Orville Moody: 1 PGA Tour Win, But It Was U.S. Open
Orville Moody played the PGA Tour from the 1960s into the 1980s, recording just one official tour win — but it was the U.S. Open. He was always an excellent ball striker, but was also always plagued by putting woes. Until, that is, until he became one of the earliest converts to the long putter as he joined the Senior PGA Tour. His senior career included two wins in majors, one of which was the U.S. Senior Open.
Full name: Orville James Moody
Date of birth: December 9, 1933
Place of birth: Chickasha, Oklahoma
Date and place of death: August 8, 2008, in Allen, Texas
Nickname: Sarge
His Biggest Wins
Orville Moody won exactly once on the PGA Tour, but it was a big one: He also won the 1969 World Series of Golf and, with partner Lee Trevino, the 1969 World Cup. Additionally, Morgan won these international titles:- 1958 Korea Open
- 1959 KPGA Championship
- 1959 Korea Open
- 1960 Korea Open
- 1966 KPGA Championship
- 1971 Hong Kong Open
- 1971 Hassan II Golf Trophy
- 1984 Daytona Beach Seniors Golf Classic
- 1984 MONY Senior Tournament of Champions
- 1987 Rancho Murieta Senior Gold Rush
- 1987 GTE Kaanapali Classic
- 1988 Vintage Chrysler Invitational
- 1988 Senior Players Reunion Pro-Am
- 1988 Greater Grand Rapids Open
- 1989 Mazda Senior Tournament Players Championship
- 1989 U.S. Senior Open
- 1991 PaineWebber Invitational
- 1992 Franklin Showdown Classic
In the Majors
Orville Moody was 35 years old, less than two years removed from a 14-year stint in the U.S. Army, when he won the 1969 U.S. Open. It was Moody's first PGA Tour win, and it was his last. He never again won an official PGA Tour tournament.But he did win the 1969 U.S. Open, writing his name into the history books. It wasn't easy for Moody to even make the field, though: He had to advance through both local and sectional qualifying (the most-recent golfer to do so and then win the U.S. Open). And he only made it out of sectional qualifying because he holed-out a bunker shot on the second-to-last hole.
Moody entered the final round tied for second place, three strokes off the lead. In that final round, Moody scored 72 (the third-round leader, Miller Barber, had a 78) and won by a single stroke over Deane Beman, Bob Rosburg and Al Geiberger.
Moody played a succession of excellent approach irons down the stretch, but couldn't sink any putts (the consistent theme through his PGA Tour career). On the final hole, Moody reached the green in regulation but, in the days before ubiquitous, large scoreboards all over the course, wasn't sure how he stood. The scorer's tent, where players signed and turned in their cards after finishing, was very close to the green. Moody walked over to it and asked the USGA's then-assistant director Frank Hannigan what the situation was. Hannigan replied, "You have two putts for the championship."
Two putts later, Moody was the winner.
Moody first played in a major in the 1962 U.S. Open, and last in the 1980 British Open. It was seven years after his major debut before he appeared in another major. But that year — 1969 — Moody won the U.S. Open, tied 16th in the British Open, and tied seventh in the PGA Championship.
He had no other Top 10 finishes in majors. But he did have a handful of Top 20s: t18 and t20 in the 1970 and 1971 Masters, respectively; t15 in the 1972 U.S. Open (in which he shared the first-round lead); and tied 11th and tied 19th in the 1978 and 1979 British Opens, respectively.
Moody did later win two senior majors, the Senior Tournament Players Championship and U.S. Senior Open. And when he won that Senior Open, he was just the fourth golfer to win both the U.S. Open and U.S. Senior Open.
More About Orville Moody
Orville Moody, born in rural Oklahoma, was the youngest of 10 children. His father was a golf course superintendent, but Orville didn't putt on grass greens — he only played on sand greens — until he was 13 or 14 years old.In 1952, Moody won the Oklahoma state high school championship. A year later he left college after just a few weeks to join the United States Army. He spent the next 14 years of his life in the Army.
Dring much of that time in the Army, Moody was able to continue playing golf as he became the supervisor of maintenance and instruction over Army golf courses. And he actually won multiple golf tournaments during his Army hitch, including three Korea Opens and two KPGA Championships between 1958-66, as well as the U.S. Military's 1958 All-Army Championship and 1962 All-Service Championship.
Moody was 33 years old when he left the Army in 1967 and turned pro as a golfer. He was a rookie on the PGA Tour in 1968, when he finished 103rd on the tour's year-end money list. He earned less money as a golfer than he would have made had he stayed in the military.
But Moody made a huge splash in 1969 by winning that U.S. Open title. And later that year he won the World Series of Golf (not an official PGA Tour win) and teamed with Lee Trevino to lead Team USA to victory in the World Cup. Earlier in the year, Trevino was possibly the only person on Earth who thought Moody had a shot at winning the U.S. Open. In fact, Trevino, the defending champion, predicted Moody's victory after seeing that his putting was in good shape in the days before the tournament.
Despite having only the one official victory, Moody was named PGA Player of the Year for 1969. He finished 21st on the money list. Moody did come close at the 1969 Greater Greensboro Open, getting into a playoff with Julius Boros, Gene Littler and Tom Weiskopf. But Littler won it.
