NOTHING TO LOSE
20
He announces, very
loudly, ‘LEADING
THE MASTERS,
a young amateur
from the University
of Virginia,’ Giles
recalled. I tell you
what, I could feel my
stomach come up
right into my throat.
Previous Spread: Vinny Giles during his Sunday round at the Masters in 1968. Above, Giles escapes a bunker
at Augusta National. Of the 67 low amateurs to make the cut at the Masters, only 15 have shot even par or
better for the tournament, including Giles, who shot even par in 1968. The last low amateur to break par was
Hideki Matsuyama, who shot 1 under in 2011.
humming or singing as he was hitting a
shot. He was a great help to me all day. I
shot 72 again and now I’m only four off
the lead.”
On Sunday, Giles had yet another per-
fect pairing—the always affable Dave Marr,
who went on to a long television career
and, Giles said, was “a very special guy.”
Giles birdied his first two holes, even after
hitting his drive at the par-5 No. 2 into the
left trees. He chipped out to the fairway,
then bashed a 4-wood to 25 feet and made
the birdie putt.
“Now I’m thinking, ‘hey, I’m an ama-
teur, I’ve got to be right in the middle of
this thing and I’ve got nothing to lose,’”
he said. Then he walked to the sixth green
and looked over at a scoreboard. DiVicenzo
had gone eagle-birdie-birdie on his first
three holes and Bruce Devlin had birdied
his first three.
“I’m making birdies, and I’m going back-
ward,” Giles recalled. And then his tourna-
ment began to unravel when he drove into
the left trees at No. 7. There was a long wait
until the green cleared up ahead, and Marr
came over and asked him what he was
V I R G I N I A G O L F E R | M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 8
thinking. Giles told him he was planning to
punch an iron through and into the front
bunker and hope to get up and down.
“He says to me, ‘you see all those people
standing behind the green?’” Giles said.
“‘Why don’t you hit a 3-iron hard as you
can? They can’t all move out of the way.
You’ll probably hit somebody, but you’ll
have a chip or a putt.’”
Giles took his advice but ended with a
double bogey, and when he bogeyed the
par-5 8th, his chances to contend on the
back nine were slim and eventually none.
Instead, he shot 73 and finished at even-par
288. Goalby had a 66 that afternoon and
won at 11-under 277, a shot ahead of DiVi-
cenzo after the penalty had been imposed.
Giles was in Butler Cabin waiting to be
awarded the low amateur medal by Augusta
National Chairman Clifford Roberts when
the crestfallen DiVicenzo walked in and
said “what a stupid” he’d been. He had to
be in there as the runner-up, a shot behind.
“We all felt so bad for him,” said Giles,
who later won U.S. Amateur, British Ama-
teur and U.S. Senior Amateur titles. “And
I always thought Goalby took a bad rap.
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the players, couldn’t help himself. He was a
teaching pro from Georgia who knew Giles
when he was a three-time All-American at
the University of Georgia.
“He announces, very loudly, ‘LEADING
THE MASTERS, a young amateur from
the University of Virginia,’” Giles recalled.
“I tell you what, I could feel my stomach
come up right into my throat.”
The back nine was not quite as enjoy-
able. After needing only nine putts on the
front, he took 19 coming in. Despite hitting
eight of nine greens in regulation, he made
two back side bogeys and a 38, though he
finished with a respectable 1-under 71.
“I was tickled to death,” Giles said. “I had
no expectations at all going in. My goal was
to make the cut.”
That was accomplished on Friday, with a
far more pleasant pairing. He played with
Mason Rudolph that day, and when Giles
stepped off the first tee, he kept hearing
cries of “Go Dawgs, Go Dawgs” from the
gallery. Rudolph turned to him and said,
“if I’d known about that, I’d have worn my
Tennessee orange.”
At the fourth hole, a long par 3 to an
uphill green, Rudolph pulled his shot
slightly left, then watched it roll back
down the slope and into the crowd. As they
headed toward the green, Rudolph told
Giles “if that had been Arnie, he’d have a
12-foot putt. They’d have kicked his ball
right back up to the hole.”
Giles was even par through his first 17
holes when he hit his drive at 18 into the
trees down the right side. His brother-in-
law, Jimmy Watts, was nearby when he got
to his ball and kept yelling over to Giles,
“chip it out in the fairway, chip it out!”
“That was never really my nature,” Giles
said. “I had a slight opening to the green,
and I went for it. Hit a 3-iron to the front
and two-putted for a par, so now I’ve shot
72, I’m one-under after 36 and I’ve made
the cut.”
Even better, he was tied for 10th, only
four off the 36-hole lead of 5 under 138
posted by Gary Player and Don January.
And his partner on Saturday made the
third round just as pleasant as the second.
That was Julius Boros, with that lan-
guid swing and delightful demeanor. After
both men had hit their opening tee shots
in the fairway, Boros put his arm around
Giles and said, “son, if we play a nice
round today, we’ll be right in the middle
of this thing.”
“He couldn’t have been any nicer,” Giles
recalled. “He was so easygoing. He’d be