1979 Masters Tournament

1979 Masters Tournament

Tournament information
Dates	April 12–15, 1979
Location	Augusta, Georgia 33.503°N 82.020°W / 33.503; -82.020
Course(s)	Augusta National Golf Club
Organized by	Augusta National Golf Club
Tour(s)	PGA Tour
Statistics
Par	72
Length	7,040 yards (6,437 m)
Field	72 players, 45 after cut
Cut	145 (+1)
Winner's share	$50,000
Champion
Fuzzy Zoeller
280 (−8), playoff
Location map
Augusta National Location in the United States Augusta National Location in Georgia

The 1979 Masters Tournament was the 43rd Masters Tournament, held April 12–15 at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.

Fuzzy Zoeller won his only Masters, the first of his two major titles, with a birdie on the second hole of a playoff with Ed Sneed and Tom Watson. Jack Nicklaus climbed up the leaderboard on Sunday with a 69 (−3), but bogeyed 17 to finish a stroke out of the playoff; Tom Kite had a double bogey at 16 for an even par 72 in the final round to finish fifth, three strokes back.

Second and third round leader Sneed seemed to have a commanding three-shot lead with only three holes to go, but bogeyed the final three holes to card a final round 76 (+4) and fell into the playoff. It was the debut of the sudden-death format at Augusta, adopted by the Masters in 1976. Its last playoff was nine years earlier in 1970, then a full 18-hole round on Monday.

The sudden-death playoff began on the tenth hole, a downhill par-4, where all three players missed birdie putts and parred. On the second hole, the par-4 11th, Sneed failed to hole a bunker shot and Watson a birdie putt, and then Zoeller made his from 6 feet (2 m) to win.

Zoeller, age 27, was the first to win the Masters in his initial attempt since Gene Sarazen in 1935, the second edition of the tournament. In his fifth season on tour, it was Zoeller's second win, the first came less than three months earlier at the Andy Williams-San Diego Open Invitational. He won his other major five years later at the 1984 U.S. Open, also in a playoff.

The second round was suspended for two hours Friday afternoon due to heavy rain and tornado warnings. Due to the delay, not all golfers were able to complete their second rounds on Friday and the cut line was not determined until these rounds were completed on Saturday morning. Normally scheduled to conclude on the second Sunday of April, this Masters was held a week later, as was 1984.

Field

1. Masters champions

Tommy Aaron, Gay Brewer, Billy Casper, Charles Coody, Raymond Floyd (8,9,11,12), Doug Ford, Bob Goalby, Jack Nicklaus (3,4,8,9,11,12), Arnold Palmer, Gary Player (3,8,9,11), Sam Snead, Art Wall Jr., Tom Watson (3,8,9,10,11,12)

• George Archer, Jack Burke Jr., Jimmy Demaret, Ralph Guldahl, Claude Harmon, Ben Hogan, Herman Keiser, Cary Middlecoff, Byron Nelson, Henry Picard, and Gene Sarazen did not play.

The following categories only apply to Americans

2. U.S. Open champions (last five years)

Lou Graham (12), Hubert Green (8,11,12), Hale Irwin (8,9,12), Andy North (9), Jerry Pate (8,9,10,11)

3. The Open champions (last five years)

Johnny Miller (9)

4. PGA champions (last five years)

Dave Stockton (9,12), Lee Trevino (8,9,10,11), Lanny Wadkins (8,11,12)

• John Mahaffey (10,11) withdrew because of injury.

5. 1978 U.S. Amateur semi-finalists

Bobby Clampett (7,a), John Cook (6,7,a), Scott Hoch (7,a), Mike Peck (a)

6. Previous two U.S. Amateur and Amateur champions

• John Fought forfeited his exemption by turning professional.

