"You knew when you played against Billy Casper, Billy would not beat himself."Ĭasper won his first PGA Tour event in the 1956 LaBatt Open over Jimmy Demaret, and Casper won at least once each season for 16 straight years, a streak only surpassed by Nicklaus and Palmer at 17. I was also checking to see where Billy Casper was. "I have said many times that during my career, when I looked up at a leaderboard, I wasn’t just looking to see where a Palmer or a Player or a (Lee) Trevino was. "Billy was a fantastic player, and I don’t think he gets enough credit for being one," Nicklaus said Saturday night. Open at Winged Foot, he purposely laid up on the par-3 third hole all four rounds and got up-and-down for par each day. According to Golf Digest, Casper’s winning rate of 9.2 per cent trails only Nicklaus (12 per cent) and Woods (26 per cent) of all golfers who started after 1950.Ĭasper was a genius with the short game, considered one of the best putters in golf. Casper originally signed with IMG and then left.įrom 1962 through 1970, Casper and Nicklaus won 33 times on the PGA Tour, while Palmer won 30 times. Part of that was the marketing of Mark McCormack at IMG. He was overshadowed by the "Big Three" - Palmer, Nicklaus and Gary Player, whose rivalry sparked a revival in golf in that era. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978. Open at Winged Foot and the 1970 Masters. He rallied from a seven-shot deficit on the back nine at Olympic Club to tie Palmer, and beat him in an 18-hole playoff.Ĭasper also won the 1959 U.S. Open, one of golf’s most remarkable comebacks. His three major championships include the 1966 U.S.
7 on the career list behind only Sam Snead, Tiger Woods, Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Byron Nelson.
"Those who did compete against him knew how special he was."Ĭasper won 51 times on the PGA Tour, putting him at No. "I think it is fair to say that Billy was probably underrated by those who didn’t play against him," Jack Nicklaus said Saturday night. In any other era, Casper might have commanded more attention than he did. His son said Casper was going to cardio rehab for the last four months and was doing well until he started to feel badly in the last week. Casper passed out in the clubhouse at the Masters last year, had work on his heart and recovered from a bout of pneumonia over Thanksgiving that kept him hospitalized for a month.
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