Sport: Putting to Win

On the 18th green at Chicago’s Olympia Fields Country Club, in the uncertain twilight, Carl Jerome Barber squinted cautiously down the shaft of his putter at the ball. A long 60 ft. stretched between him and the cup, and Dallas Pro Don January, 31, would take the P.G.A. first money if Barber missed. Barber didn’t miss. He sank his putt and a tie was his. In the play-off next day, holing long putts with fresh assurance. Jerry Barber finished one stroke ahead of January to become, at 45, the oldest and smallest golfer ever to win the P.G.A. tournament.

It was his hot putter that did it. In 90 holes at Olympia Fields, he three-putted not a single green. Barber, a scrawny little fellow—5 ft. 5 in., 137 Ibs. —turned pro at 24 after licking every amateur around the Jacksonville, Ill. farm where he was raised. Recognizing his physical disadvantages. Jerry Barber patiently fitted himself for the game. He built up his wrists and shoulders with a daily regimen of weight lifting and calisthenics, spent hours exercising with a homemade contraption—a lo-lb. weight tied to a broom handle. Wherever he played for the money, he painstakingly stalked the course first, making observations and carefully noting down the pitch of every green.

He did passably well as a money player —$18,865 in 1955, $21,909 last year—but never quite made it to the top. In the 1959 P.G.A. at Minneapolis, he faltered and bogied the last two holes, dropped into a tie for second behind San Francisco’s Bob Rosburg. Last year Barber’s putter carried him to victory in the Las Vegas Tournament of Champions. But he wanted the P.G.A. and last week got it, along with the $11,000 first money. All the hard years now seem worthwhile. “I’m still enthusiastic about golf,” says Barber, “but I’m just beginning to learn what it’s all about.”