Tom Weiskopf, a golf legend, died at the age of 79 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. What is fascinating is the fact that Weiskopf won 16 PGA Tour titles. Tony Jacklin, his friend, had only words of praise for Weiskopf. “He had a helluva career,” Jacklin said, as quoted by golfweek.
“He was unfortunate that he ran into Nicklaus so often. He holds Jack in such high regard”. In an interview with Golfweek (2020), Weiskopf talked about his ambitions at the beginning of his career and what his main goal was.
“I didn’t really have the passion or the effort that I wanted to put into it and everyone kept pushing me to put into it. Golf was more a means to an end for me. It was a way to give my family the best possible life they could have.
Hunting and fishing and the outdoors were more important to me. Getting the grand slam of sheep was more important. That’s why I gave up a Ryder Cup one year so I could get my grand slam,” he said
Tom Weiskopf and potential
Weiskopf had great potential, but during his career some other things were his priority..
“I challenge myself all the time: Why couldn’t I have done that? Why couldn’t I have worked out? Why did I drink? Well, I’m 20 years sober. It’s my greatest accomplishment. Because I was a partier, a good time guy.
I had so much talent that I could turn it on at times when I wanted to, when I needed to, but it wasn’t important to me,” he said. Johnny Miller thinks Weiskopf should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. “Definitely.
A lot of guys get into the Hall but they were never the best, just the body of work was Hall of Fame worthy. But when you have a run like Tom had (in 1973), there’s two ways of looking at greatness, it’s not just always being consistently good but there’s some point in your career where you might have been the best in the world. That’s big to me”.