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By Lauren Deason
PGATOUR.com Editorial Coordinator

The Future Masters trophy that sits in Hubert Green's World Golf Hall of Fame exhibit is over 50 years old.

It doesn't outshine the silver U.S. Open trophy he won in 1977 nor does it carry the same weight, both literally and metaphorically, that the Wanamaker Trophy he earned for his 1985 PGA Championship win did.

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• Hubert Green was a 19-time winner on the PGA TOUR with two major championship victories -- the 1977 U.S. Open and the 1985 PGA Championship. In his Champions Tour career, Green has had four wins. To learn more,  click here.

Yet Green, 60, remembers the smallest details from Dothan, Ala., on the day he finished runner-up in the B Division. There's just something about that first time.

Lee Harper, a fellow 10-and-under golfer, hit 3-wood to the green on a par 5, birdied the hole and beat Green by a stroke.

"Eight or nine years old, we don't hit the ball that far. I remember [him] making that shot and I turned to my father and I started crying. I didn't believe this could happen to me, to lose by one," Green said.

"But the drive home, that trophy sat in my lap and I still remember it like it was yesterday. And it was -- that trophy was the biggest trophy in the world. It was just humongous. Look at it now as you play golf over and over again, you see bigger trophies you've won, but this trophy was [the first]."

Years later, he'd finish runner-up at a Masters again, this time the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in 1978. One stroke behind Gary Player heading into the final hole, Green hit his approach on No. 18 to 3 feet. Make that putt and it's playoff time with the Black Knight for the Green Jacket.

As he stood over the simple three-footer, Green's intense concentration was interrupted by a radio announcer. He backed off, asked for silence, addressed the ball again and... missed.

"Only an amateur would have been put off by the interruption," he later said, "or try to make excuses about it."

That's how Green operates. No excuses for a loss. Fire at the pins. Don't back down from a challenge. Second place is no substitute for a win. Who even remembers the second place finishers, Green wonders?

"I never cared about finishing second," Green said. "If you don't win, you've lost."

Want to know how tough he is? Green chose to play the last holes in the 1977 U.S. Open even though a death threat had been phoned in. The caller said he would be shot on the 15th hole at Southern Hills.

In 2004, he faced potential death again, this time in cancer form. Green, always tall and lean, lost 30 pounds and fought the effects of chemotherapy and radiation after undergoing treatment for oral cancer in 2003 and again in 2004. But, within months, the fierce competitor was back on the Champions Tour.

Without that second place is the first loser mentality and drive to succeed, Green might not be celebrating an induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame on Monday, Nov. 12.

The ceremony will take place almost 37 years to the day since Green joined the professional golfing ranks and the born-and-raised Alabama boy is awed by how far he has come.

In the 1970 Sea Pines Open Invitational, his first PGA TOUR event, he made $540. While the PGA TOUR stars of the day -- Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Johnny Miller and tournament winner Bob Goalby -- were playing at Harbour Town Golf Links, Green and the others who didn't qualify for the Heritage Classic teed it up just a mile down the road at Sea Pines Country Club.

And, on that chilly November morning, Green got his first taste of the TOUR.

"On my second hole, which was No. 11, I hit a 9-iron and the ball bounced over the pin because the green was frozen. And I walked to this bunker and the sand was frozen, and I thought, man, this PGA TOUR is pretty doggone tough; they play on frozen greens and frozen sand traps.

"I was like, I don't think I'm ready for this."

He shot 67 despite the temperatures and was tied for the lead after the first day but eventually dropped into a tie for 13th.

But neither snow nor rain nor one very scary death threat would keep him from the TOUR. If he left, that'd mean he'd have to (shudder) get a job.

"I was fourth-string [assistant] pro [at famed Merion Golf Club one summer] and I got the worst of the lessons," Green said of the first and only job he ever held. "...But I loved it. It was a good experience for me and it taught me something I did not want to do, which was get a real job."

Knowing he couldn't survive in teaching for very long, Green quickly found his way to a win on the TOUR in his first full season by besting Don January on the first hole of a playoff at the 1971 Houston Champions International.

It was the first of 16 wins in the 1970s and helped him cement Rookie of the Year honors that year. The win also kicked off a career that included two major championships, the last coming in 1985 when some thought he was past his prime. He won four times on the Champions Tour and has a perfect record in Ryder Cup Singles competition from his three team appearances.

Green's trademark includes -- appropriately, given his last name -- the green pants he often sports. He also boasts an unorthodox swing, something resembling Jim Furyk's hardly textbook but effective method.

"I'm probably one of the only pros that the golf teachers pay to not use their name. I get a check from Butch Harmon once a month not to use his name; because my swing is so bad, they don't want anyone else to think they taught me how to play the game. I'm definitely self-taught," Green said.

He adds another anecdote.

"In '78, Ben Hogan came to Augusta to get an award and they asked him who he thought had a good chance that year and he said Hubert Green. And they said, the press said, why? He says, 'Because he has a good golf swing.'

"Well, the press came to me like a bunch of locusts and said, 'Hubert, what did you do to your golf swing? You must have changed it because Hogan says you have a good golf swing.' I've never been considered [to have] a good golf swing according to some people, but it's done sufficiently enough."

Possessing one of the best chipping abilities in the game, Green did have a magic touch around the greens and made a name for himself as a putter, though he admits sportswriters through the years may have been a tad too complimentary in that department.

"I'm not sure how good of a putter I was. I was a good chipper and my total number of putts during a tournament would be not many because I missed a lot of greens. [That's] because...I went for a lot of pins...I always fired at the pin because I knew I could chip close.

"I was a good short putter, but I really didn't make that many long putts. I made enough. I'm going to the Hall of Fame, so can't keep me out now."

Good friend Fuzzy Zoeller will introduce Green as he accepts his entrance into the Hall of Fame, an honor he never expected to earn.

"I was just worried about the next year when I first got started. You're just going from week-to-week and day-to-day you're not thinking about 10 years from now or whatever. You're trying to survive and keep going.

"...This Hall of Fame [induction] is just a tremendous capping off to a career of a lifetime."