1969 Masters Tournament

Tournament information
Dates	April 10–13, 1969
Location	Augusta, Georgia 33°30′11″N 82°01′12″W / 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	6,980 yards (6,383 m)[1]
Field	83 players, 48 after cut
Cut	148 (+4)
Winner's share	$20,000
Champion
George Archer
281 (−7)
Location Map
Augusta National Location in the United States Show map of the United States Augusta National Location in Georgia Show map of Georgia
← 1968 1970 →

The 1969 Masters Tournament was the 33rd Masters Tournament, held April 10–13 at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.

George Archer won his only major championship, one stroke ahead of runners-up Billy Casper, George Knudson, and Tom Weiskopf.^[2][3][4][5] Third round leader Casper was five over-par after ten holes in his final round, then regrouped with three birdies but needed another. Weiskopf was tied for the lead until a bogey at 17, and future champion Charles Coody bogeyed the final three holes and finished two strokes back.^[6] Casper would win the title in 1970 in a playoff and Coody would win in 1971.

This was the last Masters that Ken Venturi participated in, and he missed the cut by twelve strokes. As an amateur in 1956, Venturi led after 54 holes but finished runner-up to Jack Burke Jr. Burke made the cut at the Masters for the final time in 1969 and finished in 24th place. Past champions were noticeably absent from the leaderboard this year, as Burke tied for the best finish with three-time winner Jack Nicklaus.

It was Archer's third Masters and his only top ten finish at Augusta; his next best result was tied for eleventh in 1981.

Bob Lunn won the tenth Par 3 contest on Wednesday with a score of 23.

Course

^ Holes 1, 2, 4, and 11 were later renamed.

Field

1. Masters champions

Gay Brewer (9,11), Jack Burke Jr., Doug Ford, Bob Goalby (8,10), Ralph Guldahl, Claude Harmon, Herman Keiser, Cary Middlecoff, Jack Nicklaus (2,3,8,9), Arnold Palmer (10,11), Henry Picard, Gary Player (2,3,8,9), Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead (9), Art Wall Jr. (8)

• Jimmy Demaret, Ben Hogan, and Byron Nelson did not play.

The following categories only apply to Americans

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

Billy Casper (8,9,10,11), Lee Trevino (9), Ken Venturi

3. The Open champions (last five years)

4. PGA champions (last five years)

Julius Boros (8,9,10,11), Al Geiberger (9,10,11), Don January (8), Dave Marr (8), Bobby Nichols (9,11)

5. The first eight finishers in the 1968 U.S. Amateur

Bob Barbarossa (a), John Bohmann (a), Bruce Fleisher (6,7,a), Vinny Giles (7,8,a), Hubert Green (a), Jack Lewis Jr. (7,a), Rik Massengale (a), Allen Miller (a)^[7]

• Miller and Billy Joe Patton tied for 8th place but Miller won the place by the drawing of lots.^[8] Canadian Gary Cowan also tied for 8th place but was not eligible.

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

• Bob Dickson forfeited his exemption by turning professional.

7. Members of the 1968 U.S. Eisenhower Trophy team

Dick Siderowf (a)

8. Top 24 players and ties from the 1968 Masters Tournament

Tommy Aaron, George Archer (9,10), Miller Barber (10), Frank Beard (10), Gardner Dickinson (11), Raymond Floyd, Lionel Hebert, Jerry Pittman (9), Mason Rudolph, Doug Sanders (10,11), Tom Weiskopf, Bert Yancey (9), Kermit Zarley (10)

9. Top 16 players and ties from the 1968 U.S. Open

Don Bies, Rod Funseth, Dave Hill, Steve Spray, Dave Stockton

10. Top eight players and ties from 1968 PGA Championship

Frank Boynton, Charles Coody, Marty Fleckman, Lou Graham, Dan Sikes

11. Members of the U.S. 1967 Ryder Cup team

Gene Littler, Johnny Pott

12. One player, either amateur or professional, not already qualified, selected by a ballot of ex-Masters champions.

Bob Murphy

13. Leading six players, not already qualified, from a points list based on finishes in PGA Tour events since the previous Masters

Deane Beman, Dale Douglass, Bob Lunn, Mac McLendon, R. H. Sikes, Ken Still

14. Foreign invitations

Roberto Bernardini, Michael Bonallack (6,a), Peter Butler, Joe Carr (a), Bob Charles (8,9,10), Bruce Crampton, Roberto De Vicenzo (3,8), Bruce Devlin (8,9), Harold Henning (8), Tommy Horton, Brian Huggett, Tony Jacklin (8), George Knudson, Takaaki Kono, Lu Liang-Huan, Ramón Sota, Peter Thomson (3), Peter Townsend, Raul Travieso

