NAPLES, Fla. — In an age when hybrids have changed the way many players traverse the golf course, the thought of a perfectly struck 1-iron hearkens back to a bygone era.
For Curtis Strange, the difficult-to-hit club proved to be the one that got him out of debt.
Before the PGA Tour Champions Chubb Classic, Strange was part of a Golfweek event at TwinEagles Golf Club, where he reminisced about a shot that had a tremendous impact on his life when he was still making the transition from a prolific amateur career to becoming a pro player.
Strange amassed about $10,000 in debt playing amateur events after wrapping up his time at Wake Forest. His need to become financially stable amplified when he then got married to his wife, Sarah. After a sterling collegiate career in which he never finished out of the top 10 in 25 matches, Strange was betting he could make it on the PGA Tour, but he had yet to earn his card and went Down Under for what he hoped might prove to be a lucrative journey.
During the final round at the Australian Club outside Sydney, he trailed Jack Nicklaus by a number of strokes but was in contention for a solo second-place finish and the position’s $22,000 winnings. Nicklaus, who won the Aussie Open six times during his career, collected $32,000 for a four-stroke victory.
Strange knew a few good shots on the final hole could pull him from the red into the black.
“When I came to the last hole I knew that to beat the other guy for second all by myself, I needed to make par,” Strange said. “It was a tough par-4 with a wind blowing, a little from the left and some in my face. I drove the ball well. I knew all I needed to do was hit the green and two-putt.”
That’s when Strange pulled out his trusty 1-iron.
“I hit that thing right on the button,” he said. “I dropped it right in the middle of the green, two-putted for par and took $22,000 home. There are some shots you just absolutely remember during your lifetime and that was one of them.”
Strange, of course, would go on to win two U.S. Opens in 1988 and 1989 and has collected 17 PGA Tour titles along the way. He was the Tour’s money leader thrice and was a World Golf Hall of Fame Inductee in 2007.
How did the runner-up finish at the Australian Open rank in terms of significance?
“That was the most important tournament of my life,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Curtis Strange got out of debt with a 1 iron
