Ben Crenshaw

Ben Daniel Crenshaw (born January 11, 1952) is an American professional golfer who has won 19 events on the PGA Tour, including two major championships: the Masters Tournament in 1984 and 1995. He is nicknamed Gentle Ben.

Biography

Born in Austin, Texas, Crenshaw attended and played golf at Austin High School and the University of Texas, where he won three NCAA Championships from 1971 to 1973. He was also a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He turned professional in 1973.

In 1973, Crenshaw became the second player in Tour history to win the first event of his career; this accomplishment was achieved earlier by Marty Fleckman (1967) and later repeated by Jim Benepe (1988), Robert Gamez (1990), Garrett Willis (2001), and Russell Henley (2013). Following five runner-up finishes in major championships without a victory, including losing a sudden-death playoff for the 1979 PGA Championship, in 1984 he won The Masters. In the mid-1980s, he suffered from Graves' disease, a disease of the thyroid, but he continued to accumulate victories, finishing with 19 on the PGA Tour, including an emotional second Masters victory in 1995, which came a week after the death of his mentor Harvey Penick.