Raymond Loran Floyd (born September 4, 1942) is an American retired

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

er who has won numerous tournaments on both the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

and

Senior PGA Tour PGA Tour Champions (formerly the Senior PGA Tour and the Champions Tour) is a men's professional senior golf tour, administered as a branch of the PGA Tour. History and format The Senior PGA Championship, founded in 1937, was for many year ...

, including four majors and four

senior majors Men's professional senior golf is for players aged 50 and above. Golf differs from all other sports in having lucrative competitions for this age group. The leading senior tour is the U.S.-based PGA Tour Champions, which was established in 1980 ( ...

. He was inducted into the

World Golf Hall of Fame The World Golf Hall of Fame is located at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States, and it is unusual among sports halls of fame in that a single site honors both men and women. It is supported by a consortium of 26 g ...

in 1989.

Early years

Floyd was born on September 4, 1942, in

Fort Bragg Fort Bragg is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with around 54,000 military personnel. The military reservation is located within C ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...

, and was raised in Fayetteville. Floyd's father L.B. had a 21-year career in the U.S. Army, much of it at Fort Bragg as the golf pro at its enlisted-men's course. He also owned a nearby driving range where Raymond and younger sister Marlene, a future

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of wee ...

pro, honed their games. From an early age, Floyd could play equally well left-handed, and used his skills to enhance his allowance, winning money from soldiers on the course, as well as civilians in nearby towns. Floyd graduated from Fayetteville High School (now named Terry Sanford High School) in 1960. Skilled in golf and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

, he had an offer to pitch in the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive ...

organization, but chose to attend the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sys ...

Chapel Hill Chapel Hill or Chapelhill may refer to: Places Antarctica *Chapel Hill (Antarctica) Australia * Chapel Hill, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane * Chapel Hill, South Australia, in the Mount Barker council area Canada *Chapel Hill, Ottawa, a neighbo ...

, but only stayed for a semester.

Professional career

After leaving college, Floyd turned professional in 1961, and quickly established himself on the PGA Tour. His first victory came two years later at age 20 in March

1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Co ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

, winning $3,500 at the

St. Petersburg Open Invitational The St. Petersburg Open Invitational, first played as the St. Petersburg Open, was a PGA Tour event that was held at three St. Petersburg, Florida area clubs for 29 years from 1930 until 1964. The clubs that hosted the event were: Lakewood Country ...

, the first of his 22 wins on the PGA Tour, including four major championships. Floyd won his first major title six years later at the

PGA Championship The PGA Championship (often referred to as the US PGA Championship or USPGA outside the United States) is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It is one of the four men's major championships ...

in 1969, and the second came in

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phil ...

The Masters The Masters Tournament (usually referred to as simply The Masters, or the U.S. Masters outside North America) is one of the four major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week of April, the Masters is the first ma ...

, by an eight-stroke margin and was won wire-to-wire. He won his second PGA Championship in

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C., Un ...

, after shooting a brilliant opening round of 63 in sweltering hot conditions at

Southern Hills Country Club Southern Hills Country Club is a private golf and country club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. History The club was established in 1935 from land donated by multimillionaire oilman Waite Phillips (Frank Phillips, Waite's brother, was the namesake and fou ...

. Floyd's round of 63 was the lowest round in a major championship until 2017. Floyd finished

ranked second in Mark McCormack's world golf rankings, behind only Tom Watson, who had won two majors that season; had those rankings been calculated over just two seasons, on a par with the system in place at the end of 2012, Floyd would have been ranked world number one in 1982, as he had earned more points from all events in total than Watson in both 1981 and 1982. Floyd's fourth and final major title came at the U.S. Open in 1986 at Shinnecock Hills. After three rounds, he was tied for fifth place, three shots behind leader

Greg Norman Gregory John Norman AO (born 10 February 1955) is an Australian entrepreneur and retired professional golfer who spent 331 weeks as world number one in the 1980s and 1990s. He won 89 professional tournaments, including 20 PGA Tour tournamen ...

, who held the 54-hole lead at all four majors in 1986. Norman faltered on Sunday with a 75 (+5), but Floyd shot 66 to win by two strokes and became the then-oldest U.S. Open champion by a few months at 43 years and 9 months. (The record was Ted Ray's since 1920, and is now held by Hale Irwin, a champion at age 45 in 1990.) The one major title that eluded Floyd, which prevented him from completing the career grand slam, was

The Open Championship The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later t ...

. His best result was in 1978 at

St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's four ...

; he tied for second place, behind three-time winner

Jack Nicklaus Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed The Golden Bear, is a retired American professional golfer and golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest golfers of all time. He won 117 professional tou ...

. Floyd came very close to winning a second Green Jacket at the 1990 Masters, where he lost in a playoff to Nick Faldo. On the second playoff hole, Floyd pulled a 7-iron shot into the pond left of the 11th green. Afterward, he said, "This is the most devastating thing that's ever happened to me in my career. I've had a lot of losses, but nothing like this." In

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engines ...

, Floyd again finished runner-up at The Masters, two strokes behind the winner Fred Couples. Floyd's final win on the PGA Tour came at the Doral-Ryder Open in

at age 49, making him one of the oldest players to win a PGA Tour event. The Doral-Ryder Open victory also gave him the distinction of winning PGA Tour events in four decades, joining

Sam Snead Samuel Jackson Snead (pronounced sni:d">English_phonology.html" ;"title="nowiki/>English phonology">sni:d May 27, 1912 – May 23, 2002) was an American professional golfer who was one of the top players in the world for the better part of four ...

as the second player to achieve that feat. Floyd also won on the Senior PGA Tour (now

PGA Tour Champions PGA Tour Champions (formerly the Senior PGA Tour and the Champions Tour) is a men's professional senior golf tour, administered as a branch of the PGA Tour. History and format The Senior PGA Championship, founded in 1937, was for many yea ...

