Phil Rodgers: Early Nicklaus Rival, Later Nicklaus Instructor
Phil Rodgers was a brash, fun-loving young pro on the PGA Tour in the early 1960s, when he established a lifelong connection to Jack Nicklaus. Rodgers was an early rival to Nicklaus, although not for very long: All of his wins happened prior to 1967. But he did win multiple times on the PGA Tour. Later he established a reputation as a sought-after teacher of the game. And Nicklaus was one of those who benefited from Rodgers' help.
Full name: Philamon Webster Rodgers
Date of birth: April 3, 1938
Place of birth: San Diego, California
Date and place of death: June 26, 2018, in San Diego, California
His Biggest Wins
As an amateur:- 1958 NCAA men's individual championship
- 1962 Los Angeles Open
- 1962 Tucson Open
- 1963 Texas Open
- 1966 Doral Open
- 1966 Buick Open
In the Majors
Phil Rodgers' major championship resumé is topped by his playoff appearance in the 1963 British Open. Rodgers shared the first-round lead and held the outright lead after two rounds. After the third round, he trailed leader Bob Charles by two strokes. But Rodgers scored 69 in Round 4 to Charles' 71 and they tied at 3-under 277 (one stroke ahead of third-place Jack Nicklaus).So Rodgers and Charles played a 36-hole playoff, the format at the time. Unfortunately for Rodgers, it was no contest: Charles led by three after the first 18 and wound up winning by eight, 140-148. Charles' performance helped cement his reputation as one of the all-time great putters: He 1-putted 11 greens in the morning 18 alone. In the end, Rodgers took nine more putts than Charles, accounting for the final, 8-stroke margin.
Rodgers played in 39 majors over his career, recording seven Top 10 finishes. Two of those were third-place showings, and both happened the year before his playoff loss at the Open.
In the first round of the 1962 U.S. Open, Rodgers' shot into the green on the 17th hole lodged in a pine tree. Rather than taking a drop, he attempted to play the ball out of the tree. It took him four swipes to dislodge the ball, and he wound up with a quintuple-bogey 8. Three rounds later, Rodgers finished tied for third, two strokes out of the Nicklaus-Arnold Palmer playoff.
Then, at the 1962 British Open, Rodgers again tied for third — although this time, he was 13 strokes back of the champ, Palmer.
Rodgers held a two-stroke lead over Nicklaus after the third round of the 1966 British Open. But in the final round, Rodgers scored 76 and finished in a tie for fourth, while Nicklaus won his first Open Championship title.
Rodgers' first appearance in a major was as an amateur in the 1956 U.S. Open (aged 18), and his last in the 1977 U.S. Open. His other Top 10 finishes were sixth place in the 1966 U.S. Open, tied seventh in the 1972 PGA Championship, and tied seventh in the 1974 Masters.
More About Phil Rodgers
Phil Rodgers had a long rivalry and friendship with Jack Nicklaus. Throughout his career he was associated with Nicklaus, because they came to the PGA Tour very close together, and because when they did they bore a physical resemblance: They were beefy boys with blond crew cuts who each first won on the PGA Tour in 1962. And just as the media was always pointing out Nicklaus' weight (articles and headlines routinely called him "Fat Jack"), so, to, did they focus on Rodgers' weight. A Sports Illustrated headline in 1963 called Rodgers "Fat, Sassy and Sensational."It was unclear to many observers around 1960 which of the two had the bigger future. Rodgers probably believed he did: He was known for his confidence in his game, both on and off the course — what Golfweek once called a "loud and confident personality." Golf Digest, in a remembrance of Rodgers following his passing, referred to him as "the yin to Jack Nicklaus' yang."
Rodgers wasn't shy about showing his temper on the golf course, and he wasn't shy about bragging about how good he was. If he sank a long or important putt, he might race to the cup and throw his cap down over the hole. Rodgers was on the cover of that Sports Illustrated issue in which the aforementioned article ran, and on that cover the magazine called Rodgers "the brashest man in golf." The Golf Digest article already mentioned called Rodgers and Nicklaus "chubby, cocky and supernaturally talented with brilliant amateur careers. Jack always had that Teutonic discipline born of an Ohio pharmacist. Phil was Bohemian, the loudest guy in the grillroom, sandaled and Southern Californian."
