Adams: When You Stick With It, Amazing Things Can Happen in Life!

Rocky  Balboa once said, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”

Craig Wood knew all about getting knocked down, and he did it on the world stage before getting back up in spectacular style.

Greg Norman was the Great White Shark, internationally known as the dashing championship golfer from Australia. He would lose all four of golf’s major championships in playoffs (Masters, US Open, British Open, PGA). Surely that fate had never been suffered before? It had…

Craig Wood was born in mystical Lake Placid in 1901. His dad was a timber company foreman and taught his boy how to handle an ax. The years of cutting wood led Craig to develop keen hand/eye coordination and powerful arms. In 1933 Wood drove the ball 430 yards at the British Open with a bunker finally stopping the ball. The jaws dropped of Scots that witnessed it, and they built a sign that read, “Craig Wood Drove Here.” Writer Bernard Darwin, the grandson of Charles Darwin, wrote: “That this happened, there is no shadow of doubt. As to how it happened, I give up.”

Wood did so with average equipment, a far cry from the titanium and graphite people use today. Legend has it if he were alive today he would drive the ball 500 an more yards.

Wood was known as the Blonde Bomber for how long he could hit the ball and his dashing looks. He would also be known as the first golfer to lose allfour major championships in extra holes, long before Greg Norman.

Craig Wood

Wood, pictured above, lost the 1933 British Open in a playoff after driving his ball into the Swilcan Burnon, the first hole of a playoff. He would lose the 1934 PGA in a playoff to Paul Runyan, who used to be his student. But it would be at The Masters that his misfortune would become the stuff of legend. He had a 3 stroke lead and was in the clubhouse with the 1935 Masters in the bag, or so they thought. The winner’s check of $1500 had been made out to him and his wife was holding it.

Out on the course the son of an immigrant carpenter stood above his ball on the par five 15th hole. Eugenio Saraceni, better known as Gene Sarazen, knew the next three holes were very difficult. He needed a miracle. He reached into his pocket to get a lucky ring a friend had given him and rubbed it on the head of his caddie ‘Stovepipe’ Nordwall.” He then he stepped up and hit the ball over 230 yards, and into the hole. It would be a 2 on a par 5, a double eagle.

To this day it is known as “the shot heard round the world.” A bridge is named after it today on the famed Augusta National Course in Georgia.

Back in the clubhouse Wood’s wife Jacqueline trembled as word spread. The wife of another player came up to her and said, “You’ll get used to this, honey.” Sarazen ended up tying Wood and beating him in a playoff the next day to become Masters champion.

Wood kept battling and became one of the top professional golfers in the world. By 1939, though, he still had not won a major. Battling Lord Byron Nelson in the 1939 U.S. Open, it seemed things might go his way, but in yet another playoff  Nelson’s 210-yard 1-iron shot resulted in an eagle on the fourth hole of a second 18-hole playoff, propelling him to the championship over Wood.

He had come up short in all four major championships, but he never gave in.

In 1941 World War II was raging on with America not yet involved. It would be a year that Joe DiMaggio hit in 56 consecutive games, Ted Williams became the last man to bat .400 and Whirlaway won the Triple Crown. Wood arrived at The Masters in April of that year and promptly led the tournament through the first 3 of 4 rounds. Before his final round, where heartbreak had hit him so often before, his caddy found a baby rabbit and hid it in Wood’s golf bag (I know – in today’s world the animal activists would have had a field day!).

Tied with the legendary golfer Byron Nelson after 63 holes, Wood shot a final-nine 32 and won by three. He was Masters Champion! Born in the small village of 2800 in Lake Placid, he had won what is to many the most prestigious golf tournament in the world.

He wasn’t done.

Two weeks before the 1941 U.S. Open, he fell in a sand trap and hurt his back. A sneeze while shaving one morning made it worse. Riding the train on the way to the U.S. Open in Fort Worth in June of 1941 he wore a leather corset and harness. He opened the tournament with a triple bogey 7 which was a downer. With the corset sopping wet from rain on Day 2, Wood was ready to withdraw until fellow competitor Tommy Armour talked him out of it. He would go on and win the U.S. Open by 3 strokes!

Craig Wood would become the first golfer in the world to win The Masters and the U.S. Open in the same year. Today, the one’s to have done that are:

Jordan Spieth (2015)

Amazing company! It shows you that no matter where you are from and no matter the obstacles, you can do it!

Wood won the U.S. Open the June of 1941. He was on a roll at age 39, but in December of that year we would enter WWII and professional golf was done for over four years. It has been said that the War had not stopped golf, Wood would have been the Arnold Palmer of that generation.

He never let these things get him down and lived a remarkable life. He would become golf pro at Winged Foot Golf Club in upstate New York and gave personal golf lessons to Henry Ford and Babe Ruth. He shot a 66 at age 66, and most importantly of all was known for what a good person he was and how he always helped others. Sam Snead, who to this day has more pro golf tour wins that anyone, including Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, said this:

“Craig Wood is the nicest guy I think I have ever seen!”

Today, there is the Craig Wood Golf Course in Lake Placid and legend has it that if you get real quiet on it, you can hear the mighty rip sound of Wood driving the ball hundreds and hundreds of yards.

Craig Wood, the man that hung in there.

Born in Oxford and educated at Ole Miss, Charlie Adams is a motivational speaker who specializes in sharing the fascinating back story of Lake Placid and the Miracle on Ice. His 90 minute to 2-hour presentation is filled with patriotism, the American dream, and the power of team. It is delivered to corporate, educational and church audiences. He can be reached at charlie@stokethefirewithin.com.