Mondays with Murray . . . on Thursday night

With The Masters taking over at least some of our attention in the approaching week, here, for your reading enjoyment, is a column written by the late, great Jim Murray almost 50 years ago. . . .

MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1963, SPORTS
Copyright 1963/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY
 
JIM MURRAY
 
No News to Jack

AUGUSTA — Just when it seemed they were about to call this thing the "Geritol Open," the 1963 Masters was won by a 23-year-old golfer who wasn't surprised he did and almost won by a 29-year-old golfer who was surprised he didn't.
   If confidence could be bottled, Jack Nicklaus and Tony Lema would have more customers than Cassius Clay. "I have a lot of God-given talent for golf," Tony Lema observed thoughtfully after coming within one putt of tying Jack Nicklaus. "This will help my ambitions along a little bit," admitted Nicklaus as he accepted $20,000 and a size-44 green jacket for winning a tournament in which a lot of Hall-of-Fame golfers just try to survive the cut.
   Both of them toured around Augusta on Sunday as if they just got word everybody else in the tournament got struck by lightning. At hole No. 12, a moated 155-yard fright-wig reachable only by 7-iron, bridge or canoe, Nicklaus unaccountably found himself two shots behind in the tournament to creaky old Sam Snead who should have been afraid at his age that he'd catch his death of cold.
   "Keep smiling," Nicklaus told his caddy whose face was beginning to hurt from it about that time. Even a bogey didn't ruffle him. "I knew there were two birdie holes ahead," he sunnily explained later. There was only one birdie hole ahead as it turned out. But it was enough. Jack was only momentarily hurt at the fickleness of the real estate. So he birdied No. 16 which he had not relegated to a birdie beforehand, just to teach it a lesson.

Just Like a Prison Break
   Nicklaus plots a round of golf ahead of time as painstakingly as a guy tunneling his way out of prison, and only rarely have his calculations gone awry so that he comes up to a machine gun between the eyes instead of a trip to the bank. He now has won every major tournament he's been eligible to try for and may never get to find out how tough this game is if he keeps out of train wrecks. He's showed up here with a slight touch of bursitis which probably accounts for the closeness of his margin and the fact he didn't cinch it in three rounds. There were some par-5s he barely reached in two.
   Lema, a lifelong bachelor who keeps fit on champagne, was admitted to the Masters for his play in the working-man's tournaments on the winter circuit rather than the embossed-invitation route of former open winners, titled Englishmen, left-handed New Zealanders and venerable Scotsmen who remember Harry Vardon. It's kind of like a battlefield commission.
   Tony was helped in practice rounds by Ken Venturi who knew every reef and shoal in this troubled sea of grass, probably because he piled up on most of them in 1956 when he took an 80-stroke detour to the clubhouse on the final day and found Jack Burke had beat him there forcing him to go home in the same haberdashery he had come with.
   Tony ascribed his heady eminence to an unfamiliar condition — love. He met an airline stewardess he found he "cared for more than myself," a state of affairs so revolutionary that he proposed. He didn't lose his head completely, though, and withheld the lucky girl's name so she can make a few more trans-Atlantic crossings. Tony won $12,000, but he knows from past experience two cannot live as cheaply as one when one of them is Tony Lema.

'Favorite Way Down the List
   You have to look all the way down in the fine print of the finishers to find my favorite in the tourney, a little fellow with slant eyes and a swing to match who had all the confidence of a guy asking his boss for a raise or his wife for the night out.
   Chen Ching-Po is not much bigger than his 2-iron. He had the tallest caddy in the field and even if they could understand each other, could communicate only by shouts.
   Chen Ching can hit the ball about as far as Louise Suggs or Louisa May Alcott, for that matter. He comes from a country which has only one 18-hole golf course and a lot of trouble with the Chinese Reds. Formosa is not exactly Pinehurst — or even Pine Valley. Unlike most of the field, he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his hands but a Japanese bayonet at his back. He now is a pro at Tokyo and presumably gets even by introducing his one-time captors to the lure of golf — thus doubtless spoiling their afternoons forever.
   He didn't try to play the course like Arnold Palmer. He tried to play it like Confucius. It was about 15 acres too long for him so he took it by stealth rather than strength. He played with Tony Lema who frequently used a 5-iron where Chen used a 4-wood. But there were times when Tony had to putt first.
   Chen looked on the course like a paperweight with a golf stick. His introduction to the Masters came when he tied for the lead in the pre-date par-3 tournament with George Bayer. In the playoff, Bayer didn't have to be careful not to step on Chen's ball, he had to be careful not to step on Chen.

