A University of Arkansas golfer went on to a brilliant career in the PGA and Senior Tours. Miller Barber was born in Louisiana in 1931. He played golf for the University of Arkansas, graduating in 1954, joining the PGA tour five years later.
Barber was known for an odd swing with a flying right elbow. He was not a typical golf pro, being pudgy and having hay fever, but was rumored to have girlfriends throughout the tour until he married at thirty-nine, a marriage that lasted forty-three years. Also serving on the U.S. Ryder Cup team with Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino, Barber won eleven PGA Tour events during his career.
He joined the fledgling Senior Tour in 1981 and excelled, winning five Senior Majors, three Senior Opens, a Senior PGA title and the Senior Player’s Championship in 1983. He had a total of one thousand two hundred ninety-seven PGA and Senior Tour starts during his career, which remained for many years an all-time record. He died in 2013.
To learn more, visit encyclopediaofarkansas.net.
You can read the entire Encyclopedia entry at Barber, Miller Westford Jr. - Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
