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With his blazing game Snead helped to drive the nation's golf scores down from the low 705 to the low 60s. (Improved equipment—notably the steel shaft and the larger ball, and such gadgets as the power mower and the fairway sprinkler systems—helped.) Sam Snead, with his own particular style and corn-pone personality, was something new in combat golf. For years the game had been dominated by English styles. With the great American hitters—including Snead—golf had got out of its Oxford bags.
The Goldwyn of Golf. Snead is a model of 4-H Club health and vigor; he never smokes, drinks only a rare beer, and spends more time sleeping than most athletes. He is the best-dressed golfer in the game: his snap-brim palmetto hats and neatly pressed slacks are Snead trademarks (in a recent inventory, Mrs. Snead counted 280 sport shirts and 36 straw hats).
He is the Goldwyn of golf, whose hillbilly homilies are legends. Once Snead sat in the Boston Red Sox dugout during a baseball game and listened solemnly while his good friend Ted Williams held forth on the difficulties of baseball as compared with golf. Baseball, with a round bat and a fast-moving target, Williams explained, calls for much more skill than the quiet game of golf. "Maybe so," said Sam doubtfully. "But when we hit a foul ball, we've gotta get out there and play it." Another time, when Snead heard that Bing Crosby had just won the Academy Award, he said, "Gee, that's swell. How'd he do it—match or medal play?" After his first big splash in California, Snead saw his picture, a Wirephoto, in the New York Times. He was amazed. "Now how'd they ever get my picture?" he asked. "Ah never been in New York." The Big Money. To Snead, golf is strictly business. For relaxation he prefers hunting and fishing (he caught the world record bonefish, a 15-pounder, off Bimini in 1953).
In 1940 Snead and his childhood sweetheart, Audrey Karnes, were married (as teenagers, they had held hands in the school bus) and settled down in Hot Springs. But the lure of golfing gold was too great, and Snead reckons that his travels have kept him away from home for twelve of the past 14 years. The Sneads have two sons, Jackie, 9, and Terry, 2. "My little one don't even know me," says Sam.
Underneath his Li'l Abner façade, he is a shrewd businessman. His official tournament earnings over the years amount to $250,000. Local matches and exhibitions (at a flat fee of $1,250 per exhibition) have probably doubled his take.
There are lucrative off-course sources, too. For 17 years Snead has been a member of the advisory staff of the Wilson Sporting Goods Co.. receiving a fat retainer and royalties on the sales of his signature clubs. He has invested in a California golf course and Florida real estate. He and Ted Williams are co-owners of a fishing-tackle company. Endorsements bring in a good stipend and three gleaming Nashes each year. He has made a golfing record, several films, draws royalties from four ghost-written books and a ghosted golfing column. And, like all the top pros, he makes money gambling on the game.
Snead is careful with his money, but he doesn't keep it in tomato cans buried in his garden, as Jimmy Demaret alleges.