"Pretty small locker room," he said at last.

"Yeah, it is," said one of my colleagues, shooting a glance at me. An awkward moment or so passed.

Then Clements said, "Do you guys know where registration is?"

Glances flashed again, and then it hit my friend.

"Uh, Lennie," he said, "are you looking for Shinnecock Hills?"

"Yeah," said Clements. "Isn’t this it?"

"No, I’m afraid you overclubbed a bit. Go back out to Route 27 and take the first right."

By all reports, the rest of the field not only found Shinnecock but found it greatly to their liking, and that year saw one of the most tumultuous final rounds in Open history. After 54 holes, 14 players were within four strokes of the lead (including Lennie Clements!). Sunday produced a wild stampede from which Raymond Floyd emerged the champion.

Ray was on the GOLF staff at the time. I’d known him for a decade or so, having collaborated with him on a series of instruction articles after his victory in the 1976 Masters. When in 1982 he won his second PGA Championship, we did a few more pieces with him, but nothing much after that. Ray and I generally got along well, but I knew from fellow edit staffers that he saw me as kind of a nut, and I suppose he had a point. Over the years we’d asked him to do some strange things, such as pose with a violin under his chin. Moreover, Ray, it was generally known, had a sort of Rodney Dangerfield complex—he felt he ranked alongside Palmer and Nicklaus, but had not been recognized accordingly.

For a year or so leading up to that ’86 Open he’d been asking me the same question each time we met: "When am I gonna be on the cover?" In fairness, this is the main, if not sole, concern of every tour pro with a magazine contract—Ray Floyd simply had the chutzpah to ask it.

"Ray, we’d love to put you on the cover," I said each time. "But you’ve gotta win something for us." (In the nearly four years since that ’82 PGA, he’d won only one event, and the truth was, we were not of a mind to renew his contract.)

Well then, at age 43, he went and won the Open, becoming at that time the oldest man to do so. And thereon hangs the last of my bizarre Shinnecock episodes.

Moments after the final putts were holed, I was walking up the path from the 18th green toward Shinnecock’s classic Stanford White clubhouse, when a USGA friend of mine, Ron Reed, called out my name. He was standing outside a small tent just below the clubhouse, and he motioned me to come over.

"Raymond’s sitting inside, waiting to be called down for the trophy presentation," he said. "He’s one of your staff guys, right? Want to congratulate him?"

"You bet," I said, grateful for the private audience.

Reed lifted the tent flap and there was Raymond, all alone, sitting regally on a chair in the center of the tent, a bit haggard but with a glow in his eyes. He was clearly pleased and proud of what he’d accomplished—a Roman emperor at the end of a hard but successful campaign.

"Raymond, congratulations," I said, extending my hand. "That was terrific stuff out there. I knew you could do it."

"Thank you, George," he said quietly. "It feels pretty good."

"And I can tell you one thing, my friend. You’ve got that cover. The September issue is all yours."

I will never forget his reply.

"Yeah, that’s great," he said, his face hardening. "But I had to win the @#$*ing U.S. Open to do it!"