Nowhere is the cigar craze more evident than in golf, where it's
almost impossible to play a round or hang out in the grill room
without encountering smoldering stogies. Lighting up may be
trendy, but smoking remains as dangerous as ever, a fact driven
home by the death last week of Larry Gilbert, whose
rags-to-riches story ended tragically because of his smoking
addiction.
Gilbert, who was 55 when he died from lung cancer on Jan. 21,
was a hero to the nation's club pros. Although he had enough
game to play the PGA Tour—he won three National Club Pro
Championships and played in several U.S. Opens and PGA
Championships—Gilbert opted to remain in his native Kentucky
running the shop at the Champions Golf Club so he could be near
his family. In 1993, after having been the medalist at the
Senior Q school the previous fall, Gilbert and his wife, Brenda,
took the last $4,000 out of their bank account and gambled that
Larry could compete against the best players of his generation.
In only his second start Gilbert won $12,000, and he went on to
earn $516,000 as a rookie. Last July, when he won his first
Senior major, the Senior Players Championship in Michigan, his
career earnings soared to $3.2 million.
In late August, after getting a physical before playing in the
Bank One Classic in his hometown of Lexington, Gilbert learned
he had lung cancer. He didn't tell anyone because he didn't want
to put a damper on the final Senior tour event in Lexington (the
tournament couldn't meet the Tour's demand to up the purse to at
least $1 million) but dropped off the tour the next week to
undergo further tests. The results were dire: The cancer had
spread throughout his body and was inoperable.
Gilbert had started smoking at a young age. During his years as
a club pro he preferred cigarettes, but when he joined the
Senior tour, he became good friends with stogie smoker Larry
Laoretti and soon switched to cigars. Gilbert did an
advertisement for Te-Amo, which gave him free cigars, and he was
seldom seen on the course without a cigar clenched in his teeth.
"Like a fool I thought they wouldn't be as bad for me as
cigarettes," Gilbert said in September, "but the day they told
me I had cancer I put 'em down and haven't touched one since. I
had just gotten a box of my favorite cigars. I gave 'em away."
On July 13, 1997, the day he won the Senior Players, Gilbert, a
strong, broad-shouldered man who was known for his booming
drives, had a cigar in his mouth as he approached the last
green. Once there, he took a puff and swiped a hand across his
eyes to wipe away the tears. Moments later, after the victory
was secured and he had hugged his wife, Gilbert was
congratulated by Jack Nicklaus. That choked him up. "That was a
moment I'll treasure as long as I live," Gilbert said.
No one could have imagined that would be only 192 days.
Issue date: February 2, 1998
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