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

Round summaries

First round

Thursday, April 10, 1969

Place	Player	Score	To par
1	Billy Casper	66	−6
T2	George Archer	67	−5
	Bruce Devlin
4	Jack Nicklaus	68	−4
T5	Bruce Crampton	69	−3
	Bruce Fleisher (a)
	Lionel Hebert
	Gene Littler
	Mason Rudolph
	Dan Sikes
	Bert Yancey

Source:^[9]

Second round

Friday, April 11, 1969

Place	Player	Score	To par
T1	Billy Casper	66-71=137	−7
	Bruce Devlin	67-70=137
T3	George Archer	67-73=140	−4
	Dan Sikes	69-71=140
T5	Tommy Aaron	71-71=142	−2
	Miller Barber	71-71=142
	Charles Coody	74-68=142
	Bruce Crampton	69-73=142
	Al Geiberger	71-71=142
	Lionel Hebert	69-73=142
	Mason Rudolph	69-73=142
	Dave Stockton	71-71=142
	Tom Weiskopf	71-71=142

Source:^[10][11][12]

Third round

Saturday, April 12, 1969

Despite being 2-over-par for his round Bruce Devlin was still in the thick of the chase at 5-under on Saturday until the Par-3 16th Hole where he rinsed his tee shot leading to a double-bogey 5 and leaving him five strokes behind starting the Final Round (where he further faded with a front nine of 6-over par 42 leading to a tie for 19th). Earlier in the round Devlin had made a great scrambling bogey at the difficult Par-4 11th after finding the water on his second shot, but could not repeat the magic when he found the water at 16.

Place	Player	Score	To par
1	Billy Casper	66-71-71=208	−8
2	George Archer	67-73-69=209	−7
3	Miller Barber	71-71-68=210	−6
T4	Charles Coody	74-68-69=211	−5
	Tom Weiskopf	71-71-69=211
T6	George Knudson	70-73-69=212	−4
	Lionel Hebert	69-73-70=212
T8	Bruce Devlin	67-70-76=213	−3
	Dan Sikes	69-71-73=213
T10	Don Bies	74-70-70=214	−2
	Takaaki Kono	71-75-68=214
	Gene Littler	69-75-70=214

Source:^[13]

Final round

Sunday, April 13, 1969

Summary

Billy Casper started the final round at 8-under par with a one-stroke lead over George Archer, but Casper bogeyed five of the first 10 holes. Meanwhile, Archer gained a three-stroke lead at 8-under after 9 holes over George Knudson, Charles Coody and Tom Weiskopf (who was playing with Archer). As the back nine unfolded there was a lot of movement on the leaderboard and standing on the 18th tee, five of the last 6 players on the course had a chance to win the tournament outright or force a Monday playoff. Only Miller Barber, playing with Casper in the final group, was out of contention for the title. The final three groups ended up on the 18th hole at the same time: Casper (−6) and Barber (-3) waiting on the tee with Archer (−7) and Weiskopf (−6) looking on from the fairway while Coody (−6) was left of the green needing to chip in for a birdie to tie and Knudson (−6) on the green some 26 feet away also needing a tying birdie.^[6]

Final leaderboard

Top 10

Place	Player	Score	To par	Money (US$)
1	George Archer	67-73-69-72=281	−7	20,000
T2	Billy Casper	66-71-71-74=282	−6	12,333
	George Knudson	70-73-69-70=282
	Tom Weiskopf	71-71-69-71=282
T5	Charles Coody	74-68-69-72=283	−5	6,750
	Don January	74-73-70-66=283
7	Miller Barber	71-71-68-74=284	−4	5,000
T8	Tommy Aaron	71-71-73-70=285	−3	3,600
	Lionel Hebert	69-73-70-73=285
	Gene Littler	69-75-70-71=285

