Cary Middlecoff

American golfer and former dentist who won three major championships including the 1955 Masters, finishing his career tenth on the all-time PGA Tour win list.

Born Emmett Cary Middlecoff on 6 January 1921 in Halls, Tennessee, Middlecoff graduated with a dentistry degree from the University of Tennessee and served in the U.S. Army Dental Corps during World War II. Despite this promising professional path, he gave up dentistry at age 26 to pursue golf full-time, turning professional in 1947 after winning a PGA Tour event as an amateur two years earlier. Middlecoff's rise was rapid: in only his third year on tour, 1949, he won the U.S. Open along with five other tournaments. His career peaked in 1955, when he captured the Masters Tournament along with five other titles, and he added a second U.S. Open title in 1956, becoming a three-time major champion. Renowned for a long, languid swing that generated exceptional distance for his era, Middlecoff was also a superb putter, though he became notorious for taking excessive time over his shots. He engaged in a famous 11-hole sudden-death playoff with Lloyd Mangrum at the 1949 Motor City Open that organisers eventually called off, sharing the title between the two players. Middlecoff won 39 PGA Tour events across his career, tied for tenth all-time, and played on three winning U.S. Ryder Cup teams. Back problems and nerve troubles ended his competitive career in the early 1960s while still in his early forties, though he continued playing the Masters as a past champion until 1971 and enjoyed an 18-year second career as a respected golf television analyst. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1986 and died in 1998.

Long, languid swing combined with an excellent putting touch

One of the most consistent American golfers of the 1950s, later a respected television analyst