103: Craig Wood-PGA

Sports' Forgotten Heroes

Craig Wood was known to the golfing world as the “Blonde Bomber’ for his prodigious drives. He was also pretty dangerous with a putter in his hand. But, Wood, for all his big drives and magic on the greens was missing one thing when it came to a popularity contest – he was not flamboyant at all. In fact, he pretty much kept to himself. He figured he would let his game do his talking. And, his game was pretty darned good. In fact, with a bounce here, a putt made there, or just one other break, and Wood would be much better known, after all, Craig Wood was the first golfer in history (and one of just two overall) to lose each of golf’s four Major Championships in a playoff. In 1933, he lost in a playoff in the Open Championship to Denny Shute; in 1934, he lost the PGA Championship in extra holes to Paul Runyan; in 1935, he was the cruel victim to Gene Sarazen’s miraculous “Shot Heard Around The World” and then lost in a playoff to the Squire; and in 1939, Wood lost in a playoff to Byron Nelson. But Wood kept after it and finally broke through in 1941 when he won the Masters and the U.S. Open. A 2008 World Golf Hall of Fame inductee, Wood won 21 times on Tour. On this episode of Sports’ Forgotten Heroes, I take a look back at the career of one of golf’s forgotten heroes – Craig Wood – with Connor Lewis from the TalkinGolf podcast and George Petro who is a collector of Craig Wood golf memorabilia. As a bonus, Connor and George start the show by talking about the ins and outs of starting and building a golf memorabilia collection.

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