A Look Back at the 1984 PGA Championship

Shoal Creek Country Club is one of the best courses in Alabama (Golf Digest ranked it No. 1 on its list of the best courses in the state for 2021-22) and has hosted several prominent events, beginning with the 1984 PGA Championship. American Lee Trevino scored under 70 in each of the four rounds to win the tournament with a final score of 15-under-par, four strokes ahead of American Lanny Wadkins and South African Gary Player, a nine-time major champion. Trevino’s sixth and final victory at a major championship marked his first tournament win of any kind in three years.

The field for the 1984 PGA Championship featured 148 golfers, including legends like Fred Couples, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo, and Jack Nicklaus. Still, the spotlight was on Trevino, Wadkins, and Player for much of the tournament, especially in the fourth round as the golfers played together in a threesome. Each of the three golfers was already PGA Championship winners, while Player and Trevino were nearing the end of their career on the PGA Tour. Player 48 was only a little over a year away from qualifying for the Senior PGA Tour and was never in contention at subsequent events. Trevino, meanwhile, never won another PGA Tour event.

Wadkins gained an early edge over Trevino and Player by tying Mike Reid and 1982 PGA Championship winner Raymond Floyd with a low round score of 68 in the tournament’s first round. Trevino shot 69 in the first round. Player responded in the second round by shooting 63, which, at the time, was the lowest single-round score in PGA Championship history. It was especially surprising given that, before the tournament, Player had been struggling with his putter and recorded eight rounds at 75 or above. After the second round, Trevino, Player, and Wadkins were tied for the tournament lead.

However, Trevino began pulling away in the third round and finished with a score of 67. Player and Wadkins shot 69 and 68, respectively, in the third round. Trevino padded his lead during Sunday’s final round. He shot 69 in round four, whereas Player and Wadkins scored over 70. He won $125,000 for his first-place finish, while Player and Wadkins earned $62,500. American Calvin Peete and Spaniard Seve Ballesteros finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Larry Mize, Russ Cochran, and Victor Regalado were among the top 10 finishers.

Putting wasn’t just an issue for Player entering the tournament. Trevino had also been struggling on the green, which was one of the main reasons he purchased a new putter weeks prior on a trip to the Netherlands. His putting was particularly impressive during the third round when he shot 67. During Sunday’s final round, Trevino made an 18-foot birdie on the 18th hole to secure a 69 and become the first PGA Championship winner in history to shoot in the 60s in all four rounds (69-68-67-69). He accomplished the same feat at the 1968 U.S. Open but has since said his victory at the 1984 PGA Championship is the most memorable career.

Shoal Creek has since hosted the 1986 U.S. Amateur Championship, 1990 PGA Championship, and 1994 Jerry Pate’s National Intercollegiate.

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What Is an Alternative Investment?

An alternative investment is a financial asset not falling under the conventional investments categories like cash, stocks, and bonds. Hedge funds, real property, private equity, crowdfunding, and commodities are common types of alternative investments. Pieces of art and antiques also belong to this category of financial assets.

Hedge funds are private, professionally managed funds that operate with pooled capital. Rentals, real estate development companies, raw land, and others can all fall under the real estate type of alternative investments. Private equity usually requires directly investing large amounts in not publicly traded private companies. Often this means investing in new companies with high growth potential.

Crowdfunding uses pooled money from individuals to fund new business endeavors. Investors can receive company equity shares in return. And commodities typically involve investments in raw materials, such as precious metals, electricity, and oil.

Alternative investments usually have higher fees and require higher minimum initial investments than retail-oriented mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). They are also more complex, less liquid, and entail higher risk. Thus, typically large institutional investors or accredited, wealthy individuals hold alternative investments.

However, alternatives have lower transaction costs because of lower turnover. This last characteristic and the smaller number of buyers make them less liquid. For example, it can be considerably harder to find a buyer for a 100-year-old bottle of wine than for 1,000 shares of a leading software company.

