By Rick Dorsey
Chronicle Staff Writer
With one swing of his looping 4-wood, Gene Sarazen created the myth of the Masters.
Sarazen trailed Craig Wood in the 1935 Invitational - the tournament was named the Masters three years later - by three shots as he prepared for his second shot on the 15th hole.
The result? Before there ever was a Bobby Thompson, Sarazen hit the golf shot heard 'round the world as the thunderous gallery roar immediately reached Magnolia Lane.
His 232-yard shot found the cup for an improbable double eagle, the only one in Masters competition, and as the late O.B. Keeler described it that day, the excitement "not only beggared description but almost put it into forced receivership."
Augusta National commemorated Sarazen's mystical approach by dedicating a foot bridge across the pond that lays across the fairway like an uninviting welcome mat that soaks wayward shots.
At the bridge's dedication ceremony in 1955, Bobby Jones, the co-founder of the Masters and Augusta National, indicated that tournament organizers had already made out a check to Wood "for photographic purposes only," and that Wood was receiving congratulations on his supposed victory.
Then word spread to the clubhouse that Sarazen had scored a 2 on 15, tying Wood for the lead at 6-under 282. The shot didn't clinch Sarazen's only green jacket; instead, he beat Wood by five shots in a 36-hole playoff the next day.
Sarazen, now 96, hasn't missed a Masters since, a streak of 60 straight. He last played in 1970 at age 68, though he still hits the tournament's honorary first ball along with Sam Snead and Byron Nelson.
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