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Fuzzy Zoeller, a two-time major champion and one of golf’s most gregarious characters whose career was tainted by a racially insensitive joke about Tiger Woods, has died, according to a longtime colleague. He was 74.

A cause of death was not immediately available. Brian Naugle, the tournament director of the Insperity Invitational in Houston, said Zoeller’s daughter called him Thursday with the news.

Zoeller was the last player to win the Masters in his first attempt, a three-man playoff in 1979. He famously waved a white towel at Winged Foot in the 1984 U.S. Open when he thought Greg Norman had beaten him, only to defeat Norman in an 18-hole playoff the next day.

But it was the 1997 Masters that changed his popularity.

Woods was on his way

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