From the Golf Journal Archives – To Him Who Waits – An Amateur Championship
Nov 27, 2009
(Note: This article originally appeared in the October 1972 issue of Golf Journal.)
The history of golf is filled with tales of great players who have come close to winning big tournaments but somehow have not lived up to their promise.
History is also littered with great players who labored hard and suffered long before finally breaking through – Bob Jones and Ben Hogan quickly come to mind, and so does Bill Campbell, who first played in the Amateur Championship in 1938 and finally won in 1964. They found a way to win after discovering lots more ways to lose, and who is to say that their victories were not more satisfying than those of, say, Jack Nicklaus, to whom victories came quickly.
To the list of those whose characters were tempered by frustration before fulfillment, we now add the name of Marvin M. (Vinny) Giles, III, of Richmond, who won the United States Amateur Championship at the Charlotte Country Club, Charlotte, N.C., last month. His apprenticeship lasted not nearly so long as Campbell’s but all the same it was long enough. He shot rounds of 73-68-72-72—285 and he won by three strokes over Ben Crenshaw, of Austin, Texas, and Mark Hayes, whose current address is Fort Jackson, S.C. Marty West, who lives in Washington, D.C., finished fourth with 289. Gary Cowan, the 1971 and 1966 champion, did not play for personal reasons.
Giles had become an enigma in the Amateur. Over the previous five years no one had come close to matching his record: he was second by one stroke in 1967 when Bob Dickson holed a 15-foot putt on the last green at the Broadmoor Golf Club to save par and victory; he was second by a stroke in 1968 when Bruce Fleisher played a marvelous 3-iron shot 15 feet from the hole on the final green to preserve his par while Giles was closing with a furious 65 at the Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio; he was second by five strokes in 1969 when Steve Melnyk played the terribly difficult Oakmont Country Club in 286; he was sixth at Waverley Country Club in Portland, Ore., in 1970; and he was third at the Wilmington (Del.) Country Club last year.
Before that add the fact that in 1964, the year Campbell won in his 21st try, Giles was co-medalist with Bob Greenwood. And so for the last nine championships Giles has been in some evidence, but there was some question that he would ever win. The question was lingering as late as the 15th hole of the final round, just when Giles appeared to have the championship solidly in hand.
He had opened the final round at even-par 213, a stroke ahead of Hayes, two ahead of Bruce Robertson, a tall Stanford student, and four up on Crenshaw, co-champion of the NCAA, Eastern champion, Trans-Mississippi champion, Porter Cup champion, a thoroughly pleasant and promising young man. At the end of nine holes the picture had changed considerably. Hayes was in front by one, thanks to a bogey by Giles on the second and his own birdie on the third, West was third, two strokes behind, and Crenshaw was fourth, three over par, having thrown away a spectacular eagle 3 on the seventh by taking a bogey 5 on the eighth.
Hayes began to slip on the second nine just as Giles began to play some really first-class golf. Hayes made a 5 on the par-4 10th hole, and they were even. On the 13th, a solid par 4 of 462 yards with the green set high behind a rocky creek, Giles hit one of the more memorable shots of his career, a 4-iron drilled through the soft Carolina air four feet from the hole. He holed it, and then played a wedge approach five feet from the hole on the 14th and made that one, too – two consecutive birdies under pressure.
By then he was one under par for the 68 holes he had played, three strokes ahead of Hayes, four ahead of Crenshaw, and five up on West. Robertson had lost his chances when he played the first nine in 40, due partially to a 7 on that eighth hole, and he was no longer in the chase.
The 15th hole at the Charlotte Country Club is a 396-yard par 4, curling slightly left. From the drive zone the fairway drops very gently to a small green protected with one frontal bunker and two others on the sides. Behind the green the ground falls precipitously to an area of bare dirt, pine needles and rough. The commanding feature of the hole is a fairway bunker set on the left side in the drive zone at the point where the fairway begins its little turn. But, as Ben Hogan said when Bruce Devlin asked, the bunker is not in play. “You hit to the right of it.”
Giles did not hit to the right of it; he hit smack into it. He had a clean enough lie, but his recovery, hit with a 9-iron, soared over the green into the wasteland beyond, down among the pine needles and red clay and behind some low-growing evergreens. He had a narrow avenue through the trees to the green, but he could not pitch the ball high or he was in danger of hitting a tree limb. His third shot came out low, but too strong. It skidded all the way across the green and into the frontal bunker. Now the question was asked once more: will Giles ever win the Amateur? Here he had a clear three-stroke lead with four holes to play and he is in fair shape to walk off the green just one ahead with three hard holes coming up.
