Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont (54 page)

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Authors: Adam Lazarus

Tags: #Palmer; Arnold;, #Golfers, #Golf, #Golf - General, #Pennsylvania, #Sports & Recreation, #Sports, #United States, #Oakmont (Allegheny County), #Golf courses, #1929-, #History

BOOK: Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont
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His $18,000 paycheck aside, Schlee spoke gleefully upon leaving Oakmont in 1973.
“I’m just fortunate to be where I am,” he said Sunday evening. “It’s great to be the runner-up.
“No, I’m not let down at all. I only screwed up once in the Open. If circumstances were the same, I’d have been the winner in any of the other seventy-two Opens. But this one I lost because Johnny shot that sixty-three in the final round, something no one has ever done.”
Schlee promptly dismissed what reporters and fans naturally assumed: that his one “screwup” (the three-drive start to his final round) would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“No, not at all. After eight years on tour, you develop a short memory. You learn to block things out and go on.”
Like each of his fellow top finishers in the U.S. Open—Miller, Weiskopf, Trevino, Nicklaus, and Palmer—Schlee played in the next stop on tour, the American Golf Classic. His poor first round (a five-over 75) did nothing to slow down his great season in the making. Schlee played the next three rounds in one under par on the Firestone course—which, earlier in the week, he declared more “demanding” than Oakmont—and tied with Bobby Cole, J. C. Snead, and Johnny Miller for a spot just outside the top twenty. At three extremely challenging courses during the preceding three weeks, Schlee’s stroke average was 70.33; by comparison, Miller’s was 70.17.
Schlee’s experience in Great Britain’s most prestigious tournament, the Open Championship, wasn’t nearly as memorable. At Troon in mid-July, where Tom Weiskopf won, he finished dead last, in 153rd place. Schlee’s first and only British Open appearance actually ended partway through the second round, when he decided to withdraw.
As “America’s Runner-up,” Schlee was upset about being required to play in a thirty-six-hole qualifier to enter the Open. The extra rounds, just to earn a spot in the field, reminded Schlee of his harrowing Monday-qualifier days as a pro in the late 1960s. “Players of my caliber,” he said, “should not have to qualify. The Royal and Ancient should come up with some rule to avoid this.”
Schlee moved past his indignation and finished the 1973 season with a pair of wonderful performances. After a long break from the tour, he returned to compete in November’s Kaiser International Open Invitational.
The tournament was played over both courses at the Silverado Country Club, where Johnny Miller owned a three-bedroom condominium, and he was the undisputed favorite to win the Napa Valley event. Not only was there a reduced field (no Nicklaus, Trevino, Crampton, Wadkins, Weiskopf, or Casper), but Miller had just won the Trophée Lancôme, a prominent tournament on the European tour. But by Sunday, Schlee had upstaged the man who bested him at Oakmont by the narrowest of margins.
Despite a modest prophecy from the stars—“[nothing] exciting this month. Perhaps some of the faster-moving planets are in good aspect ... maybe Mercury and the moon”—Schlee grabbed the Kaiser’s top spot by shooting 66-67 in the opening rounds.
“[At] times out there today I felt superhuman,” Schlee said at the midway point. “For the first twenty-seven holes of the tournament I was twelve under par—and ten under the last eighteen—and then it was brought to my attention what I was doing and I promptly choked. For a couple of holes I couldn’t even breathe.”
On Sunday afternoon—while Miller carded zero birdies and six bogeys— Schlee took command and seemed headed for his second tour win of 1973. But hitting a tee shot out of bounds on the fifth, then posting a double bogey on the seventh, allowed Ed Sneed to catch and tie him by the end of the round.
“Ed and I are pretty good friends,” Schlee said, “and when we got to the first tee for the play-off there wasn’t much pressure. We knew that one of us would be first and one of us would be second and that was that.”
Schlee’s Achilles’ heel—losing concentration and getting swept up in the excitement—cost him right away. Throughout his career, he was easily distracted or, rather, he easily distracted himself (by the mid-1970s, he was deeply engaged in the study of “biorhythms,” in addition to his continuing fascination with astrology). Unlike Nicklaus or Palmer, he could only rarely sustain intensity throughout an entire golf tournament—not in his career year of 1973, and not afterward either. “He always had a tough time staying focused because his mind was so active,” recalled someone who knew him well.
