This is an excerpt from PALMER Vol. 8. To read the full story, click here to purchase the issue.
In 1995, on the windswept back nine at the elegant Newport Country Club, George E. Marucci, Jr. looked across a rolling fairway and watched as the future of golf, a 19-year-old Californian who swung with silky power, made a charge at the coveted Havemeyer Trophy, awarded annually to the winner of the United States Amateur Championship.
In a tense match to the end, televised nationally, “Buddy” Marucci, a seasoned and highly successful 43-year-old amateur, did not make it easy for Tiger Woods, whose preternatural talent was on full display as he stormed through match play into the last round. The 36-hole final had been grueling. Both players had already won five 18-hole elimination matches. It was now down to two: Marucci, though out-driven by Woods on nearly every hole, relied on his exquisite short game and took the lead by three strokes. Woods charged back, on the back nine; and on the final hole, hit his iron two feet from the cup to seal it.
When they walked off the 18th green, Woods had won; and Marucci, a Philadelphian, turned his attention back to the business world. His career as a stockbroker, success in commercial real estate, and four luxury car dealerships, among other family ventures, had provided him with the opportunity to play amateur golf at the highest level for years. He had little interest in turning professional—though his accomplishments could have proven otherwise.
Marucci played at The University of Maryland; won the Pennsylvania State Amateur four times; and played for, then captained, two winning Walker Cup teams. In addition to playing Woods down to the last hole in the classic U.S. Amateur matchup, he won the prestigious U.S. Senior Amateur in 2008.
Today, at 73, Marucci spends the winter season in Palm Beach with his wife Sandy. A member of the Seminole Golf Club, Pine Valley Golf Club, Winged Foot Golf Club, and the Everglades Club, among many others, he is still highly competitive, and a quiet but influential contributor to the modern game. He is currently working with the USGA and their members, planning six major tournaments that will be played at his home course, Merion, along the Pennsylvania Main Line, in the next 24 years. This comes after serving as general chairman of the BMW Championship, a pro tournament that is the penultimate FedEx Cup playoff event on the PGA tour.
In his free time, Marucci likes to play at Seminole Golf Club, a private course on the ocean in Juno Beach, Florida. Designed in 1929 by the famed Donald Ross, and much like Augusta Country Club, where the Masters is played, the club is devoted solely to golf. With lightning-fast, domed greens and nearly constant gusting winds off the Atlantic, it is, to many of the game’s purists, a temple of golf. Membership includes some PGA luminaries and a handful of sports celebrities, but Seminole is better known as an elite enclave with a long waiting list of very good players hoping to be considered for inclusion. In the office of the Maruccis’ Palm Beach home, there are 10 understated wooden Seminole Club Champion trophies, among many others from amateur tournaments around the world.
When I first meet him at Café L’Europe in Palm Beach, I notice his hands. More the fingers of a surgeon or a pianist. Tall, slight, measured in his words, Marucci is an elite athlete who could easily pass for a Board Chairman.
How did you get into the game?
I was very sick when I was young. Five years old. Very sick. It was recommended I never play contact sports. So, my father taught me to play golf. I was frail. And to take this frail existence and try to create an identity, it was about having my own thing. I never lost sight of that. Golf let me do things I never thought I could do.
You could have gone on the professional tour. Was there a reason you did not?
I played Lanny Wadkins in college. He was at Wake Forest, and I was at Maryland. He was the best college player at the time. He went pro and was Rookie of the Year. His first year, he won over $100,000. I had never beaten Lanny. I didn’t see the risk-reward. And there weren’t as many opportunities in golf as there are today off the golf course, sponsorships. I thought business was where I wanted to go. And the people I looked up to the most were successful amateur gentlemen golfers who made good careers out of business, and were able to play all the amateur events.
What was it like to go down the last couple of holes in the National Amateur with Tiger Woods?
I got close. He certainly played better at the end than I did. People would say about Tiger, Well, he intimidates people with his stare. I would say, baloney. He just beats them because he’s better than they are.
This is an excerpt from PALMER Vol. 8. To read the full story, click here to purchase the issue.