Page 18 - PPA National Championship 2022
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treatment was able to clean up the cancer. With a new perspective on
life, Moore was ready for the 1965 putting season. There was nothing
about the 1965 putting season that would indicate Moore would win
the National Championship being held in Indianapolis, Indiana. He
played consistent on the National Tour, but no wins. The 1965 National
Championship was a 3-day event with 4 rounds per day. Most of the
attention for that tournament was placed on a 15-year-old putting
phenom that attained special permission to turn pro before the age
requirement of 16 – Ricky Smith. It was
an ideal time to turn pro because it was
Smith’s home course, and he was ready
to start his career with a National
Championship. But it was a lanky veteran
that habitually would sling his leg over
the score posts between holes to give
them a rest that grabbed everyone’s
attention, Herman Strickland. At the end
of the first day, Strickland was leading the
Ricky Smith
tournament and was determined to show
his daughter, Evelyn, that she was not the only one in the family that
could win a National Championship. Evelyn had won the Women’s
National Championship the year before. She would also eventually
marry a young man by the name of Dick Florin.
