Story of U.S. Open’s First 100 Years Deserves Royal Treatment, but Major Questions Remain About USGA’s Penchant for Par Versus Growth of the Game

If someone pitched Hollywood a script based on 100 years of U.S. Open play, it would include plenty of tense on-screen drama, big-name winners and storybook endings.

Interspersed throughout this four-act story is the occasional USGA course setup catastrophe or a faulty ruling thrown in for a little comic relief.

Now, the script awaits a lavish Hollywood ending this week at Pebble Beach, though questions abound whether the famed course will be able to handle the best players in the world should the studio decide to return for sequels.

To condense the script, Hollywood might breeze through Act I, the Willie Anderson years. The Scot won four Opens, including three in a row from 1903-1905 when the tournament finally became a 72-hole tournament. To that point, the U.S. Open had been a secondary event to the U.S. Amateur, played in 36 holes and with little fanfare.

The Open started on Oct. 4, 1895, when 10 professionals and one amateur took four nine-hole trips around the Newport Golf and Country Club course in Rhode Island. The surprise winner was Horace Rawlins, a 21-year-old assistant professional from the host course. Rawlins scored 91-82--173 to take the $150 first-place prize. He also received a gold medal and one-year custody of the Open Championship Cup.

Overcoming English Pros

The 100-year U.S. Open script might touch on the fact that the early Opens were basically conducted for amateurs and a wave of British golf professionals. However, when 19-year-old John McDermott became the first native-born American champion in 1911 and again in 1912, the U.S. Open evolved into a national event. Yet much of the early history might end up on the cutting-room floor until the story reaches 1913, when the U.S. Open became a genuine national championship.

Francis Ouimet, a lanky 20-year-old Massachusetts amateur and part-time caddie who lived across the street from The Country Club in Brookline, stunned the golf world by defeating proven English professionals Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in an 18-hole playoff.

Ouimet’s victory sparked great interest in American golf and sent word to the world that the U.S. Open was a major championship played in a country with quality players.

The U.S. Open story might skip the next few years, even though charismatic 11-time major championship winner Walter Hagen took U.S. Opens in 1914 and 1919. Then Act II beckons, and it may be the most amazing of Open eras.

It’s Mr. Jones’ Show

The 1920s marked the championship’s biggest popularity surge thanks to the remarkable career of Georgia amateur Bobby Jones, who won four U.S. Opens (1923, 1926, 1929, 1930). Jones’ charisma and desire to remain an amateur captivated all of America. He became the only person to receive two ticker-tape parades down Broadway, and like the other four-time Open winners, Jones easily could have won a fifth.

During the 1925 U.S. Open playoff against Willie Macfarlane, Jones called a one-shot penalty on himself over the protests of rules’ officials, after he saw his ball move upon addressing it. He lost the playoff by a stroke.

In 1933, John Goodman became the fifth and last amateur to win the U.S. Open. The others were Ouimet (1913), Jerome D. Travers (1915), Charles “Chick” Evans Jr. (1916) and Jones.

After Goodman, the Open went through a less conspicuous era. Ralph Guldahl did claim back-to-back Opens in 1937-38 before the tournament shut down during World War II from 1942 to 1945.

However, in 1942, Ben Hogan won a tournament called the “Hale America Open,” which included the awarding of a USGA Open Championship medal and all of the other standard U.S. Open traditions (except the name). Hogan always put the winning gold medallion next to his other four matching Open medals, though the USGA refuses to count the victory as an official win.

Hogan’s Chapter and Verse

What better player than Hogan to dominate the story’s third act?

Even though he believed until the day he died that he had won a U.S. Open in 1942, he claimed his first “official” title in 1948 at Riviera. Hogan did it in Hollywood’s backyard, where he had won the Los Angeles Open earlier that year. His 276 winning score broke the Open record by five strokes and was considered too low by longtime USGA course setup man Joe Dey.

