Four Majors Won with Illegal Equipment

What if I told you a Hall of Famer won 4 majors using equipment that was deemed illegal on two different occasions over a period of five years???

It happened and this story is insane!!!

Tom Watson won 4 majors with illegal equipment.

The story starts in 1977, which was a hallmark year for Tom Watson. In 1977 Tom Watson claimed both the 1977 Masters & the 1977 Open Championship beating Jack Nicklaus both times by two strokes. The latter major was nicknamed “The Duel In the Sun.”

But 1977 fell under a cloud.

Tom Watson had completed one of the greatest years in golf history, but at the end of 1977 it was discovered that Tom Watson had played the entire year with clubs that were deemed to be illegal.

As it turned out Tom Watson, Gary Player and Raymond Floyd all played Ram Golf Clubs and after the discovery that Tom Watson may have been aided by illegal grooves, both Player and Floyd discovered that they too had played the season with Ram’s illegal irons.

The discovery was made at the last major of the year, the 1977 PGA Championship at Pebble Beach (yes Pebble Beach once hosted the PGA Championship).

The good news for Tom Watson, both the Masters & the R&A allowed the major championship victories to stand.

End of story…OR WAS IT???

As bad luck would have it, the controversy was not over, and Watson use of illegal equipment would rear its ugly ahead again five years later.

Once again Watson would win 2 majors in the same year, the 1982 US Open & the 1982 Open!

But this time it was his golf ball!

It turns out that Ram’s Pro Tour B Golf Ball - the same ball captured on film in Tom Watson’s miracle chip on the 17th was illegal!

Ram’s golf ball was pulled from tournaments & deemed under the legal size of a golf ball.

Tom Watson had two years of his career where he won multiple major championships and at the end of both of those years, he was deemed to have played equipment that was illegal.

He did so without his knowledge and ultimately the ruling bodies stood by the results and held him faultless.

As a footnote, I would be remiss if I didn’t share with you one small little factoid.

In three of those four majors…Jack Nicklaus came in second place.

The Wanamaker You Didn’t Know

When I say “Wanamaker” to a golfer, most of you immediately think of the PGA Championship and its trophy, the Wanamaker Trophy.

When researching Lewis Rodman Wanamaker, the man who essentially invented the PGA of America, the PGA Tour and our third oldest major championship, what I found was that his gift to golf was just a blip on his radar. As a matter of fact, if you scroll back the microfiche (sorry millennials) and you read Wanamaker’s obituary, there is zero mention of the game of golf, the PGA Championship, or the trophy which bears his name.

Lewis Rodman Wanamaker was the heir to the Wanamaker Department Stores. He was rich, he was eccentric and according to most resources, he was a recluse. As it turns out, Wanamaker’s passion was not golf- it was aviation and, in his time, he was considered one of aviation’s foremost visionaries.

Just a decade from the Wright Brother’s first flight, Rodman Wanamaker predicted that the airplane would become the dominant form of travel between the United States and Europe - a prediction that during his time seemed preposterous. Even the first aviator, Orville Wright condemned Wanamaker’s vision as silly fantasy.

Rodman put his money where his mouth was and built the largest airplane that had ever been assembled (at that time). The plane was delivered in the early teens and was designed to fly over the Atlantic Ocean, land in the ocean (presumably to refuel) and take off again. His plane named “America” seemed destined to become the first plane to make the Transatlantic flight. Unfortunately, America was destroyed in a storm and by the time it was rebuilt WWI had begun and all Transatlantic flight plans scrapped.

Wanamaker spent his entire life in support of aviation and a brief moment supporting professional golf. This week his namesake trophy will be handed to the winner of the 2024 PGA Championship. Lewis Rodman Wanamaker is memorialized in silver, but perhaps his greatest gift was helping us bridge the gap & conquer the sky.

How Big is the Wanamaker Trophy?

Forget its height and weight- in 2013 Jason Dufner appeared on the Howard Stern Show and declared that the Wanamaker Trophy can hold 43 beers.

As always thank you for taking the time out of your day to read our free weekly golf history newsletter. If you enjoy it, please recommend it to others. Its very easy to forward this email to anyone who you think might enjoy it.

Yours in Golf History,

Connor T. Lewis