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Gay Brewer
Personal information
Full name	Gay Robert Brewer, Jr.
Born	March 19, 1932(1932-03-19) Middletown, Ohio
Died	August 31, 2007 (aged 75) Lexington, Kentucky
Height	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Weight	185 lb (84 kg; 13.2 st)
Nationality	United States
Career
Turned professional	1956
Former tour(s)	PGA Tour Champions Tour
Professional wins	17
Number of wins by tour
PGA Tour	10
Champions Tour	1
Other	5 (regular) 1 (senior)
Best results in Major Championships (Wins: 1)
The Masters	Won: 1967
U.S. Open	5th/T5: 1962, 1964
Open Championship	T6: 1968
PGA Championship	T7: 1972

Gay Robert Brewer, Jr. (March 19, 1932 – August 31, 2007) was an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and won the 1967 Masters Tournament.

Brewer was born in Middletown, Ohio, and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. As an amateur, Brewer won the Kentucky State Boys Golf Championship in three consecutive years from 1949–1951. In 1949, he also won the U.S. Junior Amateur Golf Championship, the most prestigious amateur event for golfers under the age of eighteen. In 1952, Brewer won the Southern Amateur.

Brewer turned professional in 1956. Playing on the PGA Tour in 1965, he won the Hawaiian Open, the first ever PGA event held in that state. At the 1966 Masters Tournament, he bogeyed the final hole to finish in a three-way tie for the lead after regulation play but ended up finishing third to Jack Nicklaus following an 18-hole playoff. He came back to win the prestigious event the next year, scoring a one stroke victory over lifelong friend Bobby Nichols in the first live television broadcast of a golf tournament from the United States to Europe. He went on to become a member of the 1967 Ryder Cup winning team. That same year at the Pensacola Open, he set a PGA Tour record for the best 54-hole total on a par-72 course. His score of 25-under par is a record that still stands over forty years later. In the direct opposite vein, at the 1969 Danny Thomas-Diplomat Classic he tied the record for a player having the largest lead (six strokes) with 18 holes to play and then losing.

Brewer's 1966 performances earned him the Golf Digest's Most Improved Golfer award and his 1967 performances earned him the cover of the August 7th issue of Sports Illustrated magazine. He won the 1972 Canadian Open and was again part of the U.S. team that won the 1973 Ryder Cup.

Overall, Brewer was victorious in 10 tour events during his career. He joined the Senior PGA Tour and won the 1984 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf tournament with Billy Casper and at age sixty-three he won the 1995 MasterCard Champions Championship.

In 2006, Brewer was voted to the University of Kentucky Athletics Hall of Fame. In 2007, the golf course in Lexington where he learned to play was renamed the "Gay Brewer Jr. Course at Picadome."

Brewer died at his home in Lexington, Kentucky from lung cancer.^[1] At the time of his death, he was engaged to Alma Jo McGuire.^[2] He is interred at Lexington Cemetery in Lexington.

Amateur wins

This list may be incomplete.

• 1949 Kentucky State Boys, U.S. Junior Amateur
• 1950 Kentucky State Boys
• 1951 Kentucky State Boys
• 1952 Southern Amateur

Professional wins (17)

PGA Tour wins (10)

No.	Date	Tournament	Winning Score	Margin of Victory	Runner(s)-up
1	Aug 20, 1961	Carling Open Invitational	-3 (72-72-66-67=277)	1 stroke	Billy Maxwell
2	Nov 26, 1961	Mobile Sertoma Open Invitational	-13 (69-66-74-66=275)	1 stroke	Johnny Pott
3	Dec 3, 1961	West Palm Beach Open Invitational	-14 (69-64-70-71=274)	4 strokes	Arnold Palmer
4	May 5, 1963	Waco Turner Open	-8 (72-70-71-67=280)	1 stroke	Ted Ball
5	Sep 26, 1965	Greater Seattle Open Invitational	-9 (69-72-66-72=279)	Playoff	Doug Sanders
6	Nov 7, 1965	Hawaiian Open	-3 (74-72-67-68=281)	Playoff	Bob Goalby
7	Mar 7, 1967	Pensacola Open Invitational	-16 (65-69-67-71=272)	3 strokes	Bruce Devlin
8	Mar 26, 1967	Pensacola Open Invitational	-26 (66-64-61-71=262)	6 strokes	Bob Keller
9	Apr 9, 1967	The Masters	-8 (73-68-72-67=280)	1 stroke	Bobby Nichols
10	Jul 9, 1972	Canadian Open	-9 (67-70-68-70=275)	1 stroke	Sam Adams, Dave Hill

Other wins (5)

This list is probably incomplete.

• 1951 Kentucky Open (as an amateur)
• 1965 PGA National Four-ball Championship (with Butch Baird)
• 1967 Alcan Golfer of the Year Championship
• 1968 Alcan Golfer of the Year Championship
• 1972 Pacific Masters

Senior PGA Tour wins (1)

• 1984 Citizens Union Senior Golf Classic

Other senior wins (1)

This list is probably incomplete.

• 1984 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (with Billy Casper)

Major Championships

Wins (1)

Year	Championship	54 Holes	Winning Score	Margin	Runner-up
1967	The Masters	2 shot deficit	-8 (73-68-72-67=280)	1 stroke	Bobby Nichols

Results timeline

DNP = Did not play
WD = Withdrew
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10

See also

• Golfers with most PGA Tour wins

References

External links

• Profile on PGA Tour's official site
• Gay Brewer - Obituary and Tribute
• Gay Brewer at Find a Grave