As for the higher risk, it is difficult to obtain verifiable financial information for alternative investments or advertise them to potential investors as they have fewer opportunities to do so. In the case of private equity, investing in new yet untested companies significantly increases the investment’s risk. The same applies to commodities as their supply and demand are highly susceptible to external factors like the weather or natural disasters.

Alternative investments tend to be subject to less clear regulation than their conventional counterparts. Although the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulates alternative investment vehicles, their securities do not require registration. In the case of hedge funds, being less regulated allows their managers to transact a wider range of assets, invest in more complex deals, and apply more complex investment strategies.

For example, hedge funds often use the so-called merger arbitrage, where they concurrently buy and sell the corresponding stocks of two merging companies to realize “risk-free” profits. But the lower regulation has also rendered alternatives more prone to fraud and investments scams. Thus, any investor considering them must conduct thorough due diligence.

The main appeal of alternative investments comes from their low correlation with stock and bond markets and higher potential return. Alternatives usually move opposite to stocks and bonds markets, which means they keep their values during a market downturn. This feature makes them suitable for portfolio diversification and volatility or price swings mitigation. Real estate and commodities like precious metals and oil are particularly good for that purpose. In addition, they also make for an effective hedge against inflation, which compromises paper money’s purchasing power.

Similar to any investment, no return is guaranteed, alternative investments can potentially create higher returns than traditional investments. Furthermore, some alternative investments also offer tax benefits unavailable with conventional ones.

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Important Tennis Shots to Master

Individuals learning the sport of tennis have several unique shots to master. The basic shots in tennis include the forehand, backhand, and serve. More specialized shots include lobs and drop shots, to name only a few.

The vast majority of tennis rallies involve players exchanging groundstrokes, the collective term for the forehand and backhand. The mechanics for groundstrokes can vary considerably from one player to the next. The type of grip a player uses plays a key role in the manner in which they hit groundstrokes. An eastern forehand grip, for example, helps players hit flatter shots, while the semi-western grip is ideal for players trying to add more topspin to their games.

Both the forehand and backhand can be hit with either one or two hands. The one-handed backhand has become increasingly sparse among professional players, though all-time great Roger Federer uses a one-handed backhand, as do up and coming talents such as Stefanos Tsitsipas and Denis Shapovalov. The two-handed forehand, meanwhile, is completely absent from the highest levels of tennis, though grand slam champions of the past like Monica Seles and Marion Bartoli have made use of the technique.

Similarly, groundstrokes can be modified with several types of spin. Topspin shots bounce high off the court, pushing opponents back and providing players with a larger margin for error. Slice shots, on the other hand, move slowly through the air and stay low to the ground, functioning as effective defensive shots. Flat shots are groundstrokes hit with little to no spin. They are dangerous offensive weapons but can be difficult to control.

Forehands and backhands can both be used to hit specific types of groundstrokes, such as passing shots. There is no specific strategy or technique for hitting a passing shot. Instead, players are forced to come up with a passing shot when an opponent positions themselves at the net, leaving players only a small window of opportunity to get the ball by.

The serve can be viewed as the single most important shot in tennis. A player’s service motion represents the only time in a match when the player can hold the ball in hand and take a moment to think about exactly how and where they would like to place the ball on the court.

As is the case with groundstrokes, serves can be hit with different kinds of spin. Topspin serves, or kick serves, can be directed into an opponent’s body, making it difficult to respond with a complete stroke. Slice serves, meanwhile, can be used to draw opponents off the court, setting up a quick one-two punch. A far less common type of serve is the underhand serve. Often considered a “cheap tactic,” Michael Chang famously used an underhand serve against Ivan Lendl on his way to the 1989 French Open championship.

Lastly, drop shots and lobs function as the most commonly implemented specialty shots in the sport of tennis. Players use spin and deft touch to place drop shots just over the net, forcing opponents to dash into the court. Lobs, by contrast, are hit high overhead, driving opponents deep into the court. Lobs are great defensive shots, but topspin lobs serve as an effective offensive tactic after a drop shot has drawn an opponent in.

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