Vince Lucido has carried the bag of three separate Cypress Point Club record holders for the low 18-hole round but he hasn’t forgotten the one that got away – and could’ve shattered the record if not for a change of heart.
Gay Brewer, the 1967 Masters champion, shot 10-under 62 for the unofficial record in the 1976 Crosby Clambake except there’s always been an asterisk associated with that otherworldly round. Cypress Point pro Jim Langley tapped Brewer on the shoulder and said, “No, no, you had your hand on the ball” for it was under lift, clean and place that winter. Adam Scott, playing with member Sam Reeves in the 2004 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, carded a 63, and Kramer Hickok, playing for University of Texas, in 2012, matched that figure too.
Lucido, 70, who has caddied at Cypress Point for 52 years and is honorary caddie coordinator for the Walker Cup matches this week, was on the verge of witnessing another scintillating round on the bag of Jordan Spieth who was playing with Reeves at the No. 1-ranked classic course on the Golfweek’s Best list. But Spieth took a page out of fellow Texan Byron Nelson’s playbook. Lord Byron had a rule that when he visited a club he’d find out the course record and if it was held by the club pro, he wouldn’t dare break it. “The home pro lives there,” he’d explain. “We’re just visiting.”
Spieth, a Texas alum, roommate and teammate of Hickok, was at 8-under par going into 13. But Spieth, cognizant of his buddy’s record and that he was playing on one of golf’s great cathedrals, put on the brakes. He whispered to Lucido that he was going to push his approach on 13 and bogey the hole. Then after a birdie at the 17th, still with a potential record on the card, Reeves recommended that Spieth hit an iron off the 18th tee that would stop short of the cypress trees guarding the green on the 346-yard par-4 and get one last birdie birdie. But Spieth threw caution to the wind and took out the driver and hooked it into the trees left. After Lucido found the ball, Spieth had a chance to escape jail but nicked a tree branch en route to a double bogey. Collegially, Spieth had shown respect to Hickok, who remains winless as a pro, but can still claim a share of the Cypress Point record.
When approached on the PGA Tour to confirm the details of Lucido’s memory of that fateful day, Spieth downplayed some of the details, and he said he wasn’t specifically protecting Hickok. “I think there was a tie amongst a bunch of players, and it may have included Hogan,” Spieth told Golfweek. “But you’re not supposed to break it. That was Byron Nelson’s thing. So, it might have been half yes, half I hit a bad shot.”
Then he paused, smiled and reiterated what makes him as classy a champion as Nelson before him. “You’re just not supposed to break it,” he said.
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