By the mid-1960s, it was clear which of the two was the true prodigy, and it wasn't Rodgers. But he still recorded some big wins, had some even bigger near-misses (those majors mentioned above), and then later became a famous instructor largely based on his work helping Nicklaus.
Growing up in San Diego, Rodgers was regularly scoring in the 60s by the time he was 13 years old. In 1955, he began being tutored by two-time major champion Paul Runyan, and the lessons quickly paid off. Rodgers won the 1955 International Jaycee Junior Golf Tournament (two years before Nicklaus did the same). That same year he made his first start in a PGA Tour tournament, placing 62nd in the San Diego Open.
Rodgers spent two years at the University of Houston, the second year, 1958, winning the NCAA Championship (three years before Nicklaus did the same). He helped Houston win the team title, too, and was the first, first-team All-American golfer for the school at the dawn of its NCAA golf dynasty that last a couple decades. Rodgers also won the Missouri Valley Conference championship in 1958.
He left school after two years and spent the following two years serving in the U.S. Marines. But he still played some golf: In 1960, Rodgers and Nicklaus were roommates in the Crow's Nest atop the Augusta National clubhouse during the 1960 Masters, which they both played as amateurs. (Nicklaus tied for 13th, Rodgers missed the cut.)
Rodgers turned pro in 1961, and through the end of 1963 he won five pro tournaments (four of them PGA Tour titles), finished third in two majors in 1962 and lost in a playoff at a major in 1963. It was a blazing-fast start that turned heads and got him on magazine covers. But it also turned out to be the most-successful period of his pro career.
Rodgers' first pro win was in the 1961 Sahara Pro-Am. That tournament later became a PGA Tour event called the Sahara Invitational, but it wasn't a tour event at the time of Rodgers' victory. So his first PGA Tour win was the 1962 Los Angeles Open — the tournament in which Nicklaus made his pro debut, winning a paycheck of $33.33. Rodgers blistered the field, scoring a course-record 62 in the final round and winning by nine strokes.
A little over a month later, Rodgers won again. He holed a 65-foot chip shot for eagle on the last green to win the Tucson Open. His score of 263 tied the tournament record and was never beaten in that event.
In June he just missed out on the playoff at the 1962 U.S. Open, where Nicklaus defeated Palmer in a playoff for Nicklaus' first PGA Tour win. And in July Rodgers was third in another major, the Open Championship. He finished the year 11th on the money list.
Rodgers had one victory in 1963 at the Texas Open, then didn't win again until 1966. But in 1965, he made news at the Azalea Open. Rodgers and Dick Hart went into a sudden-death playoff that turned out to be not-so-sudden: Hart finally won it on the eighth playoff hole. At the time, it was reported in many stories as the longest sudden-death playoff in PGA Tour history. It wasn't (there was an 11-holer a couple decades earlier). But that playoff is still tied today for the second-longest ever on the PGA Tour.
One week later, Rodgers was runner-up to Sam Snead in the 1965 Greater Greensboro Open. It was Snead's eighth career win in that event, setting a PGA Tour record for most wins in one tournament.
In 1966, Rodgers won the Doral Open by one stroke and the Buick Open by two strokes. And both wins were notable in the history of golf equipment: Rodgers, at Runyan's suggestion, used a longer putter that he anchored against his belly. It was the first-known time the anchored "belly putter" technique was used to win on any professional golf tour. Rodgers ended the season a career-best sixth on the money list. He was 28 years old at the end of the year, no longer considered a true rival to Nicklaus but still with a solid career and coming off his highest money-list finish. But Rodgers never won again on the PGA Tour.
He developed medical issues in both his hands. In one of them, Rodgers suffered tendon damage in 1967 when a fan gave him a crunching handshake. The issues put his play into a tailspin for several seasons.
At that point, Rodgers had finished in the Top 60 on the money list (the cutoff at the time to avoid weekly qualifying) every year from 1961 through 1967. That streak ended the remaining years of the 1960s.
But, although he didn't win in the 1970s, his game did revive a bit, and he climbed back into the Top 60 in earnings in 1970-72. Rodgers recorded his last runner-up finishes in the 1971 Liggett & Myers Open Match Play Championship (losing to DeWitt Weaver in the stroke-play knockout championship match); and at the 1973 Andy Williams-San Diego Open.
