With a curtain call at Shinnecock Hills, Raymond Floyd is going home
By EAMON LYNCH Associate Editor, GOLF MAGAZINE
Having exhumed the player, Maria set about burying the playboy. At a televised mixed-foursomes event in Ireland in 1977, Wright introduced Floyd on camera. "Representing the United States, Ray Floyd, who is no stranger to mixed foursomes..." A voice shouted, "Cut!" Mystified, the host turned to see a woman emerge from the gallery. "She came over and said, 'Ben, I'm Maria Floyd and those days are long gone. We're trying to put that image behind us so I'd really appreciate it if you could adjust your intro accordingly,' " Wright remembers. "I said, 'Certainly, Maria.' And we became the best of friends."
Not everyone has found Mrs. Floyd so cordial. A few years ago, Bruce Fleisher told reporters a story about playing with Floyd in 1992. According to Fleisher, when Floyd double-bogeyed a hole, Maria complained, "You're throwing our money away," and Floyd replied, "Honey, I didn't mean to make double-bogey." Fleisher thought it was an amusing tale, but Maria didn't and later confronted him about it. "Sometimes honesty hurts," Fleisher said later.
Floyd's image went from hell-raiser to wily veteran after he won at Shinnecock. Josie Jammet
"She's a very dominating woman, no question about that," Wright says. "Maria muted Ray's wildness, so people who met him after her might think he was on the bland side. But she was absolutely foursquare behind her husband."
"Raymond's in the same place as me," Trevino says, laughing. "I'm not scared of anyone except my wife. I think Raymond would probably endorse that."
"I'd say that's fairly accurate," Floyd admits.
Conventional wisdom on golfers is often an exercise in hagiography, the peddling of a parable that is only partly true: Thus did Hogan fade gracefully from the scene and Nicklaus never miss a putt that mattered. The conventional wisdom on Floyd is that he was a fearless front-runner. "Ray's got the guts of a burglar," Tom Watson says of Floyd, who earned his rep with wire-to-wire victories at the 1976 Masters and the 1982 PGA at Southern Hills Country Club, when he opened with 63 and cruised to a three-shot win. "Raymond was like Seabiscuit," says Trevino. "Once he got his nose out front, he was very difficult to catch."
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The Last Gunslinger 
