This fact about J.T. Poston, winner of the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., caught my eye in this morning's sports section: "He became the first player since Lee Trevino in 1974 to win a 72-hole stroke-play event on tour without any bogeys or worse."
Trevino was the first to achieve such a four-round run (at least since the Tour split from the PGA in 1968), doing so at the Greater New Orleans Open Invitational. He shot a 267 that weekend, going 21 under and leaving two runners-up in his dust eight strokes behind.
In the last tournament to be held at Lakewood Golf Club, the 12-year host of the local event, Trevino scored 65 in the final round, remarking that it hadn't been since the 1968 US Open that he had "hit the ball so solid." He had shot 67, 68, and 67 in previous rounds and earned $30,000 for winning the championship. Bobby Cole's three-round total was the same going into March 31, but a 1-over 73 that Sunday sent him into a tie with Ben Crenshaw.
This was Trevino's 15th PGA Tour win (including majors) since the Tour went off on its own, and his sixteenth would come at the 1974 PGA Championship.
For comparison: at par-70 Sedgefield Country Club, Poston went 22 under (65-65-66-62), but finished just one stroke ahead of Webb Simpson and two ahead of Byeong-hun An to secure the $1,116,000 prize and his first PGA Tour win. Poston is 26 years old, and Trevino was 34 when he achieved his bogey-free weekend. Times change, and history doesn't Xerox itself.
Monday, August 5, 2019
Cliff Branch, 1948-2019
Cliff Branch died Saturday.
He was a Houston native who went to Wharton County (Texas) Junior College and the University of Colorado. The Oakland Raiders made him a fourth-round draft pick in 1972 and brought him on as a punt returner. By 1974, he bolstered the team's passing game and gave Ken Stabler another favorite receiver. With 60 receptions to the veteran Fred Biletnikoff's 42, Branch finished fourth in total receptions in the NFL, but he led the league in yards with 1,092 and in touchdowns with 13. That performance made him a unanimous All-Pro selection.
Branch's best game of the year may have been the Dec. 1 game against the New England Patriots, one of three in which he took the ball over the goal line twice. Those catches and four others gave him a total of 138 yards. His total of 1,092 for the season was just five ahead of the Dallas Cowboys' Drew Pearson, but he caught three more passes for touchdowns than did Isaac Curtis of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Branch scored a 72-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter of the Raiders' playoff game Dec. 21 against the defending NFL champion Miami Dolphins, a close game from which the black and silver emerged victorious.
Two years later, the team put together its first of three seasons as a Super Bowl winner, and Branch was there for all of them.
He was a Houston native who went to Wharton County (Texas) Junior College and the University of Colorado. The Oakland Raiders made him a fourth-round draft pick in 1972 and brought him on as a punt returner. By 1974, he bolstered the team's passing game and gave Ken Stabler another favorite receiver. With 60 receptions to the veteran Fred Biletnikoff's 42, Branch finished fourth in total receptions in the NFL, but he led the league in yards with 1,092 and in touchdowns with 13. That performance made him a unanimous All-Pro selection.
Branch's best game of the year may have been the Dec. 1 game against the New England Patriots, one of three in which he took the ball over the goal line twice. Those catches and four others gave him a total of 138 yards. His total of 1,092 for the season was just five ahead of the Dallas Cowboys' Drew Pearson, but he caught three more passes for touchdowns than did Isaac Curtis of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Branch scored a 72-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter of the Raiders' playoff game Dec. 21 against the defending NFL champion Miami Dolphins, a close game from which the black and silver emerged victorious.
Two years later, the team put together its first of three seasons as a Super Bowl winner, and Branch was there for all of them.
[EDIT 11/30/2023: Introducing the "football" label]
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