The Best Golf Stories Ever Told Page 13

  Meanwhile, the Hogan express continued to pick up steam. He defeated Moore 5-and-4, then routed his pal, Jimmy Demaret, 10-and-9. “Sunny Jim” actually built a lead of 2-up through the match’s first three holes, but that only seemed to inject life into Hogan’s game. He birdied three of the next four holes to swipe the lead as he completed the morning round 6-up. Afternoon competition wasn’t much different. The match was over at twenty-seven holes. The drastic margin of victory prompted reporters to see if the normally jovial Demaret was provoked by Hogan’s killer instinct. It was after this round that Demaret contributed to the legion of quotes pertaining to how little Hogan would say while playing. Asked if Hogan talked to him during the one-sided day, Demaret said, “Yes. ‘You’re away.’”

  The final provided a contrast in silhouettes, Hogan at 137 and the somewhat slimmed-down Oliver at about 220. Hogan fell behind by three holes during the morning round because of—naturally—putting predicaments. But he immediately made amends with a 30 on the front nine of his afternoon play, taking a two-hole lead into the back nine. Hogan played the final fourteen holes in 8-under-par and defeated Oliver 6-and-4 to win the Wanamaker Trophy. Henny Bogan had won a major championship. “The only time I was sure of winning was when ‘Porky’ walked over and shook my hand,” Hogan said. “No one gets as many birdies as I did without being lucky, and, boy, was I tickled when those long putts started to drop. It’s impossible to explain how much this means to me, so I’ll just say, ‘Thank you,’ to the P.G.A. and my wife, Valerie.” The path to a first major championship was so much more of an odyssey, a test of will and skill and guile for Hogan, than it appeared to be for Nelson. Whereas Nelson won the 1937 Masters in only his third season of weekin, week-out Tour competition, Hogan’s path covered the better part of eight seasons—which followed the fits and starts that began eight years before that, when he first teed it up as a professional at Brackenridge in San Antonio at the 1930 Texas Open.

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  THE STORY OF BEN HOGAN AND THE 1950 U.S. OPEN

  DAVID BARRETT

  It was well into evening by the time Ben Hogan returned to the Barclay Hotel in Philadelphia after the double round on Saturday. A late room-service dinner became even later because Hogan had to sit in a hot bath for an hour to soak his legs. He told a writer six months later that his legs swelled so much that day that it took a hectic evening of massage and bathing to get them in a condition where he might be able to play the next day.

  His wife, Valerie, later recalled that she “had given up on his being able to tee off in the playoff, but I couldn’t tell him that.”

  Meanwhile, back in Fort Worth, Ben’s brother Royal was frantically trying to figure out how to send a putter to Pennsylvania for morning arrival. He heard a radio report about Ben’s putting woes in the final round, and thought about the brass putter that Ben left in his garage at home in favor of a blade model he had been using for the last three months since picking it up during an exhibition in Memphis. Royal reached his brother by telephone at the hotel and said he could send the putter to New York with an airline pilot friend. But Ben didn’t think he had anyone who could pick up the putter for him, so he told Royal to forget it. Instead, Royal went to work on arranging for a messenger to take the putter from New York directly to Merion.

  Valerie Hogan said that during the night she woke up to the noise of jackhammers in the street below, but Ben was sleeping so soundly he never heard them. In the morning, Valerie recalled, he was “fresh as a daisy.”

  “Isn’t it a nice day?” he said.

  Hogan got a break because the playoff didn’t start until 2 PM, due to Pennsylvania blue laws governing events on Sundays. That gave him more time to recover from Saturday’s 36-hole ordeal, and meant he did not have to wake up exceptionally early to go through his morning soaking routine.

  It also meant there was no chance of a second straight 36-hole day if there was a tie. (That’s what happened in the 1946 Open at Canterbury, where Lloyd Mangrum, Byron Nelson, and Vic Ghezzi tied in an 18-hole playoff in the morning and went 18 more in the afternoon, Mangrum winning. )

  When the Hogans reached the lobby of the hotel on their way to Merion, they received a surprise—a group of newsmen was waiting for Ben. They had probably gathered to be able to check Hogan’s condition and get a comment from him if it turned out he was unable to play in the playoff. Seeing that he would not only play, but was moving well and in good spirits, they cheered him and some said, “Go get ’em, Ben.”

