Art Wall

Born: Nov. 25 1923, in Honesdale, Pa.
Died: Oct. 31 2001

PGA Tour: 14
List of Art Wall's PGA Tour wins

1
The Masters: 1959

• PGA Player of the Year, 1959
• Vardon Trophy winner, 1959
• PGA Tour money leader, 1959
• Member, U.S. Ryder Cup team, 1957, 1959, 1961

• Art Wall is credited with making 45 holes-in-one in his lifetime, a figure that for many years was recognized as the world record (Wall's total has since been surpassed).

Art Wall is best-known for three things: He was a Masters champion; he was a prolific recorder of holes-in-one; and he took part in the event that helped establish the Senior PGA Tour (now called the Champions Tour).

Wall was born in Honesdale, Pa., a place where he lived much of his live and on whose 9-hole municipal course he recorded quite a few of the 45 aces with which he is credited.

A profile of Wall in the Pocono Record newspaper notes that Art and his brother Dewey were both golfers, and Honesdale residents considered Dewey the better player. Art, however, was the one who worked the hardest.

Art and Dewey both served in World War II, but Dewey didn't make it back home. Art survived the war, and after returning home headed off to college at Duke University. He was a two-time conference golf champion while at Duke, and won the 1948 Pennsylvania Amateur Championship. He was 26 years old when he graduated from Duke in 1949.

Wall turned pro that year, joined the PGA Tour the following year, and won his first tour event in 1953. He was a strong competitor and a terrific iron player, but his greatest fame was achieved in 1959 when Wall won The Masters. He did it in style, too, closing with a 66 and birdies on five of the last six holes to overtake Cary Middlecoff.

Wall won three other tournaments in 1959, won the money title and scoring title, and was named Player of the Year.

Wall won more titles along the way, and continued playing the PGA Tour well into the 1970s. His final tour win was the 1975 Greater Milwaukee Open. He beat Gary McCord by a stroke. Nearly 52 years old, Wall still ranks as the second-oldest golfer to win on the PGA Tour.

In 1978 Wall won the U.S. National Senior Open (not the same as the U.S. Senior Open).

And in 1979 Wall paired with Tommy Bolt in a seniors tournament called the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf. Wall and Bolt got into a playoff against Julius Boros and Roberto De Vicenzo that went six holes before Boros and De Vicenzo pulled out the win.

The television ratings were good enough that then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman got behind the creation of a Senior PGA Tour, what we now know as the Champions Tour. The next year, Wall and Bolt won the tournament.

Wall played in the early years of the Senior Tour, and was fifth on the money list in 1981.

Wall died in 2001 and was buried in Honesdale, Pa. The Pocono Record article notes that his death was 52 years to the day after he turned pro.