“Jackie Gleason played golf the way he lived life, with bluster, laughter and scotch” plus 1 more |
| Jackie Gleason played golf the way he lived life, with bluster, laughter and scotch Posted: 01 Mar 2011 08:01 AM PST By 1960, Arnold Palmer was accustomed to being the most famous man on every golf course he played. Along with the young President John F. Kennedy, Palmer helped define a new vigorous ideal of masculinity for American men. He'd won the Masters twice and the U.S. Open once and even made the cover of Time Magazine, about as potent an emblem of mainstream success in 1961 as you could find. At age 30, Palmer was at the height of his fame and powers, but on a fall day in 1960, Palmer wasn't the most famous guy at Shawnee Country Club in northeastern Pennsylvania, not by a long shot. The big star was his opponent, the large and larger-than-life Jackie Gleason, who by virtue of his oversized appetites and reputation as a raconteur was as Dickensian as his most beloved television characters. Gleason was 45 and a show-business legend. A novice to golf—in the Brooklyn neighborhood where he was raised the games were turnstile jumping and hustling pool—Gleason had hosted one of the most successful TV variety shows in the 1950s, and during one magical year in 1956 filmed all 39 episodes of The Honeymooners. These were the early days of television, before UHF, cable, DVDs and DVRs, and The Jackie Gleason Show averaged a Nielsen rating of 42.4 for the 1954-55 season, which meant that 42.4 percent of the nation's households with television sets were tuned to Gleason's show. For perspective, the 2009 Super Bowl received a 42.0 Nielsen rating. During that Honeymooners season, Gleason was learning to play golf, which led to the classic "The Golfer" episode, where Gleason's Ralph Kramden, the volatile-yet-lovable, hard-luck bus driver tries to learn golf to impress his boss and get the promotion and raise that would never come. Gleason as Kramden enters the sparsely furnished Kramden apartment—the closest American television has ever come to showing an unsentimental working class, paycheck-to-paycheck life—and starts making comically awkward, lurching swings with a golf club. He's dressed in flamboyant golf attire (plaid plus-fours, argyle sweater, tam-o'-shanter), which clashes even in black-and-white. Art Carney as sewer worker Ed Norton, Kramden's good-hearted if slow-witted pal, enters the apartment with a golf book to help his friend. That's where Jackie Gleason the golfer was in 1956, so to be playing with Arnold Palmer in 1960 was pretty good. CBS filmed the match for a special called "Sunday Sports Spectacular: Jackie Gleason with Putter and Cue," where Gleason played golf against Palmer and pool against Willie Mosconi. Gleason grew to love golf so much that he eventually moved his entire show to Florida to play year-round. He even hosted a PGA Tour event there (the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic, which is now the Honda Classic), but his skill at pool, honed in the Brooklyn pool halls of his youth, was always his pride. In Gleason's acclaimed film turn as Minnesota Fats in The Hustler (1961), Gleason not only insisted on doing all his shots, he also claimed that he, and not the film's technical adviser Mosconi, taught Paul Newman how to play like a shark. Almost every visitor to Gleason's Inverrary, Fla., mansion remarked on how his pool table sunk into the floor like a gladiator pit with benches for spectators above it. They also usually commented on the nightclub-sized island bar, behind which the former CBS announcer Ben Wright remembers a mechanical gorilla pouring scotch. The producer of the CBS special was Frank Chirkinian, who virtually created televised golf in his almost 40 years covering the Masters for CBS Sports, and who remained a Gleason friend for life. Gleason had as much bravado as Ralph Kramden ever did; he and Chirkinian got the idea for "Sunday Sports Spectacular" when Gleason told Chirkinian that he could beat anybody in golf if he got a stroke a hole. As the reigning U.S. Open and Masters champion, Palmer was a natural pick for Gleason's opponent. "Jackie and I were friends, and we had played golf before and shot pool," Palmer said. "CBS wanted to get us together for the show since I had done some work for his show and they knew I was a Pennsylvania guy [because the match was at Shawnee]. I was a fan of Jackie's show, and we had a lot of fun together." Palmer was no slouch in the raconteur business either, and he and Gleason would have more fun together when Gleason moved to Florida in 1964. "We got together quite a lot when he was in Fort Lauderdale, and there was never a lack of food or drink," Palmer said. "He was so full of life on the course, always coming up with one-liners. He was just a special person, he had me laughing all the time. His stuff wasn't always stuff you'd want everyone to hear, but he was funny all the time. And he loved to play golf." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Match Play offers snapshot of golf scene Posted: 01 Mar 2011 11:03 AM PST MARANA, Ariz. (AP)—The PGA Tour could have skipped the West Coast swing and gone straight to the Match Play Championship, which provided a perfect snapshot of everything going in the world of golf. Europe looked as strong as ever. Martin Kaymer showed why he is No. 1 in the world ranking. Lee Westwood made people wonder why he was. Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler, when they're not making videos for Twitter, offered more evidence that their homemade golf swings are just as compelling as their fashion accessories. And has anyone seen Tiger Woods? Europe has been the strongest continent in golf over the last year, and Dove Mountain was no exception. Luke Donald of England and Kaymer (Germany) reached the championship match, the second straight year for an all-European final. Donald was so good that he never trailed after any hole in any of his six matches, and wound up playing fewer holes (89) than the winner of the Bob Hope Classic (92). Who would have guessed that? After winning, Donald said European golf was going through a "purple patch." For the Americans, it's more black-and-blue. Only two Americans have reached the championship match in the last five years—Woods and Stewart Cink in 2008. One year ago, Americans were Nos. 1-2-3 in the world ranking. Europe now occupies the first four spots in the ranking for the first time in nearly two decades. Woods is the highest-ranked American at No. 5, his lowest position since the week before he won the 1997 Masters. Before anyone writes the Americans off too quickly, they have had six winners on the PGA Tour this year. Then again, their average ranking when they won was No. 171. Watson at Torrey Pines was the only winner inside the top 75. The best American at the moment? Good question. Mark Wilson has won twice, at the Sony Open and Phoenix Open, which doesn't exactly make him a favorite at the Masters, where he will be playing a major for only the fourth time. Wilson advanced to the second round of the Match Play, and that was noteworthy for whom he beat—Dustin Johnson. There was little debate that Johnson was the most promising young American going into 2011, if not one of the emerging talents in the world. Two months into the season, however, he has only made news because of Natalie Gulbis and Jim Gray. He was linked romantically to Gulbis until the LPGA star said that Johnson was handling their PR. Meanwhile, Gray was sent home by the Golf Channel for asking Johnson in the middle of his round why he was late to the tee for a two-shot penalty. Speaking of tardiness, the Match Play Championship renewed talk about the pace of play. One week after Kevin Na nearly turned Riviera into a five-day tournament, J.B. Holmes took some of the shine off a riveting match because he was so deliberate. Watson rallied from 5 down with eight holes to play to square the match on the 18th and win it on the 19th. But the match took nearly five hours to play, and not all of that is down to rulings from the desert on the final two holes. The opening match of the tournament between Cink and Ian Poulter took over four hours before it reached the 18th hole. Part of the delay was when they each made double bogey on the par-3 sixth, prompting rules official Stephen Cox to tell Poulter on the next fairway, "Look, I realize you've both taken a trip to In-N-Out for a double-double, but I'd appreciate it if you would pick up the pace." Watson and Fowler won't get accused of slow play. Both of them bring old-school qualities to the game, and both are reaching the point where they can move the needle. Watson, with the pink shaft in his driver and a $525,000 watch he sported from a Richard Mille endorsement, came within one hole of winning the PGA Championship last year. He held off Phil Mickelson to win at Torrey Pines, and showed off his tremendous shotmaking at Dove Mountain. He's always had raw talent. Now he is getting comfortable with the spotlight. Fowler, dressed in pink from his shoes to his cap, hit two of the most impressive shots all week with his 4-iron to 15 feet for eagle on the 11th and a 4-iron to 2 feet for eagle on the 13th to hand Mickelson is worst loss ever in the event. Fowler went down the next day, not unusual at this tournament. He has all the tools to be a star except the most important asset, which is a trophy. But as Mickelson said in defeat, "I think he's going to do a lot for American golf." Mickelson remains an enigma. He played six straight weeks, from Abu Dhabi to Dove Mountain, with only one chance at winning. That's still one more chance than Woods, who remains the biggest mystery in golf. There is not much to say about the former No. 1, although that didn't stop TV commentary from gushing that swing coach Sean Foley said Woods' spin rate and launch angle were leveling out. Good to know. He lost on the 19th hole to Thomas Bjorn with a swing Woods had to rehearse too many times and a 3-wood into the desert. It wasn't as awful as it looked, for the right side of the fairway is the best angle to make birdie. Even so, he would have been better off missing the 8-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole that forced overtime than losing the way he did. Johnny Miller compared Woods with Mike Tyson, not because of Iron Mike's criminal behavior and outrageous comments, but because he was never the same after losing to Buster Douglas. The longer Woods goes without winning, it's not unreasonable to wonder about that. 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