The Masters: Ranking the 25 most exceptional performances at Augusta
By Bill Felber
11: Doug Ford, 1957 Masters, 283 (-5), Std. Deviation -2.50
The decisive moment of the 1957 tournament was an argument.
Standing in the 15th fairway, Doug Ford led Jimmy Demaret by three strokes, with Sam Snead another stroke behind. But Ford wasn’t comfortable, believing Snead could easily reach the green in two and might eagle. He wanted to go for the green, too.
For two reasons, his caddie wanted to stifle talk of such nonsense. The first reason was the three-stroke lead. The second reason was the fact that, faced with precisely the same shot one day earlier, Ford had gone for the green and found the water instead, walking away with a bogey.
In the locker room following the round, several players had upbraided Ford for attempting the risky shot under such circumstances.
“Gimme the goddamned 3 wood,” Ford told his caddie, who handed it to him with no small measure of reluctance. As it had done Saturday, the ball struck the bank just over the hazard. This time, though, it kicked forward onto the green, not back into the pond. Ford had his birdie.
It capped a day of smooth sailing for Ford, who began the day three behind Snead. But he played the final round flawlessly, birdieing six holes without a bogey while Snead managed nothing better than an even par 72.
Pars on 16 and 17 took any possibility of drama out of the 18th hole. Still, Ford finished with a champion’s flourish. Pulling his approach into a greenside bunker, he found the ball buried near the lip. Ford landed it well past the hole, dropping it onto a ridge that reversed its momentum and set it on a course for the cup and one last birdie.