His tour appearances began dwindling in the late 1970s and he was essentially retired from the tour after 1980, although he continued making a handful appearances until 1985. All told, Rodgers made 462 career starts on the PGA Tour. In addition to his five wins, he was runner-up seven times, third place seven times, and had 62 total Top 10 finishes.
He made his first start on the Champions Tour in 1988, his last in 1998. For his career in senior golf, Rodgers made 141 starts on the Champions Tour with no wins, one second-place finish, and eight total Top 10 showings.
That career-best second place on the Champions Tour? It was in a major, the 1991 Tradition. Rodgers tied for second, one stroke behind the winner: Nicklaus.
But by that point Rodgers was probably as famous for golf instruction as for golf tournament play. Beginning in the mid-1970s he began to develop a reputation as a go-to instructor, in part for his ability to convey Runyan's short-game tips and tricks. Rodgers' teaching profile exploded after Nicklaus came to him for short-game help following a winless 1979.
"Phil totally revamped my short game and gave me confidence," Nicklaus later said. And it immediately paid off for Nicklaus, who won both the U.S. Open and 1980 PGA Championship in 1980.
His profile as a teacher rose again after an Australian millionaire paid Rodgers $50,000 (an astonishing sum at the time in golf instruction) for two weeks of intense instruction after Nicklaus gave his recommendation.
Other major winners he worked with included Greg Norman and Steve Elkington. In 1986, Al Barkow was Rodgers' co-author of an instructional book, A Unique Teacher of the Pros Shows You How to Play Lower Handicap Golf (affiliate link).
Rodgers also made several TV appearances earlier in his career. In the 1963 Golf Challenge, Rodgers and Nicklaus played against Palmer and Gary Player. He was featured three times on the Shell's Wonderful World of Golf series: in 1963 vs. Frank Phillips; in 1965 vs. Alfonso Angelini; and in 1968 vs. Dave Thomas.
Rodgers died at the age of 80 after dealing for many years with leukemia. After his death, Nicklaus wrote on Twitter: "My heart hurts today after the passing of dear friend, Phil Rodgers. I knew Phil for almost 65 years. Terrific ball-striker and great short game, he became a gifted teacher. Phil reinvented my short game in 1980 and I won two majors that year. Miss him already."
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf, 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Bingham, Walter. "Fat, Sassy and Sensational," Sports Illustrated, January 14, 1963, https://vault.si.com/vault/1963/01/14/fat-sassy-and-sensational.
Brenner, Morgan. The Majors of Golf, Volume 2, 2009, McFarland and Company.
Conner, Floyd. Golf's Most Wanted, 2001, Brassey's Inc.
Elliott, Len, and Kelly, Barbara. Who's Who in Golf, 1976, Arlington House Publishers.
Nicklaus, Jack. Twitter.com, June 26, 2018, https://x.com/jacknicklaus/status/1011776138241347584.
PGATour.com. Players, Phil Rodgers, https://www.pgatour.com/player/02014/phil-rodgers/career.
PGA Tournament Players Division. The Tour Book 1970, Biographies, Phil Rodgers.
Reuters. "Phil Rodgers, ‘Brashest Man in Golf,’ Is Dead at 80," via New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/obituaries/phil-rodgers-brashest-man-in-golf-is-dead-at-80.html.
Romine, Brentley. "Phil Rodgers, gifted player and instructor, dies at 80," Golfweek, June 27, 2018, https://golfweek.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/2018/06/27/phil-rodgers-gifted-player-and-instructor-dies-at-80/76612860007/.
Sobel, Jason. "Say goodbye to anchored putting," espn.com, December 13, 2015, https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/14360593/say-goodbye-anchored-putting-competitive-golf.
Steel, Donald, and Ryde, Peter. The Encyclopedia of Golf, 1975, The Viking Press.
Tarde, Jerry. "Remembering the Gambling Man: Phil Rodgers," Golf Digest, June 27, 2018, https://www.golfdigest.com/story/remembering-the-gambling-man-phil-rodgers-tribute.
University of Houston. "Houston Mourns Passing of Phil Rodgers," June 27, 2018, https://uhcougars.com/news/2018/6/27/Houston_Mourns_Passing_of_Phil_Rodgers.
