Along Came a Walrus

By Tom Callahan

Amidst golfs lean towheads, a fat man can look good

Jack Nicklaus was not the first to discover that nobody loves a fat man, but he made characteristic use of the information. Nicklaus slimmed himself into a model for a line of clothes and a mold for a line of golfers: towheads shaped like one-irons. The definition of an avid golf fan now is anyone who can tell Johnny Miller from John Mahaffey from Ben Crenshaw from Bill Rogers from Jerry Pate.

In his "Fat Jack" period of the early '60s, Nicklaus had the bad form to beat Arnold Palmer against everyone's wishes. With a hitch and a slouch and a natural grace, Palmer had lifted the country-club game onto his square shoulders, carried it to the people and made it a sport. Palmer looked like an athlete: a prizefighter, a middleweight. Nicklaus looked like a golfer, which was to say, like an unmade bed.

Together they reigned over the sport in their different provinces. It was almost as if God said to Nicklaus, "You will have skills like no other," then whispered to Palmer, "But they will love you more." In time, people came to love Nicklaus well enough, but the two continued to rule golf jointly. To golf's chagrin, they still do--although, at 52, Palmer has not won since 1973, and Nicklaus, 42, is almost two years between victories himself.

For the past five summers, Tom Watson has been the best golfer in the world, though not as good as Nicklaus used to be, and a very attractive fellow too, just not as compelling as Palmer. There are yet one or two colorful characters around: old Chi Chi Rodriguez, still wearing an imaginary scabbard on one hip for sheathing his trusty putter; and aging clown Lee Trevino, whose sense of humor is mercurial. But golf's color at the moment is not especially good. Peripatetic South African Gary Player is fading. His excursions to the U.S. last year fetched him only $22,483.

Golf's reaction to its pallor has been as unnatural as most of the players' reactions are to anything. New concepts of golf courses: "stadium" golf, "target" golf. New shades of golf balls: orange and lime ones that resemble kumquats and brussel sprouts rolling along the yard. In an unusual attempt to liven things up and make himself distinguishable from the other blonds, Jerry Pate has actually taken to throwing himself into water hazards.

Then along came Craig Stadler, a walrus who might become a king but is content being a cabbage. At 28, he is both a happy and a happy-go-lucky figure, bountifully blessed in life and golf at the moment, the way everything about him eventually tends to abundance. Stadler is as fat as Nicklaus ever was, but makes no apologies. "I enjoy being myself," he says.

After Stadler won the Masters last week, in discussions of why the public was reversing itself and finding a fat golfer so appealing, a recurring suggestion was "It is because he is so unlike golfers." But Stadler is only unlike the current pros; he is exactly like golfers.

On the golf course, Stadler spits and fulminates, though he hasn't flung a club in a long while. He stands 5 ft. 10 in. and weighs 216 Ibs., but what really ought to be measured is his hands. They are hands from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. The price of having huge hands is having huge feet, and his have suffered much in his wild swinging tantrums. All of the pros talk of limping in, but Stadler has done it.

In the 1975 British Amateur championship, a cockney caddie became something of a folk hero for hurling Stadler's clubs back at him and forcing him to take a replacement from the gallery. With a clarion flourish, the Royal and Ancient publicly commended the wronged caddie on his principles and paid him for a full round. Still, Stadler is no McEnroe. Off the course, he is too nice a guy. It is natural that the other players call him "Walrus," since it is impossible to look at him and think of anything else. When he speaks, his mustache bobs up and down as punctuation. He is a man of humor, but it is dry. Maybe because his words are dry, his thirst for beer is great.

"I dropped from 230 to 195, dieting," he said, "but just didn't feel comfortable. I didn't have that gut in my way. So I've slowly crept back up." The occasional cruel remarks that tortured Nicklaus, Stadler shrugs off. When he was described as "a carnivorous moose stalking his dinner," his reaction was to say, "Moose aren't carnivorous." In his snug green Masters jacket, Stadler was asked about the changes a major championship would bring in his life. He had been the eighth leading money winner in both 1980 and 1981, and now he was No. 1. Beyond money, he was starting to play golf for history. "I've kind of thought about that a little bit--winning the Masters, what it will do. It's not going to change me any."

If he wasn't going to alter his build, would he change his style? "My temper? I prefer to say 'emotion.' No. I've always shown my emotions, and I guess I always will." From the breed of golfers who hate to smile or suffer outwardly, here is one who will drop his head and his heart, his club and sometimes his caddie. No one will ever again be Nicklaus or Palmer, let alone equal parts of both, but Stadler at least will not have to belly flop into any lakes. At the Masters, a deep thinker asked him, "Where are you now, and where are you going?" "Here," the Walrus said, "and home." --By Tom Callahan

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