Al Geiberger on PGA Tour victory in Memphis 44 years ago, his golf mentality, ‘Mr. 59’

The oldest golf saying in the books is “beware the ailing golfer.”

Words etched into Al Geiberger’s memory forever long before he earned the title of “Mr. 59.”

Geiberger scored his famous sub-60 round – the first in PGA Tour history – at what was then known as the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic. What he remembers most about that day in 1977, however, is the Memphis summer heat. It was 103 degrees with high humidity, Geiberger said, and the conditions meant the round was a manifestation of the old saying for him.

“All I thought about that day was survival. … the round just evolved,” the 83-year-old Geiberger told The Commercial Appeal. “I didn’t start out thinking, wow, I’m going to shoot a good round, I feel great today. No, I felt like, ‘I feel terrible. Let’s get this round over with.’ “

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‘On a roll’

As the round went on, however, things started to fall into place. Though Geiberger did not realize he was on track to set a record, he recognized that he was in a good rhythm. Each shot he hit was falling where he wanted, and he was putting so well that he jokingly apologized to his partner at the time.

With a few holes left in the round, Geiberger didn’t even know how far under par he was shooting, he said. It wasn’t until he birdied the 15th hole, and fans in the gallery began chanting “59” repeatedly, that he knew he was close.

“The minute you start counting your score, you’re through,” Geiberger said. “When you’re on a roll, you just roll. You don’t stop and count and think or anything. Usually, if you do, you hit a wall.”

Geiberger shot the 59 on Friday of the tournament, and went into Saturday’s third round leading by six strokes. Soon enough, a new task became clear: winning the tournament. The gallery chants shifted on Saturday morning to reflect it, with spectators encouraging him to win it now.

All of a sudden, Geiberger said, the most pressure was winning the tournament, a feat which most of the other sub-60 golfers that have followed him have not been able to achieve. And after everything that happened, winning it all was going to be the hardest part. He didn’t break 70 on Saturday or during Sunday’s final round after briefly losing the lead but nonetheless sealed the victory after a 30-foot birdie putt on No. 14.

‘Good breaks and bad breaks’

Two weeks before he shot 59, Geiberger said he was fed up with golf. He had missed three tournament cuts in a row and had “the worst putting stroke” that caused him to miss a three-foot putt. He had won a PGA Championship 11 years prior, and yet here he was, convinced that he would never play a good round of golf again.

Playing on the tour for a living, Geiberger said, meant that this up-and-down cycle occurred often. One month he would be playing the best golf of his life, and the next, he would be doubting his entire career.

Geiberger believed it made him better equipped to handle everything that life would throw at him, including two divorces, removal of his colon, addiction to pain and sleeping pills and auctioning off his memorabilia collection to pay off debts.

Three months before he played in Memphis, his father was killed in an airway accident in the Canary Islands. And 11 years later in 1988, Geiberger’s 2-year-old son died tragically in an accidental pool drowning.

According to Geiberger, the way that he handled his son’s passing differed from the way his wife, Carolyn, did because of his experience in golf.

“In golf, you have a lot of good breaks and bad breaks, and how you recover, how you come back says a lot about how you’re going to handle life,” Geiberger said. “And his drowning was a bad break… So, I guess getting over that was easier because of my training from golf.”

As Geiberger has learned, a focus on survival can serve as a distraction and take the edge off. When expectations are at the lowest is often when the best things happen – like a 59 on a sweltering summer day.

Claire Kuwana is a sports reporting intern at the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Contact her at claire.kuwana@commercialappeal.com or follow her on Twitter @clairekuwana.