) later that season, making him the first player to win on both tours in the same year. At the end of

, Floyd was ranked 14th on the

Official World Golf Ranking The Official World Golf Ranking is a system for rating the performance level of professional golfers. It was started in 1986. The rankings are based on a player's position in individual tournaments (i.e. not pairs or team events) over a "rolli ...

at the age of 50, one of the highest positions ever attained by a player of that age. Floyd's successful run continued on the Senior Tour, with 14 wins between 1992 and

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, including four

and two

Senior Tour Championship The Charles Schwab Cup Championship is the final event of the season on the U.S.-based PGA Tour Champions, the world's leading golf tour for male professionals aged 50 and above. Played in late October or early November each year, it is PGA Tou ...

s. In addition to Floyd's victories on the PGA and Champions Tours, he won at least 24 additional tournaments around the world, taking his total victory tally to at least 60 events. While active, Floyd was considered by most golf experts to be the best at chipping the golf ball. He holed many shots from just off the green, the most famous may have been at the Doral-Eastern Open in 1980, where his successful birdie chip on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff defeated Jack Nicklaus. On his decision to continue playing professional golf on the Senior Tour, Floyd spoke with ''

Golf Digest ''Golf Digest'' is a monthly golf magazine published by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit under its Warner Bros. Discovery Golf division. It is a generalist golf publication covering recreational golf and men's and women's compet ...

'' and mused aloud: "Why do I enjoy golf after 31 years, going out there and doing things that are necessary to be competitive—having practice, having to work, having to dedicate yourself? I guess it comes down to the competition. My personality...I'm not going to play if I'm not competitive." Floyd won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average on the

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

and played for the U.S. on eight

Ryder Cup The Ryder Cup is a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. The competition is contested every two years with the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe. The Ryder Cup is named af ...

teams ( 1969,

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrati ...

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major off ...

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the ...

, and

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

). Floyd was inducted into the

in 1989. He captained the U.S. Ryder Cup team at The Belfry in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker ru ...

. At a gala dinner held before the start of the matches, Floyd famously introduced his American side as "The 12 greatest players in the world." This irritated European player Nick Faldo of England, who later said that he felt Floyd's comment was inappropriate. Floyd was an assistant Ryder Cup captain in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing ...

. On the eve of the Masters in

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

, Floyd announced his retirement from competitive golf. He was the honoree at Nicklaus'

Memorial Tournament The Memorial Tournament is a PGA Tour golf tournament founded in 1976 by Jack Nicklaus. It is played on a Nicklaus-designed course at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb north of Columbus. The golf course passes through a large ...

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment ...

Professional wins (63)

PGA Tour wins (22)

PGA Tour playoff record (5–10)

Japan Golf Tour wins (1)

Canadian Tour wins (1)

Latin American wins (2)

Other wins (11)

Other playoff record (3–2)

Senior PGA Tour wins (14)

''*Note: The 1995 Emerald Coast Classic was shortened to 36 holes due to rain.'' Senior PGA Tour playoff record (3–1)

Other senior wins (12)

*1992 Fuji Electric Grandslam *1994

Diners Club Matches The Hyundai Team Matches were a series of golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does n ...

(with Dave Eichelberger), Senior Skins Game *1995 Senior Skins Game, Senior Slam at Los Cabos, Lexus Challenge (with Michael Chiklis) *1996 Senior Skins Game, Senior Slam at Los Cabos *1997 Senior Skins Game, Lexus Challenge (with William Devane) *1998 Senior Skins Game *2006 Wendy's Champions Skins Game (with Dana Quigley)

Major championships

Wins (4)

Results timeline

CUT = missed the halfway cut (3rd round cut in 1984 Open Championship)
WD = withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place.

Summary

*Most consecutive cuts made – 24 (1972 PGA – 1979 Masters) *Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (1976 Open Championship – 1977 Masters)

The Players Championship

Wins (1)

Results timeline

CUT = missed the halfway cut
DQ = disqualified
"T" indicates a tie for a place.

Champions Tour major championships

Wins (4)

¹Floyd birdied the first extra hole.

U.S. national team appearances

Professional *

: 1969 (winners),

(winners),

(non-playing captain),

(winners),

(winners) * Dunhill Cup:

, 1986 * Nissan Cup: 1985 (winners) * UBS Cup: 2001 (winners), 2002 (winners), 2003 (tie), 2004 (winners) * Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge (representing Senior PGA Tour): 1992 (PGA Tour), 1993 (winners), 1994, 1995 (winners), 1996

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Floyd, Raymond American male golfers North Carolina Tar Heels men's golfers PGA Tour golfers PGA Tour Champions golfers Ryder Cup competitors for the United States Winners of men's major golf championships Winners of senior major golf championships World Golf Hall of Fame inductees Golfers from North Carolina Golfers from Florida People from Fort Bragg, North Carolina Sportspeople from Fayetteville, North Carolina Sportspeople from Palm Beach, Florida 1942 births Living people

Early years

Professional career

Professional wins (63)

PGA Tour wins (22)

Japan Golf Tour wins (1)

Canadian Tour wins (1)

Latin American wins (2)

Other wins (11)

Senior PGA Tour wins (14)

Other senior wins (12)

Major championships

Wins (4)

Results timeline

Summary

The Players Championship

Wins (1)

Results timeline

Champions Tour major championships

Wins (4)

U.S. national team appearances

See also

References

External links