1970s Golf Stars

In the spirit of our “decade stars” series for our pro wrestling and stock car racing games, we present a new series of “decade stars” for HISTORY MAKER GOLF Championship Golf Game. Many gamers enjoy sharpening the focus of their tabletop projects to year-specific season replays. But it’s problematic to find consensus and interest in any one specific season. Creating “every” season just isn’t an option for us, unfortunately. However, we feel the “decade stars” format is a great middle ground. This set has been created in such a way so as to approximate a typical year in the decade with a realistic, logical mix of golfing contemporaries.

 We commissioned golf historian and PLAAY gamer Dave Gray to do the research and ratings architecture for these golfing decade sets. Dave offers these thoughts on the pro golfing scene of the 1970s...

"Probably no other decade in the modern era featured more historically great golfers than the 1970s. The only thing comparable would have been earlier when a tournament could feature Hogan, Nelson, and Snead. Lee Trevino had made his presence known at the end of the 1960s. Nicklaus had slumbered in the late 60s but had retooled his game for the 1970s and became the man to beat. Gary Player showed remarkable durability and remained a major tournament player in the 1970s winning a further three majors.

“New faces would begin to appear beginning with Johnny Miller and Tom Weiskopf. Later in the decade Tom Watson would make his presence felt. A player like Hale Irwin who might have been at or near the top of the game in the 1990s would win two majors in the 1970s. Late in the decade new stars emerged like Seve Ballesteros and Fuzzy Zoeller. Other significant players would include Raymond Floyd and Hubie Green. And England would finally reemerge in US major play as Tony Jacklin won the US Open in 1970.

“Jack Nicklaus was the man of the decade however. Eight major championships went to Nicklaus, primarily in the early and mid-1970s. Early in the decade Nicklaus would have epic struggles with Lee Trevino. When Trevino faded Johnny Miller and fellow Ohioan Tom Weiskopf would take his place. One of the most classic Masters in golf history occurred in 1975 where Nicklaus and Weiskopf dueled for supremacy while a white hot Johnny Miller shot himself into contention. Nicklaus edged his competitors out in one of the great final days in Masters’ history.

“When Miller and Weiskopf began to drop back in the pack Tom Watson started progressing towards his zenith. His 1977 classic shootout at Turnberry with Nicklaus in the British Open was characterized for the ages as the “Duel in the Sun.” Watson and Nicklaus scorched the course leaving the rest of the competition in their dust as they played together for both the third and fourth rounds. During this heated competition Watson turned to Nicklaus and asked “This is what it’s all about isn’t it?” Nicklaus grinned and replied ‘You bet it is.’ This was golf in the 1970s.”

 The ‘70s Stars set includes 72 golf pros who were regulars on the tour during the ‘70s, and we added a splash of eighteen era-specific golfers for “flavor.” Some are international stars with limited domestic exposure, some are “flash-in-the-pan” phenoms, but all had their “moment” during the 1970s. The bonus golfers are given a tournament rating of “0A,” and you are free to use them however you like. 

To help accent the decade-specific feel of this set, we've included a golf course with historical significance. Rustic Valley CC is based on The Pleasant Valley CC, Sutton, MA, formerly an annual stop on the pro tour, under various tournament sponsors. Some of the big names who won at Pleasant Valley in the '70s were Billy Casper (1970 Avco Classic), Roger Maltbie (1975 Pleasant Valley Classic) and Ray Floyd (1977 Pleasant Valley Classic). The '77 Classic was a tour "designated event," for which Jack Nicklaus made his only appearance on the course--he finished in second place, two strokes behind Floyd. The story goes that after winning the '75 Classic, Maltbie went out to celebrate--and left his $40,000 winner's check at the bar.

The course has a rich history on both sides of the '70s as well. The 1965 Carling World Open, held at Pleasant Valley, was the biggest pro event in history, to that time. It hosted players from fourteen different countries, and boasted a purse of $200,000. The inaugural Kemper Open was held at Pleasant Valley in 1968, marking the only time the men's and women's pro tours staged tournaments on the same course in the same year (until the 2014). Beyond the '70s, the tournament was called the New England classic and continued to be a regular stop on their tour every year until 1998.

In recent years, the club has fallen on hard times. It was recently offered for sale, and sat on the market for a good while before accepting a lower-than-desired offer (reportedly, about $3.5 million) from a Florida consortium in the fall of 2020. That deal, however, fell through. At this writing (June '21), the club is off the market with the owners waiting for the pandemic to subside fully before putting the club back on the market.