Leaderboard below the top 10
Place	Player	Score	To par	Money ($)
11	Mason Rudolph	69-73-74-70=286	−2	3,200
12	Dan Sikes	69-71-73-74=287	−1	3,000
T13	Bruce Crampton	69-73-74-72=288	E	2,700
	Al Geiberger	71-71-74-72=288
	Harold Henning	73-72-71-72=288
	Takaaki Kono	71-75-68-74=288
	Bert Yancey	69-75-71-73=288
18	Dave Stockton	71-71-75-72=289	+1	2,400
T19	Frank Beard	72-74-70-74=290	+2	2,100
	Deane Beman	74-73-74-69=290
	Bruce Devlin	67-70-76-77=290
	Dale Douglass	73-72-71-74=290
	Lee Trevino	72-74-75-69=290
T24	Jack Burke Jr. (c)	73-72-70-76=291	+3	1,800
	Dave Hill	75-73-72-71=291
	Jack Nicklaus (c)	68-75-72-76=291
27	Arnold Palmer (c)	73-75-70-74=292	+4	1,450
28	Johnny Pott	72-72-71-78=293	+5	1,450
T29	Roberto Bernardini	76-71-72-75=294	+6	1,450
	Bob Charles	70-76-72-76=294
	Gardner Dickinson	73-74-71-76=294
	Bobby Nichols	78-69-74-73=294
T33	Don Bies	74-70-70-81=295	+7	1,425
	Julius Boros	72-73-73-77=295
	Gary Player (c)	74-70-75-76=295
T36	Raymond Floyd	73-71-78-74=296	+8	1,425
	Doug Sanders	72-71-76-77=296
	Ken Still	73-75-71-77=296
	Kermit Zarley	73-73-76-74=296
T40	Bob Goalby (c)	70-76-76-75=297	+9	1,400
	Art Wall Jr. (c)	70-77-78-72=297
42	Peter Townsend	75-71-73-79=298	+10	1,400
43	Steve Spray	75-72-74-78=299	+11	1,400
44	Bruce Fleisher (a)	69-75-73-83=300	+12	0
45	Mac McLendon	72-75-76-80=303	+15	1,400
46	Dick Siderowf (a)	78-69-80-82=309	+21	0
CUT	Frank Boynton	76-73=149	+5
	Gay Brewer (c)	75-74=149
	Marty Fleckman	73-76=149
	Rod Funseth	73-76=149
	Vinny Giles (a)	80-69=149
	Tony Jacklin	73-76=149
	Bob Lunn	74-75=149
	Jerry Pittman	74-75=149
	Roberto De Vicenzo	75-75=150	+6
	Lou Graham	73-77=150
	Brian Huggett	78-72=150
	Bob Murphy	71-79=150
	R. H. Sikes	75-75=150
	Rik Massengale (a)	75-76=151	+7
	Allen Miller (a)	77-74=151
	Henry Picard (c)	75-76=151
	Sam Snead (c)	74-77=151
	Tommy Horton	74-78=152	+8
	Raul Travieso	76-76=152
	Hubert Green (a)	76-77=153	+9
	Jack Lewis Jr. (a)	75-78=153
	Dave Marr	77-76=153
	Peter Thomson	78-75=153
	Bob Barbarossa (a)	75-79=154	+10
	Doug Ford (c)	73-81=154
	Ramón Sota	75-79=154
	Michael Bonallack (a)	76-79=155	+11
	Peter Butler	77-78=155
	Joe Carr (a)	79-76=155
	Lu Liang-Huan	80-76=156	+12
	Gene Sarazen (c)	78-80=158	+14
	John Bohmann (a)	77-82=159	+15
	Ralph Guldahl (c)	77-83=160	+16
	Ken Venturi	83-77=160
WD	Herman Keiser (c)	71-77-80=228	+12
	Cary Middlecoff (c)	72-76-80=228
	Claude Harmon (c)	83	+11

Sources:^[14][15]

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
Archer	−7	−8	−8	−7	−7	−7	−8	−8	−8	−7	−7	−7	−8	−7	−7	−7	−7	−7
Casper	−8	−8	−8	−7	−7	−6	−5	−5	−4	−3	−4	−4	−5	−5	−6	−6	−6	−6
Knudson	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−4	−4	−4	−4	−4	−5	−6	−6	−6
Weiskopf	−5	−6	−5	−5	−4	−4	−4	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−6	−6	−7	−7	−6	−6
Coody	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−5	−6	−6	−8	−7	−8	−7	−6	−5
January	+2	+1	+1	E	E	E	−1	−2	−2	−2	−2	−2	−3	−3	−4	−4	−4	−5
Barber	−5	−5	−4	−4	−4	−4	−2	−3	−3	−4	−4	−4	−3	−4	−3	−3	−3	−4

Cumulative tournament scores, relative to par