COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — It was America’s bicentennial year. And it was the first edition of the Memorial Tournament, which happened to end in a four-hole playoff.
But that inaugural edition at Muirfield Village Golf Club in 1976 will likely be best remembered for the colorful pants worn by the winner.
“I try to defend myself and say, ‘Remember, it was the bicentennial year. And that was my homage to America. Sort of a red, white and blue deal,” Roger Maltbie said. “But they were pretty ugly.”
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A five-time winner on the PGA Tour, Maltbie is better known now as an analyst for NBC Sports and Golf Channel. But the 74-year-old vividly remembers being the Memorial’s first winner half a century ago, beating Hale Irwin on the 76th hole of the tournament. It was a fitting end for the 1976 Memorial.
Playoff memories
“It was very unique and to my knowledge, hadn’t happened prior,” Maltbie said.
Tournament founder Jack Nicklaus pitched the idea for a multi-hole playoff to CBS Sports, who obliged with the 18-time major champion, agreeing to a three-hole aggregate playoff.
“That final round, I made 14 pars and four bogeys and shot 76 for even par,” Maltbie said. “The first birdie I made that day was 15, the first hole of the playoff.”
Irwin and Maltbie went shot for shot, both making birdies on 15 before shooting for par on 16.
“In the 17th hole, we both drove the ball in the fairway very near each other. But I was away, I played first and hit a four-iron for my second shot and pulled it left of the green,” Maltbie said.
That shot ended up bouncing off the bar that holds the gallery ropes, landing feet away from the hole. But Maltbie ended up missing the birdie putt; so did Irwin.
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“So we went to 18 and I drove the ball in the fairway,” Maltbie said. “I ended up with a birdie on that hole and he was putting for bogey or something. But that was that.”
Maltbie looks back on the events that transpired half a century ago and can’t help but think that luck was on his side.
“It was the luckiest thing to ever happen to me on a golf course,” Maltbie said. “No question.”
Traditions like one other
Maltbie never won a major, but the Memorial reminds him of the one that he got closest to winning. He finished tied for fourth at the 1987 Masters, a result that he’s since called the biggest disappointment of his career.
“Jack may not want to hear this, but there are many similarities with Augusta,” Maltbie said. “Everything is just buttoned up right. The golf course presentation is just immaculate and perfect for the players. The players couldn’t ask for more.”
It’s the hospitality and the details that have made Muirfield Village a popular stop on the PGA Tour and why the Memorial remains successful 50 years since Maltbie’s triumph.
“Those things have probably improved over the years,” Maltbie said. “It was just a cut above.”
A witness to history?
Maltbie, along with other patrons, reporters and broadcasters, may be a witness to history at this year’s Memorial. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler enters Muirfield chasing history, looking to become just the second golfer ever to win three Memorial titles in a row. Only Tiger Woods has accomplished the feat, collecting his triple from 1999 to 2001.
“To watch players like Jack [Nicklaus] and Tiger [Woods], there’s a certain amount of techinical precision and properness in the way they do things in a textbook way,” Maltbie said. “Scottie falls all over with his footwork and this and that, which is very unique to him. And yet is remarkably consistent. And on top of that he has a fabulous attitude.”
Regardless of what unfolds on the 18th green on Sunday, it’ll likely be just as memorable as the pants Maltbie wore 50 years ago.
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