A Golfer's Life (25 page)

Joe clearly didn’t think that was proper—or particularly amusing. After a bit of confusion determining where my ball had crossed the margin of the hazard, a spot was determined and I took a drop with a one-stroke penalty. My next shot glanced off a tree, and my fourth attempt flew over the green. I chipped five feet short of the hole for my fifth, then sank the putt for a nice fat opening double-bogey six.

You could have fried an egg on my forehead at that moment. I was so furious with myself for blowing a hole I clearly should have birdied. As we walked to the next tee, I remember hitching up my trousers and having a sharp exchange with my caddie. Bob Blair, who often carried for me, had somehow engineered the assignment to my bag (in those days, the USGA assigned caddies, who were mostly from the host club or local area, at random to players beforehand)—and I still don’t think I want to know what kind of maneuver Bob pulled off to get on my bag. I don’t
remember what Bob had said that got my dander up, but whatever it was it even caught the attention of my playing partners, Jack Fleck and Cary Middlecoff. I was obviously steamed, and I stayed that way. Several factors contributed to that.

Perhaps due to the thinner air, play was much slower than the normal slow pace of an Open, and it didn’t help matters that Fleck and Middlecoff, Open champions both, were two of the most deliberate players on tour. They could sometimes seemingly anguish over the ball for a small eternity before pulling the trigger on a shot. That habit was anathema to my style of play—once I’d made up my mind what I needed or wanted to do, which was usually pretty quickly, the last thing I wanted to do was stand around and
think
about it some more. It was better, in my view, to make the shot believing it would work and deal with the consequences if it didn’t.

In any case, the three of us wound our way tediously around the golf course over the next five hours. I had several moments when my putting stroke failed and my frustration deepened. I was fortunate to finish the opening round with a one-over 72, a respectable score that placed me four strokes behind leader Mike Souchak. Afterward, my friendly nemesis Bob Drum growled at me to summarize the round, and I reflected that I felt “wobbly and scrambling” all day long and never found my pace. Cary Middlecoff used those same words to describe my round when he wrote about our trio’s frustrating escapades for his hometown newspaper. What I didn’t come right out and say was that by my calculations the poky play of my partners had cost me four strokes on the round, because anytime I wasn’t moving forward on a golf course my nervousness and anxiety level increased twofold and my scoring usually paid the price. That day, the agonizing pace of play seemed even too much for Cary. He could manage only a painful 77 for his afternoon’s labors.

Of course, the real trophy for loss of composure under pressure that day went to Tommy Bolt, who in a rage of frustration flung his driver into the pond in front of the 18th tee after knocking two balls into the water, clearing the head of an astonished Claude Harmon by either inches or yards, depending on which account of the famous incident you choose to accept.

In the press tent, I was asked if I thought I was still in contention, and I wearily replied that I only hoped I would still be within four shots come Saturday afternoon. As tradition had held since 1895, the Open finished with two rounds on Open Saturday, a practice that would continue until 1965. Noting my poor start on the day, someone else wondered if, given the opportunity, I would use my driver again on the first hole, and I politely assured him I certainly would because you never could tell what could happen when you hit the green off the tee—you just might make a hole in one.

I know some observers thought that, under the circumstances, that was a foolish strategy. The course was playing a lot tougher than most had expected, and scarcely anybody was now thinking that Hogan’s record was in danger of tumbling. But I meant every word of it, and I couldn’t wait to get back to the first tee and take my revenge on the hole.

W
innie wasn’t with me in Denver. She and the girls were visiting her parents at the family’s cottage at Shawnee-on-the-Delaware, taking a breather from the rigors of tour life. I suppose it’s a little ironic that, after being on hand for virtually every important tournament I’d played in since the day we met, she would miss one some would later describe as the greatest ever—where three eras of the game collided in the persons of Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, and a young amateur
named Jack Nicklaus, and I would pull off the most dramatic charge of my career.

But, of course, we had no way of knowing ahead of time how things would play out and had already decided to leave the girls (then four and two) with Winnie’s parents while we went on to the Canada Cup and the British Open at St. Andrews. The decision, from a family standpoint, made good sense.

