Sport: Along Came a Walrus

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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.