John Schlee: Bio of Pro Golfer

John Schlee was a PGA Tour player in the 1960s and 1970s who won only one time on tour. But he is the answer to a couple trivia questions about the tour in those years, and later in life operated instructional schools where he taught what he himself had been taught by Ben Hogan.

Full name: John Harold Schlee

Date of birth: June 2, 1939

Place of birth: Kremmling, Colorado

Date and place of death: June 2, 2000, in Costa Mesa, California

His Biggest Wins

Schlee had one win on the PGA Tour:

• 1973 Hawaiian Open

In the Majors

At the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont, Johnny Miller played one of the best, and most-famous, rounds in golf history: 63. It was the first 63 ever scored in a major championship. It happened in the final round. And it won the tournament for Miller.

Trivia question: Who finished second in that 1973 U.S. Open? Answer: John Schlee. Schlee scored 67 in the third round to grab part of the four-way, 54-hole lead, along with Arnold Palmer, Julius Boros and Jerry Heard. And Schlee's 70 in the final round beat all of his coleaders, and most of the rest of the field, too.

After Miller posted his 63 and set the score of 279 for all others to chase, Schlee wound up the last player with a shot at tying Miller. But his approach to the 18th green, where he needed birdie to tie, went over the green. Schlee chippped to within a foot and finished one stroke behind Miller in solo second.

That wasn't the only major in which Schlee held the lead at some point. In the 1974 PGA Championship, Schlee shared the first-round lead and was the outright leader after 36 holes, before ultimately finishing 17th. In the 1978 Masters, Schlee was the first-round leader before ultimately finishing 42nd. That was his final appearance in any major (and one of his last tour appearances).

In addition to his second-place showing in the 1973 U.S. Open, Schlee had three other Top 10s in majors: tied fourth in the 1976 PGA Championship, tied eighth in the 1977 Masters, and tied 10th in the 1975 PGA Championship. He played in 21 majors total from 1967 to 1978, first in the 1967 U.S. Open.

Schlee missed the cut in the famously brutal "Massacre at Winged Foot," the 1974 U.S. Open. After opening with a 78, he gave one of the better-known quotes that year: "I don't know whether to practice or to cut my wrists."

More About John Schlee

John Schlee played collegiate golf at Memphis State University, and also, before turning pro, spent a couple years in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper. He made his first appearance in a PGA Tour tournament at the 1961 Memphis Open Invitational, and made the cut as an amateur. Schlee turned pro in 1964.

Another trivia question: Who won the very first PGA Tour Q-School? Schlee did that in 1965. After eight rounds of play, Schlee topped the field of 49 entrants, and the list of 17 "graduates" who earned their PGA Tour membership.

Schlee's rookie year on tour was 1966. He had his first second-place finish that year in the Minnesota Golf Classic. At the end of the year, Schlee ranked No. 47 on the PGA Tour money list, and Golf Digest named him Rookie of the Year.

The next four years were struggles, though. Schlee was 74th, 76th, 109th and 79th in those four years (1967-70), at a time when finishing in the Top 60 on the year-end money list was required to avoid weekly qualifying.

But in 1971, Schlee cracked the Top 60 on the money list for first time since rookie year.

His one big year was 1973. Schlee notched his one PGA Tour win at the Hawaiian Open, beating Orville Moody by two strokes after trailing Tom Watson by four to begin the final round. He tied Ed Sneed for the lead after 72 holes of the Kaiser International, but Sneed won the playoff. And Schlee had his second-place finish in the U.S. Open. At the end of the year, Schlee finished a career-best 10th on the money list.

He was runner-up in the 1974 Canadian Open finished that year at 37th on the money list, second-best of his career. That was despite missing time with a back injury in the latter part of 1974.

Back problems had plagued Schlee throughout his career, and from this point forward they dictated his schedule and, in just a few years, his retirement. He had surgery early in 1975 but returned to the tour just a month later.

Schlee made his last PGA Tour start in 1978, deciding that his back just wouldn't let him practice and play enough to maintain the necessary level of play. He was only 39 years old.

For his career, Schlee made 305 starts in PGA Tour events, making 232 cuts. In addition to his one victory, he was runner-up four times, third place once, had 15 total Top 5 finishes and 41 total Top 10 finishes. Three of his four runner-up showings are mentioned above, the fourth and last was in the 1975 Walt Disney World National Team Championship.

Schlee later got into 38 tournaments on the Champions Tour from 1989-91, but had no Top 10 finishes.

After his retirement from the PGA Tour, Schlee became a club pro and teaching pro. He became pro at Rancho Viejo in Texas, then, in 1980, became a teaching pro at Industry Hills Golf Resort near Los Angeles, Calif.

Schlee was, like many professional golfers, a Ben Hogan devotee. His first extensive meeting with Hogan was in 1969 when they ran into each other at Preston Trails Golf Club in Dallas and wound up playing 11 holes together. Shortly after, Schlee began meeting with Hogan at Hogan's home course, Shady Oaks in Fort Worth, to learn from the master. Hogan was Schlee's unofficial teacher for the next five years — perhaps not coincidentally the years of Schlee's best play on tour.

When he became a teaching pro, Schlee used his lessons from Hogan as the basis of his method. He wrote an instructional book called Maximum Golf, and taped VHS instructional cassettes under the same name. Schlee also ran golf schools in the 1980s under the Maximum Golf banner.

Schlee was only 61 years old when he died in 2000, a victim of early onset Alzheimer's disease.

Other pros who worked with Schlee carried on the "Maximum Golf" brand, sharing what they learned from Schlee and what Schlee told them he learned from Hogan. You can find videos on YouTube analyzing Schlee's swing as a way of discerning the things he was taught by Hogan.

Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf, 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Bertrand, Tom, and Bowler, Printer. The Secret of Hogan's Swing, 2010, Turner Publishing Company.
Brenner, Morgan. The Majors of Golf, Volume 2, 2009, McFarland and Company.
Elliott, Len, and Kelly, Barbara. Who's Who in Golf, 1976, Arlington House Publishers.
PGA Tour. The PGA Tour Book 1976, published 1976, Tournament Players Division, Inc.
PGA Tour. Official PGA Tour Media Guide 1978, published 1977, Tournament Players Association, Inc.
PGATour.com. Players, John Schlee, https://www.pgatour.com/player/02060/john-schlee/career.
Rubenstein, Lorne, and Neuman, Jeff. A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, 2006, McClelland & Stewart.