Hogan’s record led to a new and more brutal course set-up style a few years later at Oakland Hills, where a mix of high rough, narrow fairways, repositioned fairway bunkers and harrowing pin placements led to the U.S. Open’s now-trademark style as the planet’s most torturous tournament.

Despite his weakened body and limited playing schedule after a near-fatal 1949 car wreck, Hogan’s steely determination boosted him to three more U.S. Open victories (1950, 1951, 1953).

Each win embodied a film noir quality that seemed more remarkable each time out. The 1950 victory came at storied Merion, just six months after the accident. The 1951 tournament included Hogan’s heroic last-day 67 at Oakland Hills, which many cite as the greatest round of golf played. And Hogan’s final Open triumph came in 1953 at Oakmont, the same year he won five of the six events he entered, including the Masters and British Open.

Hogan seemingly won his fifth (or was it his sixth?) U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club in June 1955, but little-known touring pro Jack Fleck birdied two of the final four holes to send the tournament into a playoff the next day. An exhausted Hogan lost by three to Fleck, who used Hogan Co. irons.

Ben Hogan’s two biggest rivals had their moments in the Open too: Byron Nelson won in 1939, and Sam Snead came painfully close, finishing as runner-up four times.

Sentimentally, Snead

The low point for the sweet-swinging Snead came in 1947 when a USGA official incorrectly ruled that Snead could not putt out on the 72nd hole because his playing partner, eventual winner Lew Worsham, insisted he was away from the hole. Visibly angry, Snead could not believe the USGA official was confusing a stroke-play situation with a match-play one, or worse, that his friend Worsham would insist on putting out even though he knew the rules allowed Snead to finish out the hole.

When Snead finally stepped up to his putt after the official had tediously measured to determine who was away, the elapsed time and Snead’s anger caused him to miss badly, sending the tournament into a playoff that Snead lost by a stroke.

It was one of several disappointments for the Virginian, and the beginning of a series of odd, almost farcical mistakes by the USGA’s army of volunteer officials who still handle tournament rulings today.

Cherry Hills Thrills

However, Act III cannot end with Snead’s troubles, but instead, with the most astonishing convergence of golfing greats seen, the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills.

Hogan and reigning U.S.Amateur Champion Jack Nicklaus were paired for the 36-hole final round, with both in contention and trailing leader Mike Souchak by a few strokes.

Hogan, 48, reached the par-five 17th needing a birdie-par finish to have a chance. But Hogan’s wedge shot spun back into the water and ended his final U.S. Open run.

Meanwhile, two groups behind Hogan and Nicklaus was a surging Arnold Palmer.

Fresh off a lunchtime argument about his chances with golf writer Bob Drum, Palmer angrily drove the first green in the afternoon round. He shot a then-record final-round low 65, making up a seven-shot deficit to win the Open by two over Nicklaus.

After the round, Hogan was asked about his day, and snapped, “I played 36 holes today with a kid who, if he had a brain in his head, should have won this thing by 10 strokes.”

Jack Is in Control

This story’s final act transitions effortlessly to Jack Nicklaus’ historic assault on the professional record book.

It began when he won his first of four U.S. Open Championships at Oakmont in 1962, beating Pennsylvania native Palmer in a playoff by three strokes.

Nicklaus then won in 1967 at Baltusrol, at Pebble Beach in 1972 and finally at Baltusrol in 1980.

Nicklaus’ final victory made him one of only four players to capture four U.S. Opens, joining Anderson, Jones and Hogan.

Meanwhile, Palmer lost again in a 1963 playoff to Julius Boros and Jacky Cupit at The Country Club.

Three years later, Palmer suffered the most devastating defeat of his career, losing a seven-stroke lead in the final nine holes at Olympic Club. He lost to Billy Casper in a playoff the following day.

After the stretch of Palmer and Nicklaus’ domination, little-known Texas driving range pro Lee Trevino captured U.S. Opens at Oak Hill in 1968 and again at Merion in 1971. Both were over runner-up Jack Nicklaus.

