PLAYER RECORD
4 PGA Tour Wins (one major): 1983 Danny Thomas-Memphis Classic, 1987 Masters, 1993 Northern Telecom Open, 1993 Buick Open
1 Champions Tour Win: 2010 Montreal Championship

30 A MASTER’S CHAMPION REFLECTS ON A WIN THAT NEVER GETS OLD

2017 LINKS PLAYERS MAGAZINE
By Jeff Hopper

A tour professional’s career, even if it is only moderately successful, can comprise quite a body of work. Hundreds of tournaments, thousands of fans, millions of dollars—these fill the volume that is bound with a player’s name on the spine and set on the shelf in the library of the game.
But sometimes there is a moment so singular, so memorable, that the page it is written on cannot be buried in the middle of a book, to be lost among the gray lines and castaway chapter titles.

Such is the story of Larry Mize, whose Masters victory 30 years ago this spring should, in its composite, stand out for the man who won on home turf. Yet we can narrow the focus even further for Mize, plucking one shot from the entire narrative of his career and say, “That’s it. That’s what this whole book is about. The rest is just filler.”

On Sunday afternoon, April 12, 1987, Mize made a birdie at the 72nd hole in the 51st Masters, then watched as Seve Ballesteros and Greg Norman could make only pars behind him. The three men were headed to a playoff.

Ballesteros bowed out first, three-putting from off the green at the first playoff hole, which was Augusta National’s tenth. Norman and Mize moved to the eleventh, a par-4 so sternly guarded by water left of the green that players commonly leave their approach to the right to avoid disaster. Mize knew this bailout was available, but he was unhappy to miss his shot entirely, leaving it down the hill, 40 yards from the flag. When Norman’s approach came to rest just off the right edge of the green, giving him a significant advantage, the stage was set. Larry Mize was about to hit the shot that would define his career.

Mize had an idea what the ball would do once it got on the green; he had holed a par putt from the same line earlier in the day. His pitch took two bounces in the grass short of the green, hopped onto the putting surface, and started on its left-curved line to the hole. It hit the flagstick dead center and dropped to the bottom. The din that followed was one part amazement that this unlikely shot had gone in and one part love from the local fans for their fellow Augustan.

“I hope and don’t think that win changed me as a person. I’m still the same person, and I did not want to change in that regard,” Mize says today. “But as far as my career and everything, it was such a blessing. It opened doors, and the recognition it gave me was tremendous.”

Mize has always been thoughtful and unassuming, which may have led someone like him to feel extra pressure playing in such a big tournament close to home. So much to think about. Indeed, many tour players call their hometown tournament a “fifth major.” For Mize his hometown event was already a major. Wouldn’t this create too much added expectation?

“Since the Masters was a major and such a big tournament, I didn’t feel like those expectations were really put on me,” he says. “Everybody was glad I was there, but it wasn’t like, Oh, this is Larry’s home course and he should win here. I think that was good for me, and I don’t think I put too high expectations on myself. Obviously, you go into a tournament believing you can win and wanting to win, but I think it was a plus that it was a major, because the expectations were not as tough on me.”

A similar thought may have been running through many fans’ minds once Mize reached the playoff. Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Larry Mize. You pick. Not many would have said Mize.

But it was Mize who had the best chance for birdie at the tenth. His putt died just short of the cup’s front edge and fell off left. Then when he missed the eleventh green, the expectations slipped into the background again. No one would have been surprised to see Norman slide his arms into the green jacket after all this.

It is Mize, though, who returns to Augusta each April with a seat at the Champions Dinner, which he calls the most treasured part of the event for him. “To be there and be able to go to dinner with all those great champions over the years is just such a special time. I look forward to going back there for many more years—even once I quit playing—to go back to the dinner and see people.”

Mize recognizes the overall wonder of Augusta National, where he followed some of his favorite players as a boy and eventually worked the scoreboard at the third hole. “It has all the history and tradition in one place, and it’s just amazing,” he says with a hint of romanticism. “You talk to people and you say ‘the fifteenth hole’ or ‘the seventh hole’ at Augusta and everybody knows exactly what you’re talking about whether they’ve been there or not, because they see it on TV every April. It’s the most recognized and best known golf course in the world.”

Mize’s career has stretched far beyond that one spring sensation in 1987, of course. Now 58, he has competed in recent years on the PGA Tour Champions, where he has one win (the 2010 Montreal Championship) and where he enjoyed his best year since 2012 when he earned more than $470,000 in 2016. He also made the cut at last year’s Masters.

