GOLF’s 60th anniversary: A look back at the events that made the 1970s

From the inaugural April 1959 issue to the latest one that’s been delivered to your home, we’ve covered every moment, invention and trend in golf — a smart, independent voice for the game we love. We’ve made a bunch of aces (and a few double-bogeys) over the past 700-plus issues. Here, we celebrate some of the most memorable of them.

Let’s enjoy a trip back in time to GOLF in the 1970s…

Remember when…The Beatles Break Up, Disco Fever Heats Up, Microsoft Starts Up, Watergate, and Jack Nicklaus Wins 10 of His 18 Majors.

ICYMI: GOLF in the 1960s

Player of the decade: Jack Nicklaus

“Jack Nicklaus did not win the Grand Slam in 1972, a detail that obscures only slightly the fact that he became the singularly most dominant figure in golf since Bobby Jones. Nicklaus at his best was as removed from the common flock as Jonathan Livingston Seagull. He soared above everybody….Nicklaus’ success — especially the furor he created by winning the first two biggies in 1972—likewise spurred an interest in professional golf during midsummer that had not existed since Arnold Palmer’s heydey.” — “GOLF Magazine’s All-America Team 1972” (Jan. 1973)

Print the legend

“Only the color-blind will view 1970’s styles and colors with indifference. This is the age of prints and nowhere will the new trend be more in evidence than on the golf course.” (Apr. 1970)

50 Greatest Courses

“GOLF Magazine’s international panel of judges announces the first and most selective ranking of its kind.” (Oct. 1979)

Shaft!

”The golfer’s unrelenting pursuit of some kind of magic that will enable him to suddenly hit a ball farther and straighter has been likened by some to man’s age-old quest for (1) a ‘fountain of youth,’ (2) a cure for baldness and (3) a sure way of beating the races. And the report of any breakthrough, no matter how fanciful, is enough to quicken the pulse and send hopes soaring.” (July 1973)

Kick-ins (1970-1979)

BALLESTEROS: HEIR TO ARNIE’S ARMY?: Si! (Oct. 1978)

WORST CALL OF 1978: “After Jack, the Tour May Die: When Nicklaus leaves, so will the excitement. Today’s new pros don’t have it and the game is bound to suffer.” By Jim Murray (Nov. 1978)

BEST CALL OF 1979: “The Tricked-Up Open: Each year the USGA turns a good golf course into a trick track in an attempt to ‘identify the best player.'” By Jim Murray (June 1979)

ABOUT 21 MONTHS: “How Close Are We to Breaking 60?” (Oct. 1975)

TREVINO DECLARES WAR ON SLOW PLAY: Our endless war (Feb. 1973)

WHO PISSED OFF AL?: “The Masters: An Idea Betrayed? Did Bob Jones mean his event to become a combination spring sales convention and a snobby cotillion?” By Al Barkow (Apr. 1971)

WHAT A TEASE: “The Day Nicklaus Punches Palmer in the Mouth… And other predictions and postulations by the Golf Sage of Greenwich Village, Jean Shepherd” (May 1972)

…OR NOT: “A Monster Cuts Its Teeth: Now that the TPC has moved to windy, humbling Sawgrass, the pros may rename it the Terrible Predicament Classic” (July 1977)