Background

Samuel Jackson Snead was born in Hot Springs, Virginia, United States, on May 27, 1912. He grew up on a farm in Ashwood, the youngest of five boys. He also had one sister. His father, Harry Snead, was a hotel maintenance engineer, and his mother, Laura Anna Snead, ran the household.

Education

As a boy, Sam learned to hit a golf ball by imitating his brother Homer's swing. He cut a swamp maple limb with a knot on the end, carved a rough club-face with a penknife, leaving some bark for a grip, and swung by the hour. Beginning in 1919, at the age of seven, Snead and his friends would walk the two and one-half miles to Hot Springs, where they earned money by caddying at the Homestead Hotel golf club. Since shoes were only worn for school or church, he quit the long barefoot walk when the weather grew colder, but not before his toes were frostbitten.

As a teenager, Snead was considered a natural athlete. He played high-school football, baseball, basketball, and track, and appeared in three amateur golf tournaments. He avoided college, viewing it as time wasted from golf practice. Agile and double-jointed, Snead could kick to the top of an eight-foot-high doorjamb.

Career

Snead played in his first professional event in 1936 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with only eight clubs. At first, he missed a shot, but then shot 345 yards, arriving twenty feet from the pin. He carried his first putter in 1937 in the Ryder Cup tournament, playing on the team for nine years. Snead placed second in his first United States Open in 1937 at Oakland Hills Country Club in Detroit. With a complete set of clubs, he scored 284, one stroke over the record. Ralph Guldahl scored two shots better Snead and set a new United States Open record.

At the 1939 United States Open, Snead experienced the worst disappointment of his career. On the seventeenth hole of the final round at the Spring Mill Course in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he needed a par five to win, shot an eight, and lost to Byron Nelson and Craig Wood. Snead stumbled off the green, and Bobby Jones commented that he looked "like a fellow who has just been hit by Joe Louis."

During World War II, Snead served for twenty-six months in the United States Navy as a physical education specialist, before receiving a medical discharge for a back injury in September 1944. In November 1944, Snead won the Portland Open in Oregon with a one-over-par 289, taking home $2,675 in war bonds. Snead's military duty had meant missing income from tournament victories.

Snead played eight Masters Tournaments in Augusta, Georgia, before winning in 1949, the first year that any Masters champion received the famous green jacket. In the 1952 Masters, Snead scored 286, four strokes ahead of Jack Burke, Jr. In the 1954 Masters he tied Ben Hogan, beating him seventy to seventy-one in the play-off. He was the top money winner in 1938, 1949, and 1950, his best year.

In 1959, Snead was the first to break sixty at a tournament, with a fifty-nine at the Greenbrier in West Virginia, his home course. In 1965, at fifty-two years and ten months old, he was the oldest winner of a United States tournament, once again at the Greenbrier. In 1965, he also won his last tour event at the Greensboro Open in North Carolina. Nine years later, at the age of sixty-two, he tied third in the 1974 United States PGA championship. At the Quad Cities Open in 1979, he was the first man to beat his age on the United States tour, shooting sixty-six at the age of sixty-seven. Snead, who had putting difficulties, coined the golfing word "yips" for failures.

Snead's all-time eighty-two PGA wins included three PGA championships (1942, 1949, 1951), one British Open (1946), and three Masters (1949, 1952, 1954). His tour victories spanned twenty-nine years (1936-1965). Snead's unparalleled record included more than one hundred victories.

Snead co-authored twelve books, including the 1975 bestseller Sam Snead Teaches You His Simple "Key" Approach to Golf. He established Sam Snead Enterprises, an equipment company, and Samuel Snead's Taverns. In retirement, he maintained a winter home in Boynton Beach, Florida, and a summer residence in Hot Springs.

Achievements

• Sam Snead was one of the best golfers of his generation, earning eighty-one tour victories. He won the British Open (Open Championship; 1946), the Canadian Open (1938, 1940, 1941), and in the United States the Masters Tournament (1949, 1952, 1954), the PGA Championship (1942, 1949, 1951), and the Vardon Trophy (1938, 1949-50, 1955) for the best average number of strokes in PGA tournaments. He was a member of the winning World Cup teams in 1956, 1960, 1961, and 1962, also winning the individual title in 1961. He won the PGA Seniors tournament in 1964, 1965, 1967, 1970, 1972, and 1973; the World Seniors Championship in 1964, 1965, 1970, 1972, and 1973; and the Legends of Golf tournament in 1978.
  
  Snead won more PGA tournaments than any other champion, and conservative estimates place his world tournament wins at 135. He established two records in his many appearances at the Greater Greensboro Open: he won it more times (eight) than any golfer has ever won a single tournament; and, at the age of 52, he became the oldest golfer to win a PGA event with his victory there in 1965. Snead was elected to the PGA Hall of Fame in 1953.
  
  Sam was inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1973. In 1986, he was inducted into the Middle Atlantic PGA Hall of Fame. Snead was also inducted into the Helms Hall of Fame.
  