At the 439-yard, par-four play-off hole, Schlee sliced into the right rough, then landed his next shot in a fairway bunker. He couldn’t make par and Sneed two-putted for the win.
“It was Ed’s day and Ed’s turn to win, and he beat the hell out of me.” Second place again, the third of his career.
At the final tour stop of the 1973 season, the Walt Disney World Open, Schlee broke par each day and finished tied for fourth, just three behind the winner, Jack Nicklaus. A sixth top ten that year yielded another big payday, and he finished the year tenth on the money list.
Schlee earned more money that season ($118,017) than in the last three seasons combined. With additional endorsement perks and higher exhibition fees, the Schlees were suddenly living the high life in Dallas. And the year culminated in a luxurious, all-expenses-paid, six-week sojourn with Gary Player and a few other international stars to give exhibitions, play a few tournaments, and vacation at all of South Africa’s top tourist spots.
Schlee backed up his growing reputation in the world of golf in 1974. He followed up a good spring, including another top thirty in the Masters, with a great summer.
A week before his much-anticipated appearance at Winged Foot for the U.S. Open—author Dick Schaap would keep close tabs on the self-proclaimed “National Runner-up” for his book,
The Massacre at Winged Foot
—Schlee grabbed the first-round lead in the IVB Philadelphia Classic. The defending champion, Tom Weiskopf, grabbed the headlines, however; among other low rounds, it was Schlee’s six-under-par effort that prompted Weiskopf to say, “[The courses are] too easy. I feel like I might as well be playing on the women’s tour.”
Schlee agreed with Weiskopf, but used his latest moment in the spotlight to talk about his second love: astrology.
“June was a good month for me last year, and it will be better for me this year.”
When asked if that meant he might win next week’s U.S. Open, Schlee proclaimed, “Unless there is somebody else who has a more favorable sign.”
Schlee finished tied for eighth at Whitemarsh, only to miss the cut by two shots at Winged Foot with consecutive 78s.
Although he was a Gemini and not a Leo, the stars seemed aligned for Schlee during a stretch from late July to mid-August of 1974. On July 20, with most tour stars playing in the British Open, Schlee shot a tournament-low six under 65 to spring into contention at the B.C. Open in upstate New York (he finished tied for fifth). The following week, in the more prestigious Canadian Open, Schlee collected a runner-up check behind Bobby Nichols. At the home hole, he sank an eighteen-footer to pull into a second-place tie and earn $10,000.
More than fifteen strokes off the pace in the following week’s Pleasant Valley Classic, Schlee withdrew during the second round to prepare for the PGA Championship. The tournament sponsors were unhappy, but his decision paid off. At Tanglewood Park in North Carolina, Schlee shot an opening-round 68—five better than his playing partner, Lee Trevino—to tie for the lead in the season’s final major.
As always, Schlee was colorful in his recap of the day.
“Man, I wish we were playing this next week,” he said. “This is not a bad week but next week’s better. In fact, my horoscope the rest of the year is good. When you have a good horoscope, you can relax, have a good time on the course. When you don’t, you struggle with your game.”
Once again, Schlee’s views on astrology captivated his audience in the press tent. In addition to explaining how the current aligning of the stars affected golfers like Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer, he commented on the plight of President Nixon, who had announced his resignation on the same day Schlee shot his first-round 68: “I feel real sorry for him. His sign indicated a bad week for him.
“Since my moon is in Sagittarius and there’s a rising sun in Aquarius, this should be a good week for me,” he told reporters.
The next afternoon, while Tom Weiskopf “went bananas” on the sixteenth green and withdrew, Schlee shot 67 to maintain a one-stroke lead at the halfway point.
“I think anytime anyone can find anything that gives him a plan to follow—whether it’s astrology, religion, anything—it has to help.”
“(Kermit) Zarley believes in the Bible, Schlee believes in astrology,” Trevino told the press corps that week. “I believe in making more birdies than bogeys.”
The Super Mex set about doing just that during the weekend, winning the season’s final major on Sunday; Schlee shot a pair of 75s to fall from contention and finish seventeenth.
Schlee finished the 1974 season having made the cut in twenty of the thirty events he entered, earning over $54,000, and retaining his exempt status by finishing in the top sixty. The year culminated in another all-expenses-paid exhibition tour for the entire family, this time to Sweden.
 
