf courses for business on Saturday.
He’s been working at White Beeches for a decade and says he’s thrilled to be there.
“The greatest thing about it is I get to drive home every night,” he said. “The travel started to wear on me, living in hotel rooms.”
McGovern has four kids and although he and his wife thought they might be empty nesters soon, the pandemic has forced the family to stay together a bit longer. One daughter, Melanie, commutes into New York City each day to work as a nurse, and that’s been weighing on McGovern, but overall his post-Tour experience has been a pleasant one.
“I have a lot of great friends here at the club, and one of them came up to me yesterday and said, ‘Happy anniversary. It’s almost the anniversary of the day you won.’ It’s special to look back on,” he said.
“I have a lot of friends at the club. I couldn’t be any happier.”