– Gene Sarazen
I liked the old days when you could call a company switchboard and connect with a human.
I think it worked better than this leaving-a-message habit we have now. Sometimes it even led to surprises.
During one Masters Week many years ago, I was sitting in a nearly empty downtown newsroom listening to the police scanner so our more talented journalists could be out at the course pretending to be golf writers.
The phone in front of me rang, and the switchboard operator told me Gene Sarazen was on the line.
Even a pretend golf writer would know Gene Sarazen. His remarkable double eagle on No. 15 in the 1935 Masters not only helped him win the tournament but is often called the greatest shot in golf history. It would put the new Augusta event on the annual itinerary of the sporting literati for decades to come.