Sanders will be remembered fondly by golfers and fans of the game. I know that I do. On a sunny Sunday afternoon 50 years ago, I was with Sanders on the Hattiesburg Country Club fairways as he played in his final round of the Magnolia Classic (now known as the Sanderson Farms Championship). Sanders wore a purple-and-pink ensemble and bright purple shoes that day. This look is not possible for everyone. Sanders looked stunning with his movie star-like looks, thick, wavy brown hair and a slender physique. Let’s just say that Sanders finished tied for 17th at the Magnolia after shooting four straight par-or better rounds. He was awarded a $700 check. The $700 pay day he earned for his seventh place finish in the Sanderson Farms event last September was more than $100,000. In the last half century, professional golf has seen a lot more change than just the money. The colorful personalities like Sanders, a self taught golfer with a short swing, are mostly gone. Although he didn’t drive the golf ball very far, he was able to see where it was going and loved to compete. Jack Pittman from Hattiesburg, an amateur golfer who played alongside Sanders in the Magnolia’s Wednesday celebrity Pro-Am on Wednesday, said that Sanders loved the country club course due to its narrow fairways and pine trees. He knew he wasn’t going in those trees.” Back then, the Pro-Am was more popular than the tournament. The 1970 Magnolia Pro Am was the largest ever. It attracted more than 15,000 people to see Sanders and celebrities like Clint Eastwood (Glen Campbell), Bobby Goldsboro, Dizzy Dean, and Bobby Goldsboro. Many of the fans were high school students who didn’t know how to play golf and weren’t even familiar with the greens. Eastwood was just finishing “Two Mules For Sister Sarah” and was about to start “Dirty Harry” so the teens flocked to him. Someone ran out onto the fairway at least twice to grab a souvenir. It just so happened that it was Eastwood’s golfball. Eastwood retired at the 19th hole after nine holes. He was probably running out of golf balls. As is his nature, Sanders chatted happily with Hattiesburg gallery members and seemed to be having a good time in a small town not too different from Cedartown, where he was born. Sanders was born in the Great Depression. He was fourth child of five children from a poor family. He was a child who picked cotton and worked as a caddie at a nine-hole course close to his home. He became interested in golf and would sneak onto the course to play, even after he had finished his caddying duties. He was a great junior player despite his unconventional swing and earned a scholarship to Florida. He was an amateur champion of the Canadian Open and is still the tournament’s only amateur champion. Sanders won 20 PGA Tour tournaments, but is most well-known for the tournaments he didn’t win. He finished runner-up at four major golf tournaments, including two Open Championships and the U.S Open. He finished fourth in The Masters. He was most famous for finishing second to Jack Nicklaus at the 1970 Open Championship at The Old Course, St. Andrews just three months after his last round in Hattiesburg. Sanders attempted a 30-inch putt on the 72nd green to win the Open, but it was missed. Nicklaus won the 18-hole playoff by one shot the day after that. Sanders was asked years later how often he thinks back to the missed short shot. He replied, “Some days it doesn’t cross my mind for a complete five minutes.” Sanders met Watkins as a junior golfer in Madison when he was invited to participate in the annual international junior golf championship Sanders hosts in Houston. “Mr. Watkins stated that Sanders hosted a party at his home the night before the tournament. It was a cookout. “I’ll never forget it. His closet was larger than most people’s living spaces. His closet contained over 200 pairs of golf shoes in every color and many shirts, sweaters, and slacks to match them all.” Sanders’ competitive career was about to end with his playoff loss to Nicklaus. His game of golf deteriorated to the 1970s. His sense of humor didn’t. Doug Sanders once stated, “I’m trying as hard as possible to get my life and cash to run out simultaneously.” “If I could just die Tuesday lunch, everything would be perfect.”_x000D