For Sam The Price Is Always Right

"They used to laugh when I started putting like that," Snead said as he went for a cup of water on the 13th. "I'd see 'em snickering, and I'd always get those comments from the gallery. At the Masters one year Bobby Jones said, 'That's a helluva way to putt.' Well, I don't care what way it is, the object of the game is to get the ball in the hole and pick up the check. Putting is an entirely different game, anyway. You start out hitting the ball into the air, with a full swing, and you end up jabbing at it and rolling it. Hell, no, I wasn't embarrassed. Why should I be? I wanted to play.

"Funny thing is I go to these tune: aments now, and I see guys practicing the sidesaddle. Two years ago at the PGA Seniors I was 20 under, and all those old geezers were out there trying it. Palmer tried it on a practice green once or twice. Freddie Corcoran says they're even teaching it in England."

He hit his next shot, then walked ahead to a bunker, checking the card and pacing off the distance. He had done this on almost every hole, though it mostly went unnoticed because he walks so fast and does not hold up play. Chuck Kelly watched him.

"We were playing in a pro-am one year at The Homestead in Hot Springs, and one of the guys had a flask of brandy he was sipping," Kelly said. "He just wasn't taking the game seriously enough, and Sam got sore. He said, 'Listen, I don't give a damn if it's a pro-am or the U.S. Open, I play as good as I can every time I play, and I don't want to play with somebody who doesn't do the same.' He laid it on him good. Sam's that way. He'll work as hard here in five days trying to win $65 as he would at an exhibition for $5,000. He turned one down at Hilton Head not long ago. He said, 'How much?' They said, '$5,000.' He said, 'I'll stay home and play.' "

The match and most of the bets were even at the 17th, a straight-on 430-yard par-4. Snead chose a seven-iron from a point near a trap at the left for his second shot. "Little baby," he said to the ball, "I'm gonna have to put a hit on you...just cut this little seven in there...just cut it...." Whap. "Oh, that'll play." The shot bedded down four feet from the pin, and his birdie closed out MacCallum and the best-ball portion of the bet.

"You'll have a tough time getting a match the rest of the winter," Jim Raymond said.

"Especially from me," said MacCallum.

"Well, how close do you want it?" said Snead. "You went to the 17th."

"I want to win one," said MacCallum. "Last time I won was when we played in that sixsome. And you were my partner."

Snead grinned. "Well, the feller says, 'You gotta give it a shot.'" They left the green and he launched into a story about "a feller who accepted a million-to-one bet that he couldn't jump across a lake. He ran and leaped and made a helluva splash, and the other feller says, 'Why'd you take such a stupid bet? There's no way you can jump across this lake.' And the feller says, 'For a million-to-one I had to try.' "