2021 September Memorabilia Auction - Closing Date 09/26/21
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/26/2021
Champion Ed Fiori's PING Pal 4 BeCu Putter Used to Defeat Tiger Woods at 1996 Quad City Classic!
Ed Fiori's trusty PING Pal 4 BeCu flat stick en route to 'Slaying Tiger' Woods in the 1996 Quad Cities Classic. "Tiger, I wonder if I can get a couple of autographs for my kids," Ed Fiori asked his final group playing partner teeing off with him the final two rounds of the 1996 Quad Cities Classic. "They're about the same age (20) as you are," Fiori told him while chuckling. It was an odd pairing to say the least. Ed Fiori was at a point in his golfing career that was 14-years removed from his last PGA Tour win and had missed the cut in over half (10) of his last 18 starts. Fiori was asking himself if it was time for his second career to begin, likely a salesman of some sort for the affable 43-year-old. The Sunday showdown between Fiori and the newest golfing sensation Tiger Woods, who was making only his third professional start after a decorated amateur career, did not end as most thought it would. Tiger Woods had the 54-hole lead by one stroke over Fiori. Ed would card a bogey at the first and find himself three back after one. Tiger Woods faltered with a quadruple bogey on hole no. 4 and Fiori realized after looking at the standard bearer that he was now a shot ahead of the man that the gallery came to see. Fiori would take Tiger Woods' first professional win away from him that day and reinvigorate his own PGA Tour, along with gaining a new nickname that still gets tossed around 25 years later - 'The Tiger Slayer.' Fiori would get this elaborate glass trophy with an eagle perched on it for his 4-stroke win over Tiger Woods at the 1996 Quad City Classic Tournament that Sunday, a moment that the individual with "the grip" will never forget and many golf fans look back on with a smile. Proudly presented here is Fiori's hardware engraved "ED FIORI - CHAMPION" for that memorable unlikely tournament in which Ed Fiori took down Tiger (shown in the reference picture of him holding it up in this listing). This lot comes with a signed letter of provenance from champion Ed Fiori.
Putter has been re-gripped
Ed Fiori Collection
'If you want something enough you can get it', is how the old saying goes. A youngster in the Los Angeles Suburb of Downey, California took it upon himself to get some work in at the local 9-hole golf course. It would be through a barbed wire fence that Ed Fiori would gain entry to that course in the early 1960's. Fast-forward over thirty years and Fiori found himself on the same tee box as the newly professional 20-year-old Tiger Woods in the final round of the PGA Tour's Quad City Classic. Holding the trophy at the end of that day and denying the dazzling Woods his first professional win was all worth it. It would be one of four trophies that Ed Fiori would hoist after his University of Houston collegiate career. The 1979 Southern Open, 1981 Western Open, 1982 Bob Hope Desert Classic and last, but not least, the 1996 Quad City Classic tied up a successful golfing career at the hands of "The Grip." That nickname came naturally to him, as he squeezed the club significantly harder than his tour cohorts. While small in stature at 5'7," Fiori would leave a large golfing legacy when he took down Tiger Woods, which until 2009, would be the only 54-hole lead snatched away from Woods. The Ed Fiori Collection includes prized possessions earned from his sticktoitiveness on the PGA Tour scattered with triumphs along the way.
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