7. Members of the 1978 U.S. Eisenhower Trophy team

Jay Sigel (a)

8. Top 24 players and ties from the 1978 Masters Tournament

Wally Armstrong, Miller Barber, Andy Bean (9,10,11), Rod Funseth (11), Joe Inman (9), Don January (12), Tom Kite (11), Billy Kratzert (9), Gene Littler, Jerry McGee (12), Lindy Miller, Gil Morgan (10,11), Ed Sneed (12), Leonard Thompson, Tom Weiskopf (9,10)

9. Top 16 players and ties from the 1978 U.S. Open

Mike McCullough, Artie McNickle, J. C. Snead

10. Top eight players and ties from 1978 PGA Championship

Craig Stadler

11. Winners of PGA Tour events since the previous Masters

Bob Byman, Ben Crenshaw, Lee Elder, Jerry Heard, Lon Hinkle, Barry Jaeckel, Bruce Lietzke, Mark McCumber, Mac McLendon, Larry Nelson, Jim Simons, Ron Streck, Fuzzy Zoeller

12. Members of the U.S. 1977 Ryder Cup team

Dave Hill

13. Foreign invitations

Isao Aoki, Seve Ballesteros (8,9), Nick Faldo, David Graham (8), Graham Marsh (10), Peter McEvoy (6,a), Jack Newton (11), Peter Oosterhuis (8), Simon Owen, Masashi Ozaki, Victor Regalado (11), Bob Shearer (9)

• Numbers in brackets indicate categories that the player would have qualified under had they been American.

Round summaries

First round

Thursday, April 12, 1979

Place	Player	Score	To par
1	Bruce Lietzke	67	−5
T2	Tom Watson	68	−4
	Joe Inman
	Leonard Thompson
	Ed Sneed
T6	Craig Stadler	69	−3
	Jack Nicklaus
	Lou Graham
	Billy Casper
	Andy Bean

Second round

Friday, April 13, 1979
Saturday, April 14, 1979

Place	Player	Score	To par
T1	Ed Sneed	68-67=135	−9
	Craig Stadler	69-66=135
T3	Raymond Floyd	70-68=138	−6
	Leonard Thompson	68-70=138
T5	Miller Barber	75-64=139	−5
	Tom Watson	68-71=139
	Joe Inman	68-71=139
T8	Seve Ballesteros	72-68=140	−4
	Jack Nicklaus	69-71=140
	Lou Graham	69-71=140
	Lindy Miller	73-67=140

Third round

Saturday, April 14, 1979

Place	Player	Score	To par
1	Ed Sneed	68-67-69=204	−12
T2	Tom Watson	68-71-70=209	−7
	Craig Stadler	69-66-74=209
T4	Bruce Lietzke	67-75-68=210	−6
	Fuzzy Zoeller	70-71-69=210
T6	Tom Kite	71-72-68=211	−5
	Jack Newton	70-72-69=211
	Miller Barber	75-64-72=211
	Raymond Floyd	70-68-73=211
	Leonard Thompson	68-70-73=211

Final round

Sunday, April 15, 1979

Final leaderboard

Champion

Silver Cup winner (low amateur)

(a) = amateur

(c) = past champion

Top 10

Place	Player	Score	To par	Money (US$)
T1	Ed Sneed	68-67-69-76=280	−8	Playoff
	Tom Watson (c)	68-71-70-71=280
	Fuzzy Zoeller	70-71-69-70=280
4	Jack Nicklaus (c)	69-71-72-69=281	−7	15,000
5	Tom Kite	71-72-68-72=283	−5	13,000
6	Bruce Lietzke	67-75-68-74=284	−4	11,500
T7	Craig Stadler	69-66-74-76=285	−3	9,000
	Leonard Thompson	68-70-73-74=285
	Lanny Wadkins	73-69-70-73=285
T10	Hubert Green	74-69-72-71=286	−2	6,500
	Gene Littler	74-71-69-72=286