Chen Learned From Book
   Chen didn't learn to play golf until he was 17 when he found an old copy of Ben Hogan's book and carefully copied the illustrations by laying it on a practice tee in front of him. He showed up with a set of clubs from Australia, a swing from Hong Kong and he giggled when he reported that the only thing worse than his driving was the rest of his game.
   The banter in the press room had it that "his golf is like Chinese food: you tee off and one hour later you're still short of the pin."
   But for one day, Chen was Fortune's cookie. The rains came on Saturday and turned the golf course into a navigable water way and the tourney into a channel swim. Chin Ching shot a 71 but he saw nothing remarkable since he had done that the day before, too. Besides, golf in a rain of water is a picnic beside a rain of shells.
   He took home $1,100 which is considerably less than Chiang Kai-Shek got but it's a start. Chen thought it was first money. Nicklaus and Lema took $32,000, but everything is relative and, I have to think in his way, Chen Ching-Po was the other big winner in this outdoor pool game in the flower of the Confederacy. And if the rest of the folks at home are as plucky as this one, the mainland Communists better bring plenty of clubs if they want to play that course Chen grew up on 31 years ago.

Reprinted with permission by the Los Angeles Times.
 
NOTE: Edits have not been made to Jim Murray's columns to reflect evolving social sensibilities or correct the occasional mistakes that occur under the pressure of a daily newspaper deadline. Although Jim adapted to change over the years, some words and phrases contained in his columns that were once considered acceptable, but are now offensive, have been retained. — Jim Murray Memorial Foundation.

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation | P.O. Box 995 | La Quinta | CA | 92247

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JIM MURRAY MEMORIAL FOUNDATION SELECTS 
LA TIMES SPORTS EDITOR MIKE JAMES AS ESSAY JUDGE

LOS ANGELES — The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation (JMMF) has named the five judges for its 2010 Murray Scholars essay competition. Among the five judges selected is Los Angeles Times Sports Editor Mike James.
Judges will select the top five journalism students from 28 top colleges and universities to share the $25,000 in scholarship money from the JMMF.
This marks the 11th year the JMMF has awarded scholarships to the top journalism students in the United States. Scholarship winners will be announced in August.
Each year the JMMF selects a panel of judges from the sporting press to judge its national essay competition. Previous judges have included Chicago’s premier sports writer, Bob Verdi; the legendary Rick Reilly, USA Today’s Christine Brennan and HBO’s Frank DeFord, to name a few.
This year's selections, in addition to James, include Vic Carucci of NFL.com, Larry Dorman of The New York Times, Ron Green Jr., from the Charlotte Observer, and Vicki Michaelis of USA Today.
James commented, “Jim (Murray) was a gentle man who stood firmly by his principles, hated injustice, mocked hubris and had such timeless, singular style that any column he wrote three decades ago would stand up as a model of extraordinary journalism today. He spawned a generation or more of columnists who had read him religiously but who could never, of course, reach the heights Jim had attained. He was one of a kind. Period.”
The JMMF essay competition is made available to second- and third-year students attending top journalism schools in the U.S. Trinity College (Hartford, Conn.), Murray’s alma mater, receives an annual scholarship for a Connecticut-born student.
The five winners will be announced in August. As of 2009, the JMMF has awarded nearly $350,000 in scholarships to 68 students. Previous winners have gone on to work for the Associated Press, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post and CNN.
Linda McCoy-Murray, President and Founder of the JMMF, said: "The foundation is fostering a new generation of writers who depict a touch of Jim Murray humor while displaying humility, integrity, and a passion for the written word. The Foundation’s goal is to perpetuate Jim’s legacy, while inspiring young journalists nationwide. We are very pleased Mike James will be a part of the selection process this year.”
McCoy-Murray established the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Jim Murray Memorial Foundation to perpetuate her late husband's legacy and the love and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism.
Jim Murray joined the Los Angeles Times in February 1961. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1990 and was named National Sportswriter of the Year 14 times, 12 of them consecutively. His meritorious contributions to baseball writing landed him a spot in the writers’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1988.
Murray died Aug. 16, 1998, at his home in Los Angeles, Calif.
(www.jimmurrayfoundation.org)