My second circuit of the Cherry Hills course was hardly more encouraging than the first; I shot 71 and fell even further back of the hard-charging Mike Souchak, who tore around Cherry Hills in 67, setting a thirty-six-hole record of 137 in the process. I made several bold escapes from the rough and five birdies, but I failed to convert several pars at critical moments (including the par-3 12th, which I felt jinxed me all week) and was fortunate, I suppose, that my day’s total wasn’t any worse. I honestly felt I’d deserved better than the course gave me, but other observers, like the ever-downbeat Drum, said I was very lucky to finish at even par. The only good thing about losing ground to the leader was that I wouldn’t be paired with slowpokes Fleck and Middlecoff again. I must admit, the two of them nearly drove me crazy at times.

Saturday, the day of the double finishing rounds, dawned sunny and warm, a perfect Rocky Mountain morning, and Mike showed the first signs of cracking, finishing his morning round with a two-over 73. His score was still good enough, though, for a two-stroke lead over Julius Boros, Jerry Barber, and Dow Finsterwald. Ben Hogan, who was still the man to beat in my mind, hit all eighteen greens in that third round, as I recall, but his unpredictable putter was betraying him.

That morning, I woke up telling myself that if I was going to lose the Open, I’d do it kicking and screaming, so it didn’t surprise anybody when I pulled out my driver on the first
hole and went for the green. My ball landed in the short grass just in front but then rolled into the deep collar grass around the green. I made a poor chip and needed three more shots to get down in bogey.

Not the way to start Open Saturday.

I finally got birdies at three and five, bogeyed six, birdied seven, and parred the difficult and long eighth. I had yet to par the tough uphill ninth, made another poor chip from the rough by the green, ripped off my golf glove in disgust, and holed out for a careless double-bogey six. Despite three birdies going out, I’d managed only a mediocre 36. The struggle continued on ten, where I barely got out of the bunker and had to make a dangerous twenty-foot downhiller to save par. I pulled back to even par with a birdie on 11 and—finally—managed to par the watery 12th, the par 3 that had been trouble all week long. My fifth birdie of the round came at 13, but I knew I would need at least two, possibly three, more birdies to have a reasonable chance of catching Souchak and the eight or nine others ahead of me.

Of the remaining five holes, only the 17th offered a realistic birdie opportunity. I parred 14 and 15 and went for broke on 16—making bogey instead. To compound my woes, I settled for par on the “easy” 17th and followed that up by making a bogey on the finishing hole.

A disappointing one-over 72. At that moment, with eighteen holes to play, I was exactly where I had been at the start of the third round. I was still eight back of Souchak, and on top of that, four players in the two pairings that finished just ahead of me—Boros, Hogan, Player, and the kid Nicklaus—had all gained ground on the nervous leader. A few minutes later, thanks to a spectator taking an unauthorized photograph—only the credentialed members of the press are allowed to use cameras on the premises—Souchak hooked his drive out-of-bounds on 18 and finished the hole with a
double bogey for 73 and a three-round total of 208. That nudged all of us a bit closer to the lead, but thirteen players stood between me at 215 and Mike at 208.

Needless to say, I was angry with myself for my weak finish in the third round. I stalked into the clubhouse to get a hamburger and a Coke to try to cool down and compose myself for the final eighteen. I was brooding on the fact that I’d made twelve birdies in fifty-four holes yet was two over par.

I can’t say I knew this at that very moment, but history was hardly on my side: In the fifty-six Opens that had been contested over seventy-two holes since 1895, no player trailing by more than five strokes after fifty-four holes had ever come back to win the championship. Still, Mike was clearly vulnerable—in the locker room he admitted to several reporters that he felt he’d just blown his chances with the double bogey at 18, a terrible thing to do to his confidence, in my view, what with Hogan, Nicklaus, Finsterwald, and Boros hot on his heels. After playing as brilliantly as Mike had, this was the moment to keep all negative thoughts out of his head.

I suppose I was looking for some consolation for my own self-inflicted troubles, or at least some reassurance that all wasn’t entirely lost yet, so I took my burger to where Drum sat talking to Dan Jenkins and Ken Venturi and a couple of other players in the locker room.

I remember someone, possibly Ken, wondering if Souchak would fold. Somebody shrugged and reflected that anything could happen in golf—especially in a U.S. Open. That was true enough, we all agreed.

