Fifteen years ago, a friend and I were walking near the Road Hole at the Old Course at St. Andrews during the Open Championship when my friend noticed a man wearing orange pants as part of an ensemble that practically glowed.
“Look,” my friend joked, “it’s Doug Sanders.”
Turns out, it was Sanders, still wearing the peacock-pretty colors that branded him the same way a missed 3-footer to win the Open Championship on the Old Course’s 18th green had marked him 35 years earlier.
Sanders died Sunday in Houston, Texas, after 86 colorful years and here’s hoping he is buried in a sartorially appropriate way, maybe something in lavender or turquoise or pink with shoes that match because when Sanders got dressed, he wore it top to bottom like few ever have.
If Sanders wasn’t quite a great player – he won 20 PGA Tour events but is remembered more for the majors he didn’t win while finishing runner-up four times – he remains among the game’s great characters and that is a badge of honor he wore like a canary yellow sweater.
He was ...
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