Page 20 - PPA National Championship 2022

long for the water to re-collect at the base. Strickland opted to play the

hole as it was. It took him 3 strokes to reach the upper-level and he

double-bogeyed the hole. He parred 17 and 18. Ralph Sapp had
worked his way back

into contention and had

a chance to tie Moore
by acing 18. His putt

was very close, but
slowly slid by the hole.

Sapp would tie with

Strickland, one stroke
behind the new

National Champion,

Tracy Moore.

Interestingly, at some Ralph Sapp putting hole 18.

point as Moore was

finishing his final round, he looked at his playing partner, Charlie
Connor, and conveyed that this may be his only chance to win the

National Championship. That could have been taken as a remark that
reflects the number of times a player is put in a position to win the

National Championship. For Moore, the remark carried a bit more

truth…and he knew it. His cancer had returned and was diagnosed as
terminal. Tracy Moore never got to defend his title, he died on June 28,

1966 - one week before the 1966 National Championship being held in

Charlotte, NC– he was 33. Most folks within the PPA program are
aware of the Tracy Moore story, but very few are aware that Moore

traveled to Durham, NC in late spring of 1966 to play in the Putt-Putt-

televised competition - known as the Parade of Champions. The
televised matches were based on the previous year’s top money

winners. If a player won the match, the player received a thousand