GAY BREWER, 1967 MASTERS CHAMPION, DIES AT 75

Gay Brewer, the 1967 Masters champion who won 11 times on the US PGA Tour, died on Friday at his home after a fight with lung cancer. He was 75.
Brewer, who also won once on the US Champions (Seniors) Tour before retiring in 2000, had been battling cancer since October, fiancee Alma Jo McGuire said.
"It was incurable," she said. "It was easier on him and the family that it didn't go any longer than it did."
Brewer won the 1967 Masters for his lone major title a year after he lost an 18-hole play-off to Jack Nicklaus. In 1966, Brewer three-putted the 72nd hole to fall into the play-off with Nicklaus and Tommy Jacobs.
"We are deeply saddened by the loss of Gay Brewer," said Billy Payne, chairman of the Masters and Augusta National Golf Club. "Gay was a wonderful champion and individual and will be dearly missed in April. We express our heartfelt sympathy to his family."
In June, Picadome Golf Course in Lexington, where Brewer learned to play, changed its name to honor him. Brewer played college golf at the University of Kentucky.
"He was just really personable," McGuire said. "I don't know anybody who didn't like him."
Brewer is survived by daughters Kelly Allen and Erin Provence and four grandchildren.
"Gay was great," Tiger Woods said at the Deutsche Bank Championship. "Man, he told more stories and was just incredible to be around."
Jim Thorpe and other Champions Tour players remembered Brewer's unique swing which had its roots in a broken elbow at the age of seven.
"He was a great player in his day," Thorpe said at the Champions Tour event at Pebble Beach. "Some people just can't be replaced and he was one of those guys. He was like the Sam Sneads and the (Ben) Hogans of the world. He was one of those guys who had a little bit of an unorthodox swing and that sort of stuff, but it worked for him."