Years ago, Don January was playing a Senior PGA Tour event and, after signing his scorecard, was asked by a group of youngsters to sign his autograph.
January was old enough to be their grandfather and chuckled at the scene when asked about it by a writer for Sports Illustrated.
“They didn’t know who the hell I was,” January told the writer. “Maybe their fathers do. I’m just a damned old pro from Dallas, Texas, who was lucky enough to have a swing that lasted for a while. That’s what I am.”
January, who died Sunday at his home in Dallas at age 93, was never the best player of his time. But he was one of the best, one of those guys whose game seemed to be on autopilot, his swing as rhythmic and languid as a slow drip of water.
He was Texas through and through, having been born in Plainview, raised in Dallas and later being part of three NCAA national-championship teams at North Texas in 1950-53.
Thin and flinty, January won 10 times on the PGA Tour – including the 1967 PGA Championship, beating Don Massengale in an 18-hole playoff – and played on two winning Ryder Cup teams. But his greatest success came after he turned 50.
January helped solidify what is now called the PGA Tour Champions as the senior circuit grew from a curiosity into a lucrative and expansive second act for players like himself. He won 22 senior tournaments, including the first official tour event in 1980, still tied for the seventh-most ever.
Over the first five years of the new tour, January ranked first or second on the money list.
Once he turned 60, January continued to win, picking up 35 super-senior events, two-round tournaments within the tournament, his game seemingly ageless.
“Ol' Don got better with age, just like the bourbon he drank,” Curtis Strange wrote on Facebook. “A true man’s man.”
January proved to be a progressive force in golf, pushing to remove the “Caucasians only” clause in the PGA of America charter and serving as a leading voice in the touring pros’ split from the PGA after the 1967 season to form what is known today as the PGA Tour.
Ron Green Jr.