“What if I shot sixty-five?” I spoke up, chewing my burger. “Two-eighty always wins the Open. What would that do?”

I meant exactly what I said. But they all looked at me as if
I’d grown a second head, and Drum gave his usual cynical snort of derision.

Drum and I had already locked horns on the course, when he barked at me to quit fooling around by trying to eagle the first hole; I knew he’d also thought it was a big mistake going for any of the par 5s in two, as I routinely did. Maybe he’d been right, but as I pointed out to him in the locker room, I still had a shot at 280, and 280 traditionally won the Open.

Drum looked at me with more amusement than sympathy.

“Two-eighty won’t do you one damn bit of good,” he pronounced bluntly.

I’d only taken a couple bites of my burger, but I stopped chewing, ready to explode with anger at his remark. I’d come looking for support and encouragement from a man I considered a friend—a man who was planning to accompany me and my wife to Britain in a matter of days, no less—and essentially he’d dumped a bucket of cold water over my head.

“Oh, yeah?” I said. “Watch and see.”

I put down my sandwich, turned and left, yanked my driver out of the bag as I marched to the practice tee, teed up a ball, and slammed it to the back of the range. Still seething mad, I hit maybe one or two more such monster drives before I heard my name being paged, the official summons to the first tee.

I
walked straight onto the tee, pegged up my ball, and drove it onto the front of the first green.

There was an explosive cheer from the gallery on the tee and around the green, producing one of the strongest thrills of my career. Marching off the tee, I felt a powerful surge of adrenaline, maybe the greatest I had ever experienced. By the time I reached the green, I knew something big was
happening to me. The eagle opportunity was long and not the easiest to read from that position on the green, but I coaxed it close enough to make people gasp and then made a lengthy comebacker for a birdie—a vastly better start than the previous three visits to the green. Around me, the gallery was running to find places on the second tee and fairway. There, I missed my approach shot to the green, but I chipped in for a birdie from the fringe, producing another pulse-quickening roar. A good wedge approach at three left me only a one-footer to convert for my third consecutive birdie, and I followed that up at the fourth with an eighteen-footer that dropped for my fourth birdie in a row.

I was back in the Open now, two under for the tournament and only three back of Souchak. I’m told that some of the large galleries waiting for the tournament leaders to tee off heard the commotion of what has been described as the wildest cheering ever heard at an Open and broke away to go see what was happening.

On the par-5 fifth, 538 yards long, I blocked my tee shot a bit and drove into the right rough, hit a 3-wood into the greenside bunker, blasted out to twenty feet, and took two putts to get down—my first par of the round. I remember feeling let down a bit—mentally kicking myself for not making five in a row.

I went back to work at the sixth, nailing a curling twenty-five-footer for birdie, then followed that up with a strong chip up and tap-in birdie at the seventh. The gallery went wild, I’m told, but all I could think about was the difficult eighth, a long uphill par-3 of 233 yards. The pin had been moved from the morning round to a spot that was down front and left, and I chose to gamble and go at it; I went with a 2-iron and pulled the shot slightly, landing my ball just on the front of the green, and watched the slope send it back into the bunker. I blasted out and two-putted for bogey.

As I stood in that eighth-hole bunker, Jack Nicklaus was walking off the ninth green, also in the process of tearing up the course. He’d gone out in 32 and was five under for sixty-three holes. I was four under, but so were Souchak, Hogan, Boros, Fleck, Finsterwald, Jerry Barber, and Don Cherry.

For the next hour or so, the entire leader board was in utter chaos. Behind me, Ted Kroll and Jack Fleck were also blistering the course. Up ahead, leading the tournament by a stroke after twelve holes, Nicklaus was sizing up a dangerous downhill putt for par on 13 when his inexperience caught up with him. Aware of Hogan’s gruff response to what he considered stupid questions, Jack, barely twenty years old at the time, was uncertain whether under the rules he was entitled to repair a pitch mark directly in his putting line. He was—but was too timid to ask either Ben or an official. He tapped the putt, and the indentation threw the ball off line and caused it to just miss the hole. The error shook Jack’s confidence, and, still rattled, he three-putted the 14th as well.