Leaderboard below the top 10
Place	Player	Score	To par	Money ($)
T12	Seve Ballesteros	72-68-73-74=287	−1	3,740
	Miller Barber	75-64-72-76=287
	Jack Newton	70-72-69-76=287
	Andy North	72-72-74-69=287
	Lee Trevino	73-71-70-73=287
T17	Lee Elder	73-70-74-71=288	E	2,700
	Raymond Floyd (c)	70-68-73-77=288
	Billy Kratzert	73-68-71-76=288
	Artie McNickle	71-72-74-71=288
	Gary Player (c)	71-72-74-71=288
22	J. C. Snead	73-71-72-73=289	+1	2,400
T23	Bobby Clampett (a)	73-71-73-73=290	+2	0
	Lou Graham	69-71-76-74=290		2,225
	Joe Inman	68-71-76-75=290
	Hale Irwin	72-70-74-74=290
	Jim Simons	72-70-75-73=290
T28	Tommy Aaron (c)	72-73-76-70=291	+3	2,000
	Andy Bean	69-74-74-74=291
	Graham Marsh	71-72-73-75=291
T31	Gil Morgan	72-69-71-80=292	+4	1,975
	Larry Nelson	70-75-70-77=292
	Victor Regalado	71-74-75-72=292
T34	Isao Aoki	71-72-72-78=293	+5	1,950
	Bob Byman	71-71-75-76=293
	Charles Coody (c)	71-72-74-76=293
	Scott Hoch (a)	72-73-74-74=293		0
	Peter Oosterhuis	73-72-73-75=293		1,950
39	John Cook (a)	72-72-75-76=295	+7	0
40	Nick Faldo	73-71-79-73=296	+8	1,875
T41	Jerry Pate	72-70-75-80=297	+9	1,850
	Tom Weiskopf	73-72-71-81=297
43	Billy Casper (c)	69-75-80-75=299	+11	1,800
44	Rod Funseth	70-73-78-79=300	+12	1,775
45	Lindy Miller	73-67-75-86=301	+13	1,750
CUT	Barry Jaeckel	75-71=146	+2
	Don January	73-73=146
	Jerry McGee	77-69=146
	Arnold Palmer (c)	74-72=146
	Wally Armstrong	73-74=147	+3
	Jay Sigel (a)	72-75=147
	Jerry Heard	75-73=148	+4
	Johnny Miller	77-71=148
	Sam Snead (c)	74-74=148
	Dave Hill	75-74=149	+5
	Lon Hinkle	77-72=149
	Simon Owen	74-75=149
	Dave Stockton	74-75=149
	Art Wall Jr. (c)	74-75=149
	Gay Brewer (c)	75-75=150	+6
	Mike McCullough	73-77=150
	Mac McLendon	74-77=151	+7
	Masashi Ozaki	76-75=151
	Ben Crenshaw	73-80=153	+9
	Mark McCumber	75-78=153
	Mike Peck (a)	78-75=153
	Ron Streck	78-76=154	+10
	Peter McEvoy (a)	79-79=158	+14
	Bob Goalby (c)	79-81=160	+16
WD	Bob Shearer	73	+1
	Doug Ford (c)	77	+5
	David Graham	79	+7

Sources:

Scorecard

Hole	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
Par	4	5	4	3	4	3	4	5	4	4	4	3	5	4	5	3	4	4
Zoeller	−6	−6	−6	−5	−5	−5	−5	−6	−6	−6	−6	−5	−6	−6	−7	−7	−8	−8
Sneed	−12	−12	−12	−11	−11	−10	−10	−10	−10	−9	−9	−9	−10	−10	−11	−10	−9	−8
Watson	−7	−8	−9	−8	−8	−8	−8	−8	−8	−8	−8	−8	−8	−7	−8	−8	−8	−8
Nicklaus	−4	−5	−5	−4	−4	−4	−4	−5	−5	−6	−6	−6	−7	−7	−7	−8	−7	−7
Kite	−5	−5	−5	−6	−6	−6	−6	−6	−6	−6	−6	−6	−7	−7	−7	−5	−5	−5
Lietzke	−6	−6	−6	−6	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−4	−4	−3	−3	−3	−3	−4	−4
Stadler	−6	−7	−8	−8	−8	−8	−7	−7	−6	−4	−3	−2	−4	−2	−2	−2	−3	−3
Thompson	−4	−4	−4	−3	−3	−3	−3	−4	−4	−4	−4	−3	−4	−3	−3	−3	−3	−3
Wadkins	−2	−2	−2	−2	−2	−2	−2	−2	−1	−2	−2	−1	E	−1	−2	−3	−3	−3

Cumulative tournament scores, relative to par
Source:

Playoff

Place	Player	Score	To par	Money ($)
1	Fuzzy Zoeller	4-3	−1	50,000
T2	Ed Sneed	4-x		30,000
	Tom Watson	4-4

• Sudden-death playoff began on hole #10 and ended at hole #11, when Zoeller birdied.

External links

• Masters.com – Past winners and results
• Augusta.com – 1979 Masters leaderboard and scorecards