Brian Barnes, 74, Dies; Golfer Best surpassed Nicklaus Back to Back
Brian Barnes, a charismatic piping English golfer who was best known to beat Jack Nicklaus twice in one day in Ryder Cup singles games, died on Monday at his home in Virginia Water , England, southwest of London. He was 74.
The European Tour, which confirmed death, said he had cancer.
A nine-time winner on the European Tour, Barnes – known for playing with a pipe in his mouth and a bottle of vodka and orange juice in his bag – was best known for his two wins at Nicklaus in Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pa., In 1975, when the Ryder Cup was a competition between the United States and Great Britain and Ireland. (It now places an American team against a European team.)
In the morning, Barnes won singles, 4 and 2 (in match play, he was four hits ahead with two holes to play), and Nicklaus asked the American captain. , Arnold Palmer, if he could play Barnes again in the afternoon. Bernard Hunt, the captain of Europe, agreed to a change in the draw and Barnes won again, 2 and 1.
"The Americans could not believe it," said Bernard Gallacher, friend of Barnes and Ryder Cup partner, "And they all congratulated them on saying they never thought anyone could beat Jack."
Barnes told today's Golfer magazine in 2012: "When we went to the press after the morning round, everyone pretended to have beaten Jesus Christ."
coverage of the event called The New York Times Barnes "Brian the Jack Killer", who described him as "a huge man who continues to smoke a pipe on anything but the drives and long iron shots."
Despite heroism van Barnes changed the Ryder Cup competition into a three-day competition by one of the strongest American teams ever to compete, including Nicklaus, Billy Casper, Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Gene Littler, Tom Weiskopf and Raymond Floyd. (Palmer, co-founder of Laurel Valley, did not play.)
Barnes played in the Ryder Cup, a biennial event, in six consecutive games, from 1969 to 1979, when players from Continental Europe joined the front h first. Barnes finished every season in the top 10 of the Order of Merit of the European Tour from 1972, the first year of the tour, to 1978.
Brian William Barnes was born in Addington, south of London, on June 3, 1945. He grew up in southwestern England, where he went to private preparation schools and where his father, the secretary of the prestigious Burnham & Barrow Golf Club, taught him the game. Brian won the British Youths Open Amateur Championship in 1964 before becoming a professional.
His survivors are his two children, Didi and Guy. His wife, Hilary Barnes, an award-winning gardener and daughter of the 1951 British Open champion, Max Faulkner, died in 2014.
Barnes won the Senior British Open at Royal Portrush in 1995 and 1996.
He loved a drink and famously marked his ball on the last hole of the 1982 Professional Championship with a beer can before he made a profit. He received treatment for alcoholism in 1993.
"He will always be well remembered for beating Jack twice on one day in 1975," said David Williams, president of the European Tour, "but his impact was much further felt that as one of the great characters and entertainers of the tour. ”
The New York Times reported.
