Into Each Life Some Reign Must Fall

Over the span of 30 days in 1974 Gary Longfellow dominated Colorado golf as no other player ever has.

By Scott N. Gardner | Portrait by Barry Staver

At Shiraz, a Persian restaurant in Greenwood Village, Gary Longfellow tucks into his spicy lamb shank, his chiseled face looking much the way it did 40 years ago, save for his jet-black hair now salted by years as a commercial pilot.

In 1974 Longfellow not only became the first of only two amateurs ever to win the Colorado Open, his victory also became the centerpiece of an unprecedented Grand Slam Season. Now 72, Longfellow won all of Colorado’s major golf championships: the State Stroke Play, the Colorado Open and the State Match Play.

An amazing feat, made even more so, because, prior to 1974, as Longfellow admits, “I had not won any tournament of significance.” He’d never captured an individual high school tournament or college event, and he was winless in state championships in Colorado. Asked if he had any premonitions of catching lighting in a bottle and winning the three biggest golf tournaments in the state, he crosses his tanned arms and reflects.

“I can’t say that it was anything other than paying dues on the practice tee, believing in my golf swing and,” he says, smiling, “for those three tournaments my putter and I had quite a love affair!”

Or, as the famous ancestor after whom his father was named —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow— wrote a century earlier, “Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate you are sure to wake up somebody.”

Longfellow did hoist a golf trophy at the age of 14—in Libya. He played on mixture of oil and sand greens in Tripoli, where his father’s military job had taken the family. “I remember taking the golf ball out of the cup and having it covered in oil,” he recalls. “Libya was an exotic place for me as a teenager. I saw camels strolling across on the course swaying palm trees and locusts buzzing overhead!”

Returning to the States, he continued to work on his game while attending high school in the windy town of Fort Sill, Okla., grooving an athletic golf swing that still features a slight over-the-top move, a characteristic shared by great ball strikers from Bobby Jones to Graeme McDowell.

While earning an engineering degree at the University of Denver, Longfellow played on the golf team coached by the legendary hockey coach Murray Armstrong. During Longfellow’s senior year in 1965, Armstrong stuck a pen in his player’s pocket and told him to drive over to Lakewood Country Club and fill out a membership application.

“Lakewood was a great place for me, because the course put a premium on both driving and putting with its narrow fairways and small slick greens,” Longfellow recalls. “The members at Lakewood were supportive of competitive golfers and there was no lack of competition with former state champions Larry McAtee, Billy Cark and Tony Veto stalking the grounds.”

Longfellow (pictured far right below) toiled behind an engineering desk for a year before enrolling in flight school with United Airlines. He was soon working a pilot’s schedule that offered three or four consecutive days off, giving him the time to wear the grooves off his clubs on the practice tee.

His golf game was good enough to qualify for both the 1971 and 1973 U.S. Amateurs. When he finished second in the 1973 State Stroke Play to Bob Byman after making a dramatic eagle on the 18th hole, he felt his golf game was getting sharper by the day.

Stroke Play

When Longfellow went into the State Stroke Play championship at Green Gables Country Club on June 28, 1974, he simply wanted to play his game and see how it stacked up against the field.

“Green Gables reminded me of my home course at Lakewood,” he remembered. “I felt very much at home when I pulled into the parking lot on Thursday and that good feeling carried over onto the course.”

His opening round of 67 was a display of power off the tee, pinpoint iron play and judicial putting. Picking his Titleist out of the hole on 18, Longfellow was amped up from his play and couldn’t wait for Friday to see if it would continue. When asked by Ralph Moore of The Denver Post about his college playing credentials, the 727 flight engineer replied: “I wasn’t much of a player then.”

Longfellow followed the opening 67 with a squeaky clean 69 that pushed him five shots in front of 18-year-old Carter Mathies of Hiwan Country Club. The following two days, in 90- plus degree heat, Longfellow polished off the field at Green Gables with closing rounds of 71 and 73, cruising to a seven shot victory over runners-up Mathies, Tom McGraw and Tim Brauch.

“I guess I won one for the old folks!” Longfellow called back to Moore as he headed towards the parking lot with the trophy under his arm.

Colorado Open

Ten days after capturing the state Stroke Play, Longfellow found himself at Hiwan Golf Club in Evergreen, home of the Colorado Open. By his own admission, he was lucky to get into the field at all. “Had I not won the Stroke Play I would have had to qualify for the Open the following Monday,” he explains, “and I couldn’t get that day off from work.”

The Colorado Open golf championship, which will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary next month, was in 1974 one of the premier state opens in the country, attracting not only the best pros from the Rocky Mountain region but top collegiate golfers such as Fred Couples, Craig Stadler and Peter Jacobsen.

Longfellow did something unique during the week of the Open. Before each round he warmed up by hitting a shag bag of balls on the driving range at Lakewood Country Club. Longfellow and his caddie jumped into his blue-and-silver Austin Healy and raced up Interstate 70.