  Snead received the PGA Tour Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. In 2009, Snead was inducted into the inaugural class of the West Virginia Golf Hall of Fame and in 2016, Snead was the unanimous top choice for inclusion in the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame's inaugural class.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Education of a Golfer

    (From the pen of the late Sam Snead, this is the incredibl...)

    1962
  • Sam Snead Teaches You His Simple Key Approach to Golf

    (Golf legend Sam Snead reveals the keys to his smooth and ...)

    1975
  • Lessons I've Learned: Better Golf the Sam Snead Way

    (Snead shares the secrets and tips that have made him one ...)

    1989
  • The Game I Love

    (In The Game I Love, Snead mixes expert advice on golf wit...)

    1991
  • Sam Snead's Quick Way to Better Golf 1938

Religion

Sam Snead said: "I'm not really religious. But deep down, I believe. I know the Lord's Prayer by heart."

Views

Quotations: "Thinking instead of acting is the number-one golf disease."

"There is an old saying: If a man comes home with sand in his cuffs and cockleburs in his pants, don't ask him what he shot."

"The only reason I played golf was so that I could afford to go hunting and fishing."

"I always tried to remind myself of the great number of times I would follow a sequence of bad shots with a good one - or even a great one. As this was a possibility, I reasoned, then why not expect good ones to follow bad ones?"

"Practice puts brains in your muscles."

"Correct one fault at a time. Concentrate on the one fault you want to overcome."

"The two mistakes I see most often from amateurs are lifting up and hitting the equator of the ball, sending it into the next county; or taking a divot of sand large enough to bury a cat."

"The mark of a great player is in his ability to come back. The great champions have all come back from defeat."

"If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they'd starve to death."

"These greens are so fast I have to hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow."

"Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot."

"You will hit the ball farther more frequently when you don't try to hit it far."

"The fairways were so narrow you had to walk down them single file."

"You can not go into a shop and buy a good game of golf."

"There are no short hitters on the tour anymore, just long and unbelievably long."

"When I swing at a golf ball right, my mind is blank and my body is loose as a goose."

Personality

Snead's personality was far from harmonic. There were times in social settings he could be coarse and abrasive. He always was ready with an off-color joke. Snead was a fierce competitor.

Sam was a joker, hustler, and a natural, smooth swinger. He was the embodiment of effortless power.

Physical Characteristics: Sam Snead was 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) tall and weighed 185 lb (84 kg).

He had a back injury in September 1944.

Sam died in 2002 following complications from a stroke.

Quotes from others about the person

• William Campbell: "He was the best natural player ever. He had the eye of an eagle, the grace of a leopard and the strength of a lion."
  
  Tim Finchem: "No one will ever duplicate Sam Snead. No one will ever surpass Sam Snead because he was so unique."
  
  Ben Hogan: "Sam doesn't know a damn thing about the golf swing. But he does it better than anyone else."
  
  Jack Nicklaus: "He brought so much to the game with his great swing and the most fluid motion ever to grace a golf course."
  
  Phil Mickelson: "I don't think there's ever been a golf swing as aesthetically pleasing as Sam Snead's."
  
  Gene Sarazen: "Sam Snead is the only person who came into the game possessing every physical attribute - a sound swing, power, a sturdy physique, and no bad habits."
  
  John Schlee: "Watching Sam Snead practice hitting golf balls is like watching a fish practice swimming."

Interests

• fishing, hunting

• Sport & Clubs

  football, basketball, baseball

Connections

Sam Snead was married to Audrey Karnes Snead. The couple had two sons - Sam Jr. and Terry.

Father:

Harry Snead

(1869 -1947)

Mother:

Laura Anna Snead

(died 1940)

late spouse:

Audrey Karnes Snead

(died 1990)

Son:

Sam Snead Jr.

Son:

Terry Snead

Friend:

Ben Hogan

Friend:

Dwight Eisenhower

Friend:

Doug Ford

(August 6, 1922 - May 14, 2018)

Doug Ford was an American professional golfer and two-time major golf champion.

References

• Sam: The One and Only Sam Snead Until now, few people could truly say they knew Sam Snead - his fears, his secrets, his dark side. Until today, there has never been a definitive biography of one of the greatest golfers of all time. Sam is not only a peek behind the mask, but an arresting look into the life of one of the game's most engaging yet enigmatic figures.
  2005
• American Triumvirate: Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, and the Modern Age of Golf In this celebration of three legendary champions on the centennial of their births in 1912, one of the most accomplished and successful writers about the game explains the circumstances that made each of them so singularly brilliant and how they, in turn, saved not only the professional tour but modern golf itself, thus making possible the subsequent popularity of players from Arnold Palmer to Tiger Woods.
  2012
• I Remember Sam Snead: Memories and Anecdotes I Remember Sam Snead includes detailed reminiscences of Slammin's Sammy as told by dozens of the players and people who knew him, including Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Fuzzy Zoeller, early tour days traveling companion Johnny Bulla, and many other friends and golf writers.
  2003