Trevino also loosened things up with his classic take on the quintessential USGA rules official, saying: “When I retire I’m going to get a pair of gray slacks, a white shirt, a striped tie, a blue blazer, a case of dandruff, and go stand on the first tee so I can be a USGA official.”

In 1974 Hale Irwin’s first of three victories came at Winged Foot, which marked the greatest emphasis yet on the modern USGA limit-pushing approach to course setup.

Like It or Not, USGA Has Last Word

The U.S. Open became a battle of the USGA’s ego versus the players, with an emphasis on producing high scores under the guise of “identifying the best player.”

The notion of “protecting par” became the USGA’s priority even in light of better players, improved course conditioning and superior equipment. Fairways grew narrower each year, the rough became taller and the greens’ Stimpmeter readings tripled.

The USGA pushed the limit to the point that several tournament organizers were embarrassed by course setup mishaps.

In 1972, Pebble Beach’s eighth fairway had to be widened by five yards after practice rounds proved that the lone area players needed to drive their ball in order to see the green consisted of four-inch rough.

At Inverness in 1979, the USGA imported a large tree and planted it in the wee hours of the morning so that long hitter Lon Hinkle would stop playing the par-five eighth hole up another fairway.

And the lowest of all points may have been the USGA’s Tom Meeks’ disastrous hole location during the 1998 second round at Olympic Club. With the cup perched on the course’s steeply sloped 18th green, several players three-, four- and five-putted. The most notable being eventual runner-up Payne Stewart, who saw a four-foot par putt lip out and finish 25 feet from the hole. Meeks’ unplayable hole location cost the late Stewart his second Open win.

However, Stewart rebounded at Pinehurst in 1999 to defeat Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods in a classic finish.

The result of the USGA’s recent over-the-top setup style has produced several accomplished champions mixed with an odd array of journeymen who seem to play well in extreme conditions.

Pebble Is Perfect, but Sequel Not Assured

Of course, the USGA does have its shrewd moments. One of its best decisions: bringing the Open’s first century of play to a close at Pebble Beach Golf Links.

This will be the fourth U.S. Open contested at the famed course, with the first coming in 1972 after USGA executive director Joe Dey retired and Pebble Beach aficionado P.J. Boatwright took control of site selection. Pebble Beach has produced Nicklaus (1972), Tom Watson (1982) and Tom Kite (1992) as champions and figures to create another impressive finish this year.

Yet questions remain: Will vast changes in technology and the inevitable court battle between the USGA and companies such as Callaway forever change the game and the courses selected to host majors? Will these first 100 years end on a sour note because of this developing back story, which threatens the viability of classic venues like Pebble Beach?

The average PGA Tour drive has increased by 12 yards in only seven years. With more advanced technology on the horizon and better athletes playing golf, will overwhelming length eliminate Pebble Beach from future consideration? Or will the USGA give up its efforts to “protect par” so that it can keep shorter courses like Pebble Beach in the Open rotation?

After all, Merion and Cherry Hills have already been scratched from future U.S. Open consideration because they are too short. They also lack the necessary television compound and corporate tent space. Baltusrol, Inverness, Olympic and Riviera sit perilously close to joining the list of layouts deemed too short for the modern USGA course setup style, a bracing reality considering each has successfully hosted U.S. Opens in the postwar era.

The USGA has already reduced Pebble Beach’s par-five second hole to a 484-yard par-four, and several other fairways have been narrowed or shifted since 1992 to make the 6,846-yard course seemingly play longer. Will this be enough to keep Pebble Beach in the U.S. Open rotation?

Or will the first century end at everyone’s favorite U.S. Open venue, before the 21st century ushers in a new era of monotonous 7,800-yard courses that take the Open away from classic venues that have hosted legends from every era?

Sounds like the USGA has some work to do if it wants the sequel to be as good as the first 100 years.

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Geoff Shackelford is the author of several golf books, including “The Golden Age of Golf Design.”