“The practice range at Hiwan was situated on a hill so that it was difficult for me to determine how I was hitting the ball,” he explains. “It was maybe more mental than anything else, but I didn’t want to be carrying any negative thoughts with me to the first tee.”

As the first round got underway on July 11, no one took notice of the new Stroke Play champion, who was just looking for a good week, maybe even winning low amateur. He did a little better than that. He rode his Bulls-Eye putter to an opening round of 68. That was good enough to tie him for the lead with Gene Torres of New Mexico, one shot in front of Bold Hold of Paradise Valley Country Club and the “Old Sarge,” Orville Moody of Lake Arbor.

Longfellow was not comfortable playing in front of crowds and confided such to the press before teeing off in round two. “I have mixed emotions about the attention,” he said. “It’s nice to be in the limelight, but I don’t like the idea of people watching me too closely.”

If Longfellow was averse to people watching him play it didn’t keep him from going out and constructing a second-round 69 that left him tied with Torres, five shots out in front. The key was his response to a tree-induced double-bogey seven on the 15th hole. Longfellow stepped up to the long par-3 16th hole and ripped a 4-wood that settled 18 feet from the hole. He converted the birdie putt and also drained a 14-footer for birdie on 18, salting away his 69.

That night, Longfellow slept fitfully, contemplating his name atop the leaderboard. He wobbled out of the gate for round three. He three-putted both the fourth and seventh greens for bogeys and bogeyed the uphill par-4, ninth after missing the green with his approach. Those watching the pilot navigate the front nine in a 3-over 38 strokes wondered if it would be the start of a downward spiral.

Longfellow, however, had a 15th club in the bag—his ability to stay calm under adverse situations. As a trained pilot, he would come face-to-face with life-or-death situations, including a hijacking attempt. A tough front nine didn’t compare.

After downing a few gulps of water at the turn, Longfellow slammed home birdies on 11 and 12. He also added a dramatic 17-foot birdie on 18 to give him an even par 71 for the day. He retired for the evening with a four-shot lead tucked under his pillow.

Longfellow’s lead was over Torres, the 1972 champion who was playing in the group ahead of him, but his biggest challenge would come from 25-year-old Oklahoma State golf coach Mike Holder, who was in his group and started the day five shots behind him.

Before teeing off Longfellow found himself receiving encouragement from fans and fellow amateurs. Legendary Denver sportscaster Star Yelland gave Longfellow a motivational final send-off. “He approached me on the putting green and told me to go and win the darn thing,” Longfellow remembers. “That gave me a shot in the arm!”

Feeling the pressure, Longfellow bogeyed three of the first four holes, deflating the spirits of the 3,000 spectators that walked along with the final group. A chipin birdie on the fifth hole brought the fans to their feet and steadied the amateur’s nerves. At the turn, his lead had melted to one shot over Torres and Holder.

But Longfellow had owned Hiwan’s back nine for three days. So after finding the fairway with his tee shot on 10, he marched up to his ball with renewed vigor. He hit a beautiful approach that stopped eight feet from cup. On the green, Longfellow ripped off his golf glove, putting it between his teeth and tucked in his white-checkered shirt. He then calmly rammed home his first birdie putt of the day.

On the 219-yard 12th, Longfellow carded a crucial par to keep his one-stroke lead intact. “The way I played the 12th hole for those four days is what won the golf tournament for me,” he says now. “I used my 4-wood and went birdie, birdie, birdie, par on what I consider the most difficult hole on the course.

“They should put a plaque on that tee to honor me,” Longfellow jokes.

Standing on the 13th tee, Longfellow avoided idle chatter with his playing companions as scraped mud off his golf cleats with a white tee, but he proceeded to give away bogeys on both the 13th and 14th holes to fall back into a tie with Holder.

The TV cameras covering the local broadcast for KWGN channel 7 picked up the final pairing on the par 5 15th. Longfellow hadn’t felt comfortable with the tee shot all week and pulled his drive left toward the tree line. Finding his ball in a snake pit of television cables, Longfellow assessed the situation with a Rules official before taking a free drop onto a patch of hardpan sprinkled with pine needles. With the tournament in the balance, Longfellow again leaned on the 4-wood. Swinging slow to keep his footing, he picked the ball cleanly and watched as it climbed over the windswept tips of the pines, clearing the distant fairway bunker and coming to rest ten yards short of the green. He got up and down for a birdie that put him one ahead of Holder.

“The 4-wood I hit from the TV compound over the trees was the best shot I hit all tournament,” he says. “I squeezed one off when I really needed it.”

Longfellow added a shot to his lead on the 224 yard par-3 16th. He then gave it right back on 17, when his par putt hit a spike mark.

Both Longfellow and Holder found the fairway off the 18th tee. Holder put his second shot just off the right fringe, while Longfellow’s approach settled on the back fringe. After Holder chipped to within two feet, Longfellow decided to make things interesting. He putted from the back fringe and came up nine feet short.

The gallery murmured as Longfellow studied the putt from every angle. A hush enveloped the green. He stroked the putt with as much confidence and conviction as he could summon and all eyes tracked the Titleist as it rolled down the gentle slope, accepted the break and tumbled into the bottom of the cup. The gallery erupted with a cheer that could be heard to Lake Evergreen.