As it developed Giles had not thrown away the championship on that one hole. He came out eight feet from the hole, and although he missed the putt and made 6, he lost only one stroke to Hayes, not the two or three he might have, for Hayes had trouble of his own and made 5. When they left the 15th green Giles was ahead by two strokes over both Hayes and Crenshaw. West had fallen back with bogeys on 10 and 14.
The tension was relieved on the 16th, a 398-yard par 4 that doglegs to the right through an avenue of pine and clumpy, wiry rough. Giles hit the rough off the tee, but somehow nursed a 6-iron onto the back of the green, about 20 feet above the hole, and with most of a rather sparse gallery looking on, he somehow coaxed in that downhill, sidehill putt for a killing birdie. He threw his arms high, staggered around the green, and right then he knew he was the Amateur champion.
A poorly hit 4-iron to the 17th green and the resulting bogey mattered not at all, for Giles was three strokes ahead with one hole to play. He closed with a par 4 and 285.
For the second consecutive year the Amateur has a champion who is likely to remain an amateur. Giles is 29, and although he has in the past thought of joining the professional tour, he has evidently decided his future lies in the investment banking business. He is a member of the same firm as Harry W. Easterly, Jr., the USGA treasurer and chairman of the Championship Committee who doffed his robes of office in order to compete. Mr. Easterly played the first two rounds in 158 strokes and missed the 36-hole cut by four strokes.
It is not easy to recall a more popular victory than that of Giles unless we go back to Campbell. Included among that gallery watching him play the last few holes and lending whatever moral support they could were a number of players who had finished earlier. Most felt that Giles deserved to win because of his consistently good performances in earlier championships.
Ironically, his victory came at an unexpected time, for Giles himself had not been overly confident when competition began over that marvelous old Donald Ross course. He was tired from a hard summer of playing golf, and he was thinking that he would be glad when it was over. Then he went out and shot 73 in the first round, and even though he was four strokes behind Greg Stuhler and Mark Pfeil, some of the desire came back.
Stuhler is a 24-year-old Atlantan who studies law at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, N.J., and Pfeil, 21, is from Palos Verdes Estates near Long Beach, Calif., a student at El Camino Junior College. Pfeil is the Pacific Coast Amateur champion. Both shot themselves out of the lead the next day, Pfeil with 76, Stuhler with 77. They continued to drop farther back as the championship progressed.
This was the day that Giles moved into second place with a strong and steady 68. He made three birdies, one of them with a 50-foot putt on the seventh, and did not go above par on any hole. Giles then had a 36-hole score of 141, one stroke better than Robertson, who shot 72 to go with his opening 70, and two better than Bob Bryant, a local player, with 72-71—143. Crenshaw, meanwhile, played a rather indifferent round of 75 and finished at 146, five strokes behind.
Although he had been close so many times in the Amateur, this was the first time that Giles had led at the end of any round, and when the third round began to unfold, it looked as if he would do nothing but increase his lead and turn the championship into a rout. After three-putting the first hole, he made three birdies on the first nine, and when he rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt on the 10th, he was three under par and five strokes ahead of Robertson and Bryant. It was strictly no contest. Not until the 11th, 12th and 13th. He three-putted the 11th, a par 3, became entangled in the deep bermudagrass rough and bogeyed the 12th, and then was bunkered on the 13th and made another bogey. After still one more bogey on the 18th, he staggered off with 72 and his 213.
While Giles was losing strokes, Hayes was picking them up. Originally from Oklahoma, Hayes is in the Army and is serving at Fort Jackson where he works, naturally, at the golf course. He played the first nine in eight pars and a birdie, made two more birdies on the home nine, but lost a stroke in the rough at 14. He finished with 69 and almost without notice slipped into second place. For a brief period the next day he was even higher, but in the end, no one could deny the championship to Giles.
Giles would have another long wait before finally claiming a second USGA title. It would be 37 years – a USGA record for longest span between USGA titles – before he won the USGA Senior Amateur earlier this year. For more on Giles’ win at the 2009 Senior Amateur, visit http://www.senioram.org/news/final.html.
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Vinny Giles, Amateur champion at last. (USGA Museum)
In a moment when the championship seemed to be slipping away, a putt skims by the lip of the hole and Giles can’t bear to look. (USGA Museum)
The picturesque 11th hole, a demanding par 3 over a lake that calls for a medium to long iron and a lot of nerve. (USGA Museum)
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