Though Mize missed the advent of the media frenzy that often surrounds the PGA Tour today—“I kind of feel for the young men now,” he observes, “they’re so under the microscope, so much more than we used to be”—he has become an occasional member of the media himself, recording one show a month for XM Radio.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it,” he says of the program, “but they talked me into doing it. I’ve really enjoyed it. Golf is such a great game, so anything I can do to further the game, or pique someone’s interest, or help someone with their game, I’m all for it. I really enjoy having my friends on the show with me and we just talk golf and try to make an entertaining hour for people that are driving on the road or stuck in their car or listening to it in their home.”
When asked if doing the show has caused him to look at the game differently, Mize says that more so it has prompted him to think of things he can say that will help the average player. “Golf is such a mental game, so we let average golfers know that professionals go through some of the same struggles that they do—maybe a higher level of it, but it’s still the same things that we’re trying to do. To try and let the amateurs know, that’s normal what you’re thinking; we think the same thing.”
As a competitor, while Mize recognizes that he is getting closer to the end of his career, he plans to play for several more years. Part of that has to do with a competitive drive that just won’t die. “I’m still working hard to make my game better and improve any way I can,” he says. “I still enjoy the competition out there, but I also think I can appreciate the game and have more of a thankfulness that I’ve been able to play golf for a living. It’s kind of funny to call it a job sometimes, but being able to play golf and make a living at it has just been great.”
Mize is sure he is not alone in this grateful reflection on a life in golf. “That’s what makes the Champions Tour a little different. You still have the competition at a high level and the nerves and the intensity all the time, but everybody has more appreciation for what we’ve been able to do for so many years, and they’re so thankful that we
get to keep doing it.”

The greater truth for Larry Mize, though, is that his respect and appreciation for the game falls below the level of other emphases. This is most true when it comes to his faith.

“Golf has been great and I love it,” Mize says, “but it can’t compare to my relationship with Jesus. That’s first and foremost in my life.”

Like many Tour players, Mize began his exploration of the Bible and its claims about Jesus under the instruction of Larry Moody, who has served as a chaplain on the PGA and Champions Tours since the mid-1980s. Mize looks back to 1986 as the time when “I really came to understand the gospel and that I was separated from God because he’s a perfect and holy God and I make mistakes and sin. This is why he sent his only Son to come and live a perfect life and be my sacrifice on the cross. Through Jesus, I’m right with God—not because of anything I do.”

That’s a strong bit of Christian theology, but it is also in many ways the whole story of Scripture—not unlike Mize’s holed pitch shot tells you most everything you need to know about the ’87 Masters. The cross stands at the center of that big book with “Holy Bible” on the cover.

For Mize, though, his interaction with the gospel is not a point in time, set in the past and ready to be cashed in only when he gets to heaven’s gates, so to speak. “God’s grace through Jesus Christ has changed my relationship with my wife, with my kids, with the world, everything. I see things differently. I still mess up. I like to tell people, ‘I’ll mess up, but I know who will never mess up and will never let us down, and that’s Jesus.’”

The matter of continuing to grow in this faith struck a deeper chord with Mize this year when Larry Moody gave the players in the Tour Champions fellowship coins inscribed DEPENDENCE on one side and GRATITUDE on the other. “That’s what I want to do,” Mize says. “I’m continuing to strive to be more dependent on God and have more of a thankful heart. So my relationship with God through Jesus has changed every area of my life, obviously for the better.”

The Mizes’ children are all grown and graduated from college now, though they live nearby. Their son Robert is trying to make a go of professional golf, so Larry has a natural partner when they’re both home. There are no grandkids yet, “but when that time comes,” Mize says, “it’ll be fine.”
As more years pass, there is more experience to look back on and see how God has brought them to where they are now. “God uses things in our lives so we are prepared for things that come later in our lives—whether it’s our life or possibly in a friend’s life, to help them with something they’re going through because we’ve had a similar experience and we can encourage them.”

For a man whose profession can be lonely at times, Mize always seems to have his eyes open to the community around him. For one, he credits his “awesome, godly wife” Bonnie with helping him gauge his decisions in light of Scripture. “We keep each other straight,” he says, “so we’re not going in any kind of wrong direction.”

Mize also looks for others who can give him guidance as he needs it. “It’s always good to seek wise counsel. Don’t run off by yourself, make sure you seek wise counsel. I’ve got a lot of people I can turn to to make sure that we’re going in the right direction.”
All of this has Mize in what he considers a very good place, with the past in perspective and the future before him. It’s the reason he can say he doesn’t think that miraculous shot all those years ago made him a different person. The pre-Masters Larry Mize remains in place, and if Mize has his way, it will stay there in every year to come.

“You never know what tomorrow brings,” he recognizes, “but for right now, everything is better than we deserve. There is a famous quote that says, ‘I do not know what the future holds, but I do know who holds the future.’ My hope is in Jesus Christ and his love for me. He is holding my future.”

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