Billy Casper obit

Billy Casper, Hall of Fame golfer who won three majors, dies at 83

He was not on the list. 

Billy Casper, one of professional golf’s top players for two decades and winner of three major U.S. tournaments, died Feb. 7 at his home near Salt Lake City. He was 83.

The cause was a heart attack, according to a statement from Billy Casper Golf, the course- management firm he co-founded.

In any other era, Mr. Casper might have commanded more attention than he did, but he was overshadowed by the “Big Three” who dominated golf through the height of his career: Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player.

“I think it is fair to say that Billy was probably underrated by those who didn’t play against him,” Nicklaus, an 18-time major tournament champion, told the Associated Press. “Those who did compete against him knew how special he was.”

Renowned for his steady shot-making and masterful putting game, Mr. Casper won the U.S. Open in 1959 and 1966, and one Masters, in 1970. His 51 PGA victories put him seventh on the all-time list of winners of the Professional Golfers’ Association of America. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1978.

Billy Casper, left, is helped into the victor’s green jacket by George Archer after winning the 1970 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga. (AP)

Mr. Casper’s comeback win at the 1966 U.S. Open was especially storied. He made up seven strokes on the last nine holes to tie Arnold Palmer for the lead in the last round. In an 18-hole playoff the next day, Mr. Casper came from behind again to beat Palmer by four strokes.

Mr. Casper kept a lower profile than Palmer, Nicklaus and Gary Player. His win totals and reputation on the tour were in the same league as theirs.

In a combined forward to Mr. Casper’s 2012 autobiography, “The Big Three and Me,” Palmer, Nicklaus and Player wrote that “there was another player who was winning as often as we were, a player we kept an eye on and worried about just as much, if not more, than each other. His name was Billy Casper. It could have been the Big Four.”

William Earl Casper Jr. was born on June 24, 1931, in San Diego. His father was an itinerant laborer who found work at dairy farms and mines.

Mr. Casper’s father mowed a cow pasture on the family farm in Silver City, N.M., to set up three golf holes. Mr. Casper hit his first five-iron shot there when he was 4 years old, he wrote in his memoir.

His mother and father divorced when he was 12. Mr. Casper often spoke about how his parents were not much interested in child rearing.

“It was a Huck Finn sort of existence,” he said, according to a 1969 Sports Illustrated profile. In contrast, Mr. Casper openly cooed over babies “with near feminine abandon,” the profile said. Mr. Casper and his wife had five children and adopted six more.

Mr. Casper caddied while in high school in San Diego, then joined the Navy, where he operated driving ranges and golf courses for sailors, he wrote in his memoir.

He joined the PGA tour in 1955 and won his first tournament, the Labatt Open, in 1956. He road-tripped between competitions in a Buick Roadmaster towing a trailer home, courtesy of his sponsor, a San Diego car dealer who took 30 percent of his winnings in return, he wrote.

In his early days, Mr. Casper hardly appeared to be an athlete, weighing well over 200 pounds and suffering mood swings, he wrote. On the advice of his doctor, who in 1964 diagnosed multiple allergies, Mr. Casper took up an unusual diet that included organic vegetables and a rotating menu of game meats including bear, whale and hippopotamus. He dropped more than 50 pounds, he wrote.

Mr. Casper and his wife, the former Shirley Franklin, became Mormons and raised their burgeoning family in rural Utah. He ran a charitable foundation, Billy’s Kids, and had nine wins on the Champions Tour for golfers over age 50.

In 1989, he co-founded Vienna, Va.-based Billy Casper Golf, the largest owner-operator of golf courses, country clubs and resorts in the U.S., according to the statement and the company’s website. Mr. Casper served as a senior adviser to the firm at the time of his death.

Besides his wife and children, survivors include 71 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, according to the statement.