  Newspaper estimates of the playoff gallery ranged from 6,000 to 10,000, but again that was high. Daily tickets were offered at $3.00, but only 1,440 were sold (compared to 6,088 the previous day). Weekly tournament tickets remained good for the playoff. If all the 3,865 people who purchased tournament tickets attended the playoff, it would have brought the number to above 5,000, but some of those people undoubtedly had other commitments.

  Still, several thousand people following one threesome represented a formidable challenge for the marshals. The players had to wait on every hole for the gallery to settle into place, which Championship Committee chairman John D.Ames later estimated took five minutes per hole. There was a photo in the next day’s paper of Hogan, George Fazio, and Mangrum on the 14th tee, with the caption noting they were “taking a rest.”Hogan is taking a drag on a cigarette while sitting on what appears to be a “shooting stick” type of chair that presumably was being carried in his golf bag, Fazio is sitting on a folding chair that he may have borrowed from a gallery member. Mangrum is standing, looking impatient. They must have been waiting on an “all clear” signal from the marshals.

  Not everyone was rooting for Hogan in the playoff. Fazio not only had a group of family and friends watching, he was also being cheered on by a contingent of some 150 members of his club, Woodmont, who had arrived from Washington, D.C., by car, plane, and train, according to the Washington Post.

  “Win or lose, we’re going to have a big ‘Welcome Home’ banquet and reception for him Tuesday night,” said Woodmont President Arthur Sundlun.

  Other than that, though, Hogan had the gallery in the palm of his hand. Mangrum had to settle for only polite applause when he hit a good shot or made a birdie.

  Shirley Povich wrote in the Washington Post that, unlike in the past, the usually dour and aloof competitor Hogan was actually feeding off the gallery.

  “Hogan was the least tense of any of the three men in the playoff,” Povich wrote. “He was gallery-conscious, and they liked it. For the first time in his career, he was probably trying to win for the gallery as well as for Hogan.”

  Povich had observed a changed Hogan the previous week at the National Celebrities Tournament in Washington. Admittedly it was more of a fun event than a serious competition, but still Hogan’s friends noted that it was the first time they remembered seeing him smile on the first tee of a tournament. “He found himself even manning the loudspeaker during the antics of Danny Kaye and Milton Berle and Bob Hope and [Arthur] Godfrey, and having fun,” according to Povich.

  “Hogan didn’t know that things like this could ever happen on a golf course,” said one of his friends. “It is loosening him up, and I hope he keeps this mood the next week at the Open.”

  Hogan certainly appeared to be in a good mood as he arrived at the course on Sunday. “I feel fine,” he stated while sitting in the locker room—an assertion he was liable to make in any case, but it really did seem to be true.

  It is likely that with only three competitors they were allowed to warm up by hitting shots into the 14th fairway instead of having to go to the West Course, followed by some strokes on the practice green. Just before tee time, Hogan’s brass putter arrived by messenger.

  A scriptwriter would have Hogan delightedly grab his old familiar weapon and go on a putting spree that netted him the Open title. Unfortunately, Royal’s best efforts were for naught. The club arrived too late for Ben to even try it on the practice green, so he stuck with the o
ne he had warmed up with.

  Fazio was a big underdog, but looking back on it he said he felt he had a chance to win. He told Al Barkow in Gettin’ to the Dance Floor that the only player he ever felt he couldn’t beat was Byron Nelson. “With everybody else I felt I might be able to out luck them, they might get a bad bounce or I might hit a lucky shot or something—even Hogan. Like in that playoff for the ’50 Open. I was first up on the first tee, and when I went to put it down I was shaking. When Ben went I was looking at him tee it up and he was shaking, too, so I said, ‘This is not too bad.’ Mangrum liked to play the cool cat, but he was shaking, too.”

  Mangrum at least had one thing going for him. He had been in a three-way U.S. Open playoff before, and had won.

