Two-time PGA major champion, Houston men’s golf alum Fuzzy Zoeller dies at 74

10-time PGA tour winner, two-time major champion and Houston men’s golf alum Fuzzy Zoeller died Thursday aged 74. 

“The PGA Tour is saddened by the passing of Fuzzy Zoeller,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “Fuzzy was a true original whose talent and charisma left an indelible mark on the game of golf. Fuzzy combined competitive excellence with a sense of humor that endeared him to fans and 3,621 fellow players alike. We celebrate his remarkable legacy and extend our deepest condolences to his family.”

The hallmark feat of Zoeller’s career came with his 1979 Masters tournament championship, which he won at eight under 280 and by way of a three-man playoff between him, Ed Sneed and Tom Watson. In securing his lone green jacket, he posthumously remains the most recent champion of the event to have won it in his first appearance. 

Zoeller clinched his second major championship at the 1984 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., winning at four under 276 in a playoff over Greg Norman. Famously, Zoeller believed that Norman’s 40-foot putt for par on the 18th hole of the final round had ultimately done him in, leading him to animatedly wave the white towel before he was informed of the score and the incoming playoff. 

His other best results included a runner-up finish at the 1981 PGA Championship and his third-place finish at the 1994 Open Championship.

The New Albany, Ind.-native finished runner-up in his state’s high school tournament in 1970 in posting a record-low round before he attended Edison Junior College in Fort Myers, Fla. 

Zoeller transferred to Houston to play for future GCAA Hall of Fame coach Dave Williams before he officially turned professional in 1973. 

The mark that infamously put a negative light on Zoeller’s career was when he was asked about eventual champion Tiger Woods at the 1997 Masters tournament, in which he issued remarks that were ultimately condemned as racist. 

After his three-decade-long standard PGA career, Zoeller joined the Champions Tour in 2002, in which he won the Senior PGA Championship that same year.

He is survived by his three children as an official cause of death has not yet been billed.