“I launched far more (clubs) because they expected me to than I did because I was mad at anything that had gone wrong with my golf. After a while, it became showmanship, plain and simple.”
“I went to him and all but got on my knees for help,” Bolt wrote in his book, The Hole Truth. “He put my left hand on top of the club, gripped it in the back three fingers of the left hand and the thumb down the shaft. It took me about a month of constant practice to get acclimated to the new grip, but I learned not to fear the hook.”
Armed with that confidence, Bolt became one of the best ball strikers of all time. He also got a grip on his temper in time to win the one title he coveted, the U.S. Open, in his home state of Oklahoma in 1958. He birdied Southern Hills’ treacherous 12th hole three consecutive times and finished four strokes ahead of Gary Player.
While the U.S. Open was his pinnacle, Bolt will tell you of another great moment in which the student bettered his mentor, Hogan, as well as Gene Littler, in an 18-hole playoff to win the 1960 Memphis Open. All even through 16, Bolt fired a 2-iron tee shot stiff to the flag on the par-3 17th. “When Ben said, ‘Nice shot!’ it was like a double clap of thunder to me,” Bolt recalled. “It was the only thing he said to me all day.”
Long before there was a senior tour, Bolt won the 1969 PGA Seniors’ Championship and 11 other senior titles in the U.S. and Australia. He was one of the pioneers of the Champions Tour, laying the groundwork in a memorable six-hole sudden-death playoff with partner Art Wall against Julius Boros and Roberto De Vicenzo in the 1979 Legends of Golf, won by Boros-De Vicenzo.
When Nielsen ratings indicated approximately six million households were tuned in, PGA TOUR Commissioner Deane Beman was convinced to support the senior initiative, which evolved into what is now the Champions Tour.
Tommy Bolt was originally inducted through the Veterans category.
