Boom Boom goes the Dynamite

Barry Jaeckel had to put down his drink, leave the bar and play some more golf. Talk about a fun Sunday afternoon. Gil Morgan had to unload his clubs from his trunk and get back on the course as well. Both men should have been grateful that they were still on the hallowed grounds of Congressional Country Club, instead of on a 747 heading to the next tour stop.

Morgan and Jaeckel teed off seven shots behind and several groups ahead of the 1983 Kemper Open’s 54 hole co-leaders, Scott Simpson and Fred Couples. Mark Lye was the only one of 81 players to break 70 at Congressional on a difficult final day. Morgan and Jaeckel shot 70 on the nose and figured they should at least stick around, or in Jaeckel’s case, catch a little buzz in the process.

Couples, then four months shy of his 24th birthday (a month older than Jordan Spieth currently), was chasing his first career PGA Tour win. T.C. Chen, then an unknown rookie from Taiwan who would later become known for his “two-chip” collapse at the 1985 U.S. Open, joined Simpson and Couples in the final group and they had an absolutely miserable Sunday together.

Chen shot the group’s low round with a 76 and the final threesome took well over five hours to complete their round (remember this was 1983 when pace of play wasn’t excruciatingly slow like today; the second to last group finished an hour before them). When both Couples and Simpson both putted out for 77, they joined Chen, Jaeckel and Morgan with a four-round total of 287.

A wild five-man playoff ensued. It could have been bigger, as another three players finished at even-par 288 for the week. Astonishingly, four players birdied the first sudden-death playoff hole. The odd man out? Barry Jaeckel.

Back to the bar for Barry, who would never add a 2nd PGA Tour title to his 1978 Tallahassee Open win. But he should be recognized to this day as being one of only three Americans to win the Open de France. The other two? Walter Hagen and Byron Nelson.

The other four playoff participants would head to the 16th hole to settle the score.

This hole holds great emotional value for me as it was the first hole I ever made a par on at five-years-old. Playing from the red tees as a 138 yard par-3 with a driver and 7-iron, before draining a 15-footer. Funny the things we remember.

But Fred Couples bested my three, from just over ten years in the future, and did so from 211 yards. Couples hit his 5-iron to two feet and his tap in birdie two held up against his three rivals.

Frederick Steven Couples was a PGA Tour winner.

Flash forward almost seven years to the 1990 Nissan Los Angeles (L.A.) Open and it’s a thrilling finish between three-time PGA Tour winner Fred Couples and six-time winner Gil Morgan, who incidentally has his best chance to win a title since the 1983 Kemper Open. Couples prevailed again and it cements his love affair for Riviera and the L.A. Open forever.

The winner of the 1990 Kemper Open held a few months later, ironically, was Gil Morgan. It was his last of seven PGA Tour wins.

By 1992, Fred Couples rolled into L.A. the 6th ranked golfer in the world. He took a one-shot lead into the final round but shot a lackluster 70 and was caught by Davis Love III. Couples won in a playoff with a birdie on the 2nd hole (sound familiar).

The tournament featured a playoff between two guys who would win five of the next eight tournaments on tour, including five in a six week stretch.

Oh, and some 16-year-old kid named Tiger Woods also made his PGA Tour debut that week.

When Love and Couples went on that torrid two month run, one of the wins was Fred’s only major title, the 1992 Masters. So this is a year of silver anniversaries for Freddy “Boom Boom” Couples (the silver anniversaries of two victories that have put him in rarified air).

Consider that only Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Billy Casper and Tom Watson had won at Riviera at least twice and Augusta at least once before Couples. In the quarter century since, three lefties have joined this club, Mike Weir, Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson.

Riviera means a lot to Fred Couples. The parallels between success at Riviera and Augusta are noticeable. Six of the nine men in the double Riviera with a Green Jacket club are multiple Masters Champions (everyone but Couples, Casper and Weir).

The golf world mourned when Fred Couples missed the Masters because of back problems last year, but they are missing something just as stunning this week. For the first time since 2007, and only the 3rd time in the last 37 years, Fred Couples is absent from the L.A. Open. This was where he had his last top 10 on the PGA Tour in 2011 when he held the 36-hole lead and was in the final group (trailing by 1) on Sunday before shooting a 73 to finish T-7.

Couples has picked up his clubs twice this year on the PGA Tour Champions and has trailed by one shot going into the last day of both events. He finished 2nd to Bernhard Langer at Hualalai after the final round was “winded-out” and cancelled and T-6 at the Allianz Championship. Not bad for a guy who only teed it up in four tournaments in all of 2016 (when he also had a 2nd and a T-6).

Couples is still playing good golf and would still draw a crowd in L.A., but he was humble enough to allow a sponsor’s exemption to go to a young star in need of a playing opportunity. Classy move Fred Couples.

Riviera will miss you Freddy but I know of one tournament coming up that you will not need a sponsor’s exemption. We’ll see you at Augusta.