Money Player

"I'm better under pressure than most," says Golfer Lloyd Mangrum, "because I'm a ham at heart. I'm also a gambler at heart, and I'll take a chance rather than play it safe. It's always better to be a winner." Mangrum was talking about golf's hottest current winning streak: five straight tournaments (in Australia and the U.S.) and close to $11,000 in prize money since November.

Looking like the gambler he claims to be--lean, tanned, well-tailored, and sporting a trim mustache--Mangrum has long played in the shadow of the Hogans, Sneads and Nelsons. Seldom winning the big ones, but plugging along at his trade with the gambler's instinct for the law of averages, Mangrum manages to play in more tournaments and win more money than any other touring pro. With winnings, exhibitions and bonuses, he figures that in the past five years he has earned some $300,000 from his golfing talents.

Notably unsuperstitious in a game notorious for its fetishes, Mangrum concedes enough to tradition to attribute his latest streak to a new driver shaft, specially made for him: "It took me 15 years to figure out the best shaft for me, and I believe I finally have it.'' A better explanation is his own steady game, carefully modeled on the best points of the past masters: the booming woods of Sam Snead, the deadly accurate putts of Harry Cooper, the chip-and-pitch artistry of Johnny Revolta, the long irons of older brother Ray Mangrum.

Big Break. Like most topflight golfers, Texas-born Lloyd Mangrum started as a caddy. And like most, he found that cracking the pro circuit was a discouraging business. For three straight years Mangrum missed meals, slept in fleabag hotels, and was grateful when he was lucky enough to pick up $50 in a match. In 1940 he got his first break: an invitation to play in Bobby Jones' Masters Tournament. Mangrum, then 25, blazed an opening-round 64, the best recorded up to that time in major-tournament play, and still a Masters record.

Mangrum's golfing career was roughly interrupted by World War II. From D-day at Omaha Beach, through France, Germany and Czechoslovakia, he picked up three Purple Hearts and four battle stars as a reconnaissance sergeant in Patton's Third Army. He also got a badly crushed shoulder and a broken arm from a jeep accident. But Lloyd Mangrum, durable and determined, returned to the tough tournament grind convinced that "golf is a cinch compared to what I went through in the war." His first year back, playing for the U.S. Open title, golf's most coveted prize, Mangrum coolly sank a 75-ft. putt in the final round to stay in the running, then won a tense triple playoff from Byron Nelson and Vic Ghezzi.

Big Business. Strictly a playing pro and hating to teach ("I charge $50 an hour, so even my friends will leave me alone"), Mangrum travels 40,000 miles a year by car, another 40,000 by air in pursuit of the tournament dollar. Money-Player Mangrum's biggest kick: the $22,500 he won in two weeks in 1948 at the "world championship" at Chicago's Tarn O'Shanter, his home course.

Mangrum's wife, his constant traveling companion, acts as business manager and secretary. "I need her," explains Mangrum. "This is big business." But at 38 Mangrum no longer feels that he is up to the demands of continuous tournament play. He also' feels that the competition is tougher than in Ben Hogan's heyday. "Those who have been trying for years are now coming into their own," tie says. "It used to be that four or five good players would take all the tournaments. Now there are 30 or 40 potential winners. That means you've got more players snapping at your heels all the time."

Last week, playing in the $10,000 San Diego Open, Mangrum finally showed the strain of his recent winning spree. After a fine opening-round 68, he slipped to a fourth-place finish ($840). (The winner, just as Mangrum predicted: up & coming Tommy Bolt, 34, unknown two years ago.) But Mangrum, who once said of Ben Hogan, "the little man is the only one in golf I've ever feared." is still the man to beat in any tournament he enters.

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