Coming of Age at 30

Fairway pundits have been trying to explain what makes Tom Weiskopf tick ever since he joined the professional golf tour in 1964. It became a clubhouse cliche that the rangy (6 ft. 3 in.) blond with the sweet swing had all the moves but none of the grit, cool or concentration of a true star. "We worry about Tom a lot," said one tour veteran. "We wonder if you looked in his ear whether you'd see daylight or cartoons or something."

This season the wondering has turned to wonderment as Weiskopf has put together the most spectacular streak since Byron Nelson took eleven straight tournaments in 1945. Over the past three months Tom Terrific has won five of nine tournaments, including the British and Canadian Opens. During that string he never finished lower than fifth, has averaged an extraordinary 68.8 strokes per round and has amassed $200,210 in prize money. "I know the wheel's going to fall off one day," he keeps saying. But still he keeps rolling. After two rounds in last week's P.G.A. Championship, Weiskopf was tied for third only two strokes behind the leaders. With no end in sight, there is some conjecture that Weiskopf has at age 30 discovered some new secret about the game. Yoga, perhaps? Pep pills? Magic? Prayer?

None of the above, says Weiskopf. How, then, has he done it? Let him count the ways: "Basically and simply, I have matured. I have set higher goals. I have worked harder. I am more determined to be a complete and better golfer. I am more sure of myself. I am more relaxed. I don't let adversity get the best of me." Personal grief played a part. "My father lived for golf," he says. "When he died last March, I realized that I hadn't accomplished what I should have for him. In watching him fight death, I knew I didn't know what fighting meant. I realized that it's easy to make an excuse, to give up, to find a way out."

His father, a trainmaster in Columbus, was an accomplished amateur golfer, as was Weiskopf's mother. Though they early schooled young Tom in the finer points of golf, his interests were focused elsewhere. "In high school," he says, "I competed in football, basketball, baseball, wrestling and track and wasn't any good at any of them." Giving in to the inevitable, he took up golf in earnest and "went from being a straight A student to a straight C." As a freshman at Ohio State he caddied for Upperclassman Jack Nicklaus, then the young master of amateur golf. Impressed by Nicklaus' exploits, Weiskopf quit after his sophomore year to become a "successful college dropout."

All Alone. At the 1964 U.S. Open, the first two pro golfers that he saw were Bob Rosburg and Terry Dill. One look at their imperfect swings and Weiskopf asked a friend: "How much money do they make?" Right then, he says, "I knew I could make it." And he did, up to a point, building his earnings from $11,264 to $152,946 over the next four seasons. Still, he was alarmingly erratic and a self-confessed "bundle of nerves." In 1967, for example, he led the Bob Hope Desert Classic after three rounds and then came apart so badly that he finished 27th. Later that season he was leading the Colonial Invitational after 54 holes before he stumbled through 13 bogeys to tie for eleventh. He needed comforting and he got it from his wife Jeanne, a former Miss Minnesota whom he had met when she was reigning queen of the 1966 St. Paul Open. "She got me out of my bad moods," he says. "When you play other sports, you've got someone to encourage you. But in golf you're all alone."

Now, with two children, a luxurious English Tudor-style home in Columbus, and lucrative endorsement offers rolling in, Weiskopf seems secure in the good life. During the 30 or so weeks out of the year that he is not playing in a tournament, he fishes with his own hand-tied lures and does his own reloading of rifle cartridges to hunt groundhogs and fox. His avowed goal is to achieve the grand slam of sheep hunting by bagging a Rocky Mountain big horn, a desert big horn, a Stone's sheep and a Dall. As for golf's grand slam --the P.G.A., Masters, U.S. and British Opens--he says: "The major champion ships are what golf is all about. If I can win a third of the 40 major tournaments over the next ten years, maybe I'll be considered the greatest golfer in the game. My best golf is yet to come."

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