(Moody was also named "Indian of the Year" for 1969, as someone with Native American heritage: Moody's grandmother, from the Choctaw Nation, got to Oklahoma by walking the Trail of Tears. Members of the Moody family, including his mother, attended a parade thrown in his honor by the Choctaws.)
"I never practice golf. All it does is louse up my game." — Orville MoodyMoody was 44th in earnings for 1970, 83rd on the money list for 1971, and slipped to 126th in 1972. (He did win twice outside the PGA Tour in 1971: At the pre-European Tour Hassan II Golf Trophy, and in the Hong Kong Open.) He rebounded to finish 36th in money for 1973, mostly on the strength of a second-place finish in the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am (another playoff, against Ray Floyd and Jack Nicklaus — Nicklaus was the winner after Moody 3-putted the last green to fall into the playoff). But Moody finished 121st or lower each year from 1974-77.
His chronic putting problems were part of the reason, and there were some health issues along the way. But Moody also cut back on his schedule in 1975 and 1976 to focus on a golf course management business based in Denver, Colorado.
When he came back to the tour in 1977, Moody had more success, although just getting into the Top 100 on the money list. He also played multiple tournaments each year in the Far East.
By the end of 1981, though, Moody earned less than $2,000 on the PGA Tour, and left the tour.
For his PGA Tour career, Moody made 304 starts with the one victory plus five second-place finishes, four thirds, 14 total Top 5 showings and 24 total Top 10s.
He spent most of his career on the PGA Tour putting cross-handed, and without much success. One golf book author referred to him as "the worst putter ever to win the U.S. Open."
But in 1984, Moody joined the U.S Senior Tour, and when he did so he made the decision to switich to a long putter. And that turned out to be a very good decision — he actually wound up leading the senior circuit in putting average in 1988.
Now with a pendulum stroke that removed most of the faulty wrist action that had plagued him, Moody started winning. He claimed two titles in that rookie year of 1984, including the Senior PGA Tour Tournament of Champions, which he won by seven strokes. He finished fifth on the money list.
Moody was 12th on the senior money list for 1985 and 16th for 1986, but didn't win in either year.
But 1987 was the beginning of a hot streak that lasted three years. Moody won twice in 1987. In 1988, he won three times. One of those was an 11-stroke victory in the Vintage Chrysler Invitational, which tied the tour record at the time for largest margin of victory in a 72-hole tournament. His 263 total was the Senior Tour record for lowest 72-hole winning score. Moody finished fourth on the money list for 1988.
Then came his two major championship victories in 1989. He won the Senior Tournament Players Championship by two strokes over runner-up Charles Coody. And then won the 1989 U.S. Senior Open by two strokes over runner-up Frank Beard. Moody finished a career-best second on the money list for 1989.
Moody fell out of the Top 20 on the senior money list for the first time in 1990, but he still had a couple wins left: He claimed the 1991 PaineWebber Invitational; and his last victory was in the 1992 Franklin Showdown Classic. That final win came on the eighth hole of a sudden-death playoff against Bob Betley, which was the longest sudden-death playoff in Senior Tour history to that point.
At the end of that 1992 season, Moody ranked 10th on the Senior Tour's career money list.
He continued playing for many years to come, although he faced some health issues along the way. Prior to the 1995 season, Moody underwent triple-bypass heart surgery. But he still played nearly 30 events that year.
For his Senior Tour career, Moody made 513 total starts with 11 wins, plus 19 second-place finishes, seven third-places, 59 total Top 5 finishes and 110 Top 10s. Off the Senior Tour, Moody also won the Australian PGA Seniors Championship in both 1986 and 1987.
Moody is a member of the Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf, 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Apfelbaum, Jim. The Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations, 2007, Skyhorse Publishing.
Elliott, Len, and Kelly, Barbara. Who's Who in Golf, 1976, Arlington House Publishers.
Goldstein, Richard. "Orville Moody, 74, Winner of the U.S. Open, Dies," New York Times, August 11, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/sports/golf/12moody.html.
Wanger, Mark. "Orville Moody: Indian of the Year," May 24, 2024, https://ictnews.org/news/orville-moody-indian-of-the-year/.
Oklahoma Golf Hall of Fame. Inductees, Orville Moody, https://oklahomagolfhof.org/orville-moody/.
Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. Class of 1999, Orville Moody, https://oklahomasportshalloffame.wordpress.com/class-of-1999/.
PGA Tour. Official PGA Tour Media Guide 1980, Tournament Players Association, 1979.
PGATour.com. Players, Orville Moody, Career, https://www.pgatour.com/player/01833/orville-moody/career.
PGA Tour Champions. 1993 Senior PGA Tour Official Media Guide, All-Time Records.
Sommers, Robert T. Golf Anecdotes, 1995, Oxford University Press.
Steel, Donald, and Ryde, Peter. The Encyclopedia of Golf, 1975, The Viking Press.
USGA. U.S. Open Records, Last Time It Happened (via Wayback Machine), https://web.archive.org/web/20151115105613/http://usga.usopen.com/history/usopen-records.html.