“That putt was not one you would want to win a golf tournament, but it was a pretty sight when it fell into the hole” Longfellow said afterwards.

With rounds of 68, 69, 71, 74 Longfellow became the first amateur to win the Colorado Open (Brian Guetz, in 1994. is the only other). Longfellow collected two trophies and a $200 dollar certificate for his efforts.

Match Play

When Longfellow pulled into the Eisenhower’s Blue Course’s parking lot on July 26th for the opening matches of the Match Play, a number of sportswriters greeted him. Did the amateur have it in him to capture the third major event of the summer?

“I’ve come this far,” he told them, “it would be nice to finish it.”

Unlike the previous two competitions, the Match Play would test Longfellow’s physical stamina. The winner would potentially have to play 108 holes in 3 days.

The first round only lasted 14 holes, as he drew an overmatched Von Plessinger, who had finished 17 shots behind him at the Colorado Open. Not taking his opponent lightly, Longfellow crushed him, 6 and 4.

Longfellow had a sandwich and a coke before stepping onto the tee for his afternoon match against Kirk Padgett of Colorado Springs. Longfellow struggled off the tee against Padgett; however when crunch time came on the back nine, Longfellow came up big with birdies on holes 10, 13 and 16, closing out the match 3 and 1, and moving onto the next day’s quarterfinals.

Again needing to win back to-back matches on the same day, Longfellow squared off in the morning against Tom Mulheran. The 90-degree heat and a malfunctioning sprinkler system had desiccated the fairways to the point where Longfellow and Mulheran could only laugh at some of erratic bounces the balls were taking. The two played to stalemate until Longfellow to squeaked out a 2 and 1 victory.

Only two matches away from making Colorado golf history, Longfellow entered the afternoon match against Mark Fowler, the 22-year-old son of legendary player and University of Colorado golf coach Les Fowler. Fowler had to go into extra holes in his Friday matches and then rallied in that morning’s quarterfinals to win 1 up against Ken Krieger. Fowler put up a good fight against his older competitor, but he’d run out of back-nine heroics and succumbed 2 and 1.

Longfellow, not superstitious by nature, arrived Sunday for the 36-hole final match wearing the same shirt, pants and visor he wore for the final round of both the Stroke Play and the Colorado Open. Facing him was Dr. Bob Gitchell, a 3-handicap orthopedic surgeon at the Air Force Academy’s military hospital who knew the Blue course layout as well as he knew the hospital’s operating room. Before being called to the first tee, Longfellow hit a bucket of balls on the range trying to mollify his troublesome driver.

The morning’s 18 were a mixed bag as Longfellow continued to struggle with a driver that put him behind trees and in fairway bunkers. Gitchell had his own problems, as he three-putted five greens in the morning including a costly one the 18 that handed Longfellow a 1-up lead.

“He played better than me the first 18 holes,” Longfellow admits. With the gallery urging him on as he made his way off the 18th green, Longfellow and his driver and headed to the practice tee.

It worked. By the 565-yard par-5 fifth hole, Longfellow was 2-up and split the fairway with a booming drive and then leaned on a 4-wood that rolled up onto the green 25 feet from the hole. After poking around the trees to find his drive, Gitchell signaled to Longfellow to pick up, conceding the hole.

That was the turning point. “I could feel my driving coming back on that fifth hole,” Longfellow recalls, “It’s funny how one shot can mean so much to a player’s confidence.” Although Gitchell got a hole back on No. 8 with a tap-in birdie, he admitted later he felt “shaky” over that three-incher.

Longfellow had no such problems with his putter as he calmly dropped a five-footer for par on the ninth hole to go up three. On the walk to the 10th tee, Longfellow kept his head down, reminding himself to hit quality shots and not to force anything.

He did both, winning the 11th and 12th holes with solid pars and forcing Gitchell to take some chances that didn’t pay off. With a five-stroke lead, Longfellow halved 13 and 14 with pars and on the 14th green Dr. Gitchell extended his hand to a relieved and exhausted Longfellow who prevailed 5 & 4. The two got an appreciative ovation from those following the match.

At Lakewood Country Club, Longfellow’s friend Bob Clark Jr.—whose father, Bob Sr., and brother, Billy, had both previously captured the State Match Play—popped the cork on buckets of champagne in the clubhouse. The clinking of glasses could be heard into the early summer evening.

Longfellow defended his Colorado Open with a fifth place finish in 1975, but never again cracked the top ten. He did capture a second CGA Stroke Play Championship in 1978 and Match Play Championship in 1987. The Colorado Golf Hall of Fame inducted him in 1990.

After retiring from United, Longfellow flew for NetJets, but clipped his wings for good last December. “I accomplished something that I initially didn’t set out to do,” he reflects. “But sometimes fate hands you an opportunity and it’s up to you to see how far you can go with it. I got it going pretty good back in the summer of ’74. When I think about the fact that no one else has been able to accomplish what I did, it still amazes me.”

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