  Mangrum had a prickly relationship with Hogan, however. In a Sport magazine profile of Hogan in 1953, Bob Brumby wrote that there was a long-standing personal feud between the two, though each had a healthy respect for the others’ ability. At the time of the article, Mangrum had just been quoted with a remark that was seen as disparaging Hogan. When it was related to Hogan that Mangrum said he was misquoted, Hogan responded, “He has never liked me and the feeling is mutual.” Mangrum, on the other hand, said the two had gotten along fine until a couple of years before.

  In truth, it was probably just a lack of mutual understanding by two men who were difficult to get to know. They had little to say to each other, and each may have misinterpreted the sometimes blunt comments both were liable to make in the press.

  Fazio and Hogan got along well; indeed, George had joined Ben for his first practice round at the Los Angeles Open when he returned to the tour after an 11-month absence. Fazio was the only gregarious member of the trio, but he knew there would be little conversation that day, which was fine. “Hogan is the most perfect gentleman on the golf course that I ever played with,” he told Barkow. “I mean, he’s not going to do anything for you, but he’s not going to do anything against you. You play your game, he plays his.”

  The first hole was a short par four of 360 yards, but it was no pushover at the Open, playing as the seventh toughest hole. Hogan and Mangrum calmed their nerves and made routine pars, while Fazio showed signs of an inability to control his adrenaline. For the first of three times on the front nine, his approach shot went over the green, and it resulted in a bogey.

  Fazio got the stroke back with a birdie from 20 feet on the par-five second, while Mangrum moved in front by planting his approach three feet from the hole and making a birdie to go one under. Hogan was still getting his bearings. His drive was on the fringe of the right rough, and his second shot with an iron found the left rough. Still, he hit his next one on the green and made a par.

  Mangrum pulled his tee shot on the par-three third. While it found the fringe instead of the deep rough, he was unable to get up and down, his par putt catching the lip and staying out. With regulation pars by Hogan and Fazio, all three were now at even par after three holes. They remained that way after the par-five fourth, where Hogan and Fazio hit into the rough with their second shots. Hogan hit the green from there to join Mangrum in two-putting for pars, while Fazio missed the putting surface but chipped close and made his par putt. All three emerged unscathed from the dangerous par-four fifth, with Fazio again one-putting for a par while the other two both hit the green. All three players were even par through five holes.

  Things began to unravel for Fazio on the par-four sixth, where his approach shot went long into a bunker. This time he couldn’t get up and down, and made a bogey.

  The par-four seventh and eighth holes were birdie opportunities—if you could keep your tee shot in the fairway. But Fazio was wild off the tee on the seventh, hitting it out of bounds to the right and making a bogey. The winner of only two tour events in his career seemed to be succumbing in the pressurecooker of a playoff for the national championship.

  In that out-of-bounds area to the right of the seventh, hundreds of spectators perched on the framework of a house being built near the green. The ground slopes down sharply to the left of that green and the eighth tee is immediately behind the putting surface, making viewing impossible from either spot, so enterprising fans utilized the partially built home as a chance to see the action on an otherwise difficult spectator hole. Fortunately for both the spectators and the property owner, the frame did not collapse under the fans’ weight.

  Hogan took the lead for the first time in the playoff by hitting his short-iron approach to within four feet and making the birdie putt on the seventh, after missing a birdie try from a similar distance on the previous hole. Mangrum, after a routine par on the sixth, caught a bunker with his approach on the seventh. He avoided losing two strokes to Hogan, coming out of the sand to within four feet and making the putt to save par.

  On the eighth hole, Hogan hit what was to be his only poor shot of the round, finding a fairway bunker with his tee shot. Even then, it wasn’t so much a poor swing as a poor club selection.

  “I made a mistake,” Hogan said after the round. “We couldn’t feel the wind there, and I used a No. 1 iron when I should have hit a brassie [three-wood].”

  Wait a minute! A one-iron? Didn’t Hogan later say his oneiron had been stolen after the fourth round?

  Hogan missed the green on his shot from the fairway bunker and ended up with a bogey, dropping back to even par. Meanwhile, Mangrum had another solid par, while Fazio bounced back from his two consecutive bogeys with a birdie on the eighth, holing a nine-foot putt.