AND THEN, JOHN SCHLEE’S LIFE suddenly fell apart. His back—he’d always claimed to have “an extra vertebrae down there”—bothered him near the end of the season, and he elected to have surgery. Then, abruptly, his second wife opted out of their marriage. For the first time in a decade, Schlee was without a family to soften his personal eccentricities and his career ups and downs.
But Schlee was resilient. In need of money, he returned to the tour just a few weeks after the surgery (much earlier than his doctor advised). He even shot a third-round 65 in the Bob Hope in early February. Given his physical, personal, and financial ailments (the divorce was finalized midyear), Schlee performed well during the 1975 season, carding five top tens in just twenty-five starts (his fewest appearances since 1969). Most important, he finished fifty-eighth on the money list to retain his exempt status for the 1976 season.
Another significant surgery, this time to repair cartilage in his left knee, sidelined Schlee in the early part of 1976: A compulsive fixer-upper, he had fallen through the roof of his house while doing home repairs. Nevertheless, within six weeks, he shot a tournament-record 65 (matched that same day by Lanny Wadkins) in the Pleasant Valley Classic. In fact, he led the tournament after twenty-seven holes, then distracted himself by flirting with a girl who worked in the scorer’s tent. He finally had to be called to the tee, rushed his preparation, and quickly double-bogeyed numbers ten and eleven, falling from first to fifteenth place in the span of two holes.
And though the season was similar to the year before—fifty-ninth in tour earnings to barely retain his exempt status—1976 had a notable high point. Shooting impressive scores each round (71-72-70-70), Schlee tied for fourth behind Dave Stockton in the PGA Championship at the Congressional Country Club, where his caddie (for seven events during the summer) was Darryl Donovan, the now sixteen-year-old he’d babysat years earlier at Memphis State.
Schlee continued to hold his own on tour early the following season. Outstanding at the Masters tournament, he was one of only two players to break 70 both Saturday and Sunday. He even endeared himself to the crowd (though probably not to the Augusta brass) by snatching a rope barrier that divided the gallery from the players to measure the distance from tee to green on Augusta’s famous par-three twelfth; choosing the wrong club off the tee in earlier rounds had convinced Schlee that his caddie’s and the official yardage measurement were incorrect. Once the bizarre scene ended, Schlee selected a seven-iron and made a birdie two.
That eighth-place finish at Augusta National was Schlee’s only season highlight in 1977. Bothered by a sprained thumb he suffered at the Masters, Schlee missed the cut in the U.S. Open by twelve strokes, then essentially dropped off the tour with a meager $17,397.45 in earnings. For the first time since his “lessons” with Ben Hogan (which he incessantly talked about to reporters, fans, and fellow touring pros), Schlee failed to crack the top one hundred in earnings.
“I was hurting so bad at the Open last year,” he said the following spring, “that I quit the tour. I took the golf director’s job at Rancho Viejo [in Brownsville, Texas] and didn’t intend to play the tour again.”
Schlee felt secure in his new career direction, and he invited Darryl Donovan to move in with him for the school year to sharpen his golf game at Rancho Viejo, under Schlee’s personal guidance. But Schlee did get one more shot on tour.
With the help of fellow club professional Mike Morley, Schlee altered his extreme weak grip to relieve the pain in his thumb. He then sent Darryl back to Miami and began trying to Monday-qualify for tournaments. At first, he performed fairly well, twice making the cut in early season events, including a nineteenth-place finish in the Players Championship in March. And after one round of the Masters tournament two weeks later-his top-ten finish the previous spring had earned him automatic entry—Schtee looked poised for another career turnaround.
Schlee made the turn at one under, then promptly dropped to even par with a bogey at the start of Amen Corner. From there he birdied the next four holes to shoot 68 and earn sole possession of first place after round one.

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