PERSONAL FITNESS ARTICLES

Was there ever a year in golf like 1960?

It was the year that the sport and its vivid personalities exploded on the consciousness
of the nation, when the past, present, and future of the game collided. Television, still a
new medium, provided a fresh window to this fascinating show and enabled this
rich mans sport to win over millions of new fans. Here was Arnold Palmer, the
working mans hero, sweating, chain-smoking, shirt-tail flying, winning, it seemed,
every tournament with a last-second charge; grim Ben Hogan, Arnies opposite, the
greatest player of the 50s, a perfectionist battling the twin demons of age and nerves;
and, making his debut in the big time, a chunky, crewcut college kid who seemed to
have the makings of a championtwenty-year-old Jack Nicklaus.

Curt Sampson is the author of four other books, including the best-selling biography Hogan. He lives in Bristol, Texas, with his wife and two children.