  On the par-three ninth, Fazio missed the green yet again, finishing in a bunker, but escaped with a par. It completed a scrambling nine where he hit a scant three greens in regulation, but one-putted five holes to keep himself in the thick of things with a one-over 37, just a stroke behind his companions.

  “I was too keyed up for that playoff,” Fazio recalled. “I usually drove even with Hogan for length, and that day I was 10 and 15 yards ahead of him. But I’d forget I was keyed up and knock the approach shots over the greens.”

  Hogan and Mangrum, in contrast, were solid on the front nine, Hogan hitting eight greens and Mangrum seven. Both shot even-par 36s with one birdie and one bogey, the birdies coming on short putts.

  The back nine would be a different story, at least for Mangrum. While Hogan continued his relentless, error-free play, knocking it down the fairway and onto the green hole after hole, Mangrum had one of the wilder nine-hole rides ever seen in a U.S. Open playoff. Over the next seven holes, Mangrum made only one par, and became involved in a pair of strange incidents that turned the tide in Hogan’s favor.

  The yo-yo act started on the 10th hole, where Mangrum’s tee shot ended up in the same bunker that had caught Middlecoff and Hogan in the fourth round. The USGA’s Richard Tufts, who had suggested the bunker, must have been smiling.

  Mangrum missed the green and made a bogey on the 10th, but he came right back on the 11th with an approach to five feet and a holed birdie putt. He walked to the 12th tee tied with Hogan, while Fazio was still one stroke back. Mangrum hit his drive into the 12th fairway and then entered the Twilight Zone. Mangrum’s second shot flew over the heads of the amazed gallery, past Ardmore Avenue, and came to rest in the rough just past the 13th tee, at least 30 yards over the 12th green.

  There was some question whether the ball was out of bounds. It had crossed over an out-of-bounds road, but was sitting on the property of the golf course, which could have allowed for an interpretation that it was in bounds. USGA rules chairman Isaac Grainger ruled that it was out.

  In truth, that was a break for Mangrum, especially with the distance-only penalty. He would have faced an exceptionally difficult shot from where his ball lay near the 13th tee, back across the road to a hard and fast green sloping away from him. Making par from there would have been almost impossible, while double bogey was a definite possibility. Instead, he dropped one in the fairway and, using the correct club this time, found the green and walked off with a bogey.

  This extraordinary t
urn of events was glossed over in the newspaper accounts. The New York Times said that Mangrum hit a five-iron “too strongly as the breeze faded and the ball flew over the crowd.” While mentioning the out-of-bounds approach shot, all of the reports simply state that Mangrum made a five on the hole without any further description. But a fading breeze could hardly explain the ball flying that far past its target. In an interview with Merion historian John Capers in 1986, Grainger offered a more plausible explanation. Mangrum, he said, asked his caddie for a nine-iron. The caddie handed him a six-iron instead, and Lloyd somehow didn’t notice.

  It’s hard to imagine a player escaping scrutiny for such a gaffe today. But the playoff wasn’t televised and post-round press interviews were more perfunctory than they are now. Also, an even more unusual incident on the 16th hole would overshadow this one, and that’s what reporters asked Mangrum about after the round.

  Hogan, meanwhile, pounded out routine pars on the 10th, 11th, and 12th, as did Fazio, who was getting his ball-striking (and nerves) under control. Through 12 holes, Hogan was even par, with Mangrum and Fazio a stroke behind. Still tight. It remained that way through the 13th, where they all hit the green off the tee and two-putted that par three.

  Hogan found himself with a little bit of breathing room after the par-four 14th. Continuing to play like a machine, he drove in the fairway and hit the green for yet another par. His long game straightened out, Fazio’s putting now began to go sour as he three-putted for a bogey. An erratic Mangrum hit his second shot into a greenside bunker and also bogeyed the hole. Hogan pulled two strokes ahead of both of his fellow competitors.

  Mangrum cut Hogan’s lead to one on the 15th. His drive nearly went out of bounds, but he hit an outstanding shot from the rough to within 12 feet of the cup and sank the birdie putt. Fazio, however, fell three behind with his second consecutive three-putt. Either his new putting method let him down at the end, or he reverted to old habits under pressure.