Golf, Horse Racing, and Auto Racing in 1974

[EDIT 11/30/2023, 2:11 p.m.: Adding NASCAR label]

Sorry for the lack of posts in April. I hope I can get back into this. And you know, as I search for links to use, I'm discovering more things about the year in sports.

GOLF

For one year, Johnny Miller, who wins the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, is the #1 golfer in America instead of Jack Nicklaus. He is the money leader with over $350,000, interrupting what would have been a six-year streak for Nicklaus. Miller also interrupts what would have been a five-year streak of PGA Tour Player of the Year awards for Nicklaus.

Gary Player wins the Masters and the Open Championship, the latter at Royal Lytham. This Masters championship is his second; the first was in 1961.

Hale Irwin wins the US Open at Winged Foot. This is his first major victory.

Lee Trevino wins the PGA Championship at Tanglewood. He also finishes the season with his fourth and last Vardon Trophy for best scoring average.

Nicklaus finishes one stroke behind Trevino at the PGA Championship, an event Jack had won the year before. Though he doesn't win a major, he has a busy year. Nicklaus wins the first Tournament Players Championship, is among the first class inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, gets Golf My Way published, and opens Muirfield Village Golf Club.

Sam Snead, 61, finishes third at the PGA Championship.

Peter Oosterhuis, who finishes second to Player by four strokes at the Open, is the money leader on the European Tour.

Deane Beman is the first PGA Tour commissioner.

Jerry Pate wins the US Amateur. He will win the '76 US Open.

Future pro Curtis Strange of Wake Forest wins the NCAA individual title.

JoAnne Carner is the LPGA Tour money leader and the winner of the Vare Trophy (female counterpart to the Vardon Trophy). Sandra Haynie, however, wins the US Women's Open and the LPGA Championship.

On Sept. 25 at the U.S. National Seniors Open Championship in Las Vegas, 64-year-old Mike Austin sets a record by driving a ball 515 yards. The 35-mph tailwind helps.

HORSE RACING

After finishing fifth at the Kentucky Derby, Little Current, with Jacinto Vasquez as jockey, wins the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. Cannonade, with Miguel Rivera as jockey, wins the Derby, which has an all-time high attendance of 163,628 and an all-time high field of 23 horses the year after Secretariat's historic run. Cannonade shows at the other two Triple Crown races.

The money leader among horses is a three-year-old filly named Chris Evert. Unlike her namesake, she doesn't win any major events. She does win five out of her eleven races.

Though Laffit Pincay Jr. rides neither of the Triple Crown winners, he is the money leader for a fifth consecutive year. Though Pancho Martin trains neither of the Triple Crown winners, he is the money leader.

In the Eclipse Awards, the Horse of the Year for the first of three times is a four-year-old named Forego. The Two-Year-Old Male of the Year is Foolish Pleasure, who will win the '75 Kentucky Derby.

At Delaware Park July 28, all ten of the horses Charles Lamb of the Baltimore News-American predicted as winners win.

In foreign races for three-year old thoroughbreds, Harry White wins his first of a record four times at the VRC Melbourne Cup and Yves Saint-Martin wins his second of four times at the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

In harness racing, Billy Haughton wins the Hambletonian with Christopher T and the Little Brown Jug with Ambro Omaha. With Ambro Omaha, he also wins his fifth Messenger Stakes.

A horse named Gran Kan is voted steeplechase champion.

MOTORSPORTS

Richard Petty wins the Daytona 500 for the fifth time. The race is 450 miles this year due to the energy crisis, and this year's total of 59 lead changes is a record. Petty goes on to win the Winston Cup for the fifth time as well.

David Pearson wins both the Winston 500 (Talladega) and the World 600 (Charlotte) from the pole. Cale Yarborough wins the Southern 500 in Darlington.

Johnny Rutherford wins the Indianapolis 500, having started in the twenty-fifth position. He has three other victories this year. Thirteen of the 33 cars are still running at the end of it all. A.J. Foyt gets the pole at the big race, while future pole-sitter Pancho Carter is named the 500's Rookie of the Year.

Bobby Unser, with four victories and twelve top-five finishes in total, wins his second USAC championship.

McLaren-Ford's Emerson Fittipaldi, winner of the Brazilian, Belgian, and Canadian Grand Prix races, wins his second Formula 1 championship. This year is his first with McLaren.

At the Spanish Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Niki Lauda gets the first of what will be 25 career Formula 1 victories.

Carlos Reutemann wins the U.S. Grand Prix Oct. 6 at Watkins Glen.

Bob Gladden wins his first of what will be ten NHRA Pro Stock titles.

Henri Pescarolo and Gerard Larrousse, the team that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in '73, repeat as champions. The 24 Hours of Daytona event is not held, also because of the energy crisis.

Johnny Miller bio on about.com
The '74 PGA Championship, also on about.com
Gary Player's Masters win as told on the Masters Web site
Young golfers in '74 as examined by Sports Illustrated
Jack Nicklaus at the '74 US Open in a story the "Golden Bear" recounts 32 years later in SI
The 515-yard drive on travelandleisure.com
The Kentucky Derby and the precedent it set from The Augusta Chronicle
Indy 500 results, or so the official site has it
The 450-mile Daytona 500 from Racing History Minute
Formula 1 in 1974 from formula1.com

LATER THIS MONTH: A short-lived romance between tennis players, a short-lived football league, and a long-remembered fight between two boxing greats