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Reflections |
Gary McCord
Professional golfer/commentator/author
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What can you say about Gary McCord that either he or Augusta National hasn’t already said? A professional golfer since 1974, McCord’s best finishes during his PGA Tour years were at the 1975 and 1977 Greater Milwaukee Open, placing second at both. He had just under two dozen top-10 Tour finishes.
Today McCord plays on the Champions Tour, and in 1999 won both the Toshiba Senior Classic and the Ingersoll-Rand Senior Tour Championship. His best finish this year was a tie for 35th at the Ginn Championship at Hammock Beach.
Known as much for his colorful and often controversial CBS Sports commentary and his signature mustache as for his playing career, McCord began as a golf analyst with the network in 1986. During the 1994 Masters he opined that the 17th green was so fast it appeared to be “bikini waxed,” and that its terrain looked like “body bags.”
That irked Augusta National officials, who demanded — and got — McCord’s removal from the Masters broadcast. While still covering golf for CBS, McCord has been notably absent from Augusta since the incident — you might call it annual high-profile exposure by not being there.
An author of two books on golf, McCord also was typecast as himself in the 1996 Kevin Costner film “Tin Cup.”
— Ed Hiscock, editor-in-chief
"The condition of (today’s) golf course has changed everything — it’s changed the way we swing at a golf ball, it’s changed the way they make golf balls. Before I came up in 1974 on the Tour, the agronomy was not the best. That’s why architects put bunkers on the sides, and you got grass and dirt and stuff, and everybody’s golf swing went down in, trapped it — scooted along on the ground. Then all of a sudden, the agronomy started to catch up. All of a sudden those fairways became pretty lush, and the ball set up. So instead of having to go down and dig it out of a hole and so forth, now the guys were kind of hanging back and flipping it up in the air. So all of a sudden it went from Army to Air Force… It really changed the way you saw guys swinging." |
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