September 20, 1913: The caddie from across the street

BROOKLINE, Mass. - Imagine growing up across the street from a golf course, so close that stray shots going toward the 17th green could end up on your front porch.

Imagine that this proximity gave you the advantage of being able to caddy at that club starting at a young age, a job that allowed you to play the course whenever you wanted. It's quite an opportunity, because at this time in America, golf was played only by the rich, not by a low middle-class family like yours.

Eventually, you improve your play enough to get some regional notice, all because of your opportunity to caddy at this great course across the street from your house. Then, the U.S. Open, the national championship, is played at that course. What an opportunity! Think of all the great players you'll get to watch.

Except instead of watching, you're playing.

Francis Ouimet was fortunate to grow up across the street from The Country Club in Brookline. His time caddying and practicing there made him a very accomplished young golfer, and when he won the 1913 Massachusetts Amateur at the age of 20, he seemed to have a bright future. But even he had to be surprised when Robert Watson, the president of the USGA, personally asked Ouimet to play in that fall's U.S. Open at his home course. Of course, the answer was yes.

There must be something to be said for home-course advantage in golf, because Ouimet had the week of his life, ending regulation play tied with Harry Vardon and Ted Ray on top of the leaderboard. Vardon and Ray, two Englishmen, were considered the two top golfers in the world at that time, so for Ouimet to be mentioned in the same breath with those two was accomplishment enough.

But then, the 18-hole playoff started, and Ouimet shocked the world. The 72 he shot was five shots better than Vardon and six clear of Ray, and the most improbable U.S. Open champion in history was crowned. He was the first amateur champion of the event, and only the second American to ever win the national championship.

Ouimet's win had a resounding effect on American golf. What was once seen as a sport played only by Europeans or by the elite suddenly became a game for the masses. At the time of his victory, the vast majority of American courses were private; within a decade, public courses were everywhere and the number of American golfers had tripled.

Ouimet remained an amateur his entire career, winning the U.S. Amateur in 1914 and 1931. A third-place finish in 1925 was the closest he ever came to winning the U.S. Open again. But it didn't matter. His win in 1913 was one for the ages, and one that would never be forgotten.


From left: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and Ted Ray before the playoff

August 29, 1968: Ashe's first grand slam

QUEENS, N.Y. - In 1968, the four prominient tennis majors all became open to both professional and amateur players. However, it took one extra year for a pro to win the U.S. Open for the first time, as Arthur Ashe, a 25-year-old lieutenant in the Army beat Tom Okker of the Netherlands in the final to win his first Grand Slam championship.

Ashe's win was much more than just a personal achievement. By besting the first field featuring professionals, Ashe became the first African-American to win any of the Grand Slam championships. He had become a pioneer of his race the same summer that Martin Luther King had been killed.

Ashe was always well aware of his race and appreciative of what minorities had to go through for equal acceptance. Growing up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, Ashe moved to St. Louis so he wouldn't have to travel as far to play white players. As his fame grew, no doubt by his Open win, he became a prominient figure in race relations, meeting with president Reagan and other world leaders. Ashe was even arrested twice, once for protesting Apartheid outside South Africa's embassy, and once for for protesting recent crackdowns on Haitian refugees.

But it was his end-of-life battle with AIDS that made Ashe most famous of all. He contracted the disease during a 1982 heart surgery, then lived privately with the disease for a decade. It wasn't until 1992, when his appearance started to become noticibly frail, that Ashe came forward and admitted he had AIDS. For the last year of his life, Ashe dedicated himself to raising funds and awareness for AIDS, doing as much or more for that cause as he did for race relations in his earlier life.

Ashe died in 1993, just 9 months after publically revealing his disease. When he died, his body laid in state in the governor's mansion in Richmond, an honor that hadn't been bestowed on anybody in Virginia since Stonewall Jackson. He also had a statue of him place on Monument Avenue in Richmond, a place normally reserved for heroes of the Confederacy. Nationally, he was posthumously given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the main stadium at the U.S. Open, where all final matches are held, is called Arthur Ashe Stadium.

It's possible that Ashe could have had as much impact on the world as he did even if he hadn't been famous as a tennis star. But there's no doubt that his signature victory at the 1968 U.S. Open helped open some doors and make many of his later contributions possible.

July 15, 1923: A first for the amateur

INWOOD, N.Y. - Bobby Jones had plenty of reason to be upset at the 1923 U.S. Open. Entering the final round with a three-shot lead, Jones had given away the lead with a bogey, bogey, double-bogey finish, then watched as Bobby Cruickshank birdied the 18th to force a playoff.

Despite being a lifelong amateur, Jones still held high standards for himself, and he was thoroughly disappointed in the way way he finished. "I didn't finish like a champion," he said, "I finished like a yellow dog." Well, then.

Playing an 18-hold playoff the next day, July 15, Jones and Cruickshank were tied after 17 holes, when Jones hit his drive into the rough. With 200 yards between him and the flag, Jones calmly pulled out his 2-iron and hit it on the green within 8 feet of the cup, clinching his first major championship.

The win at Inwood Country Club was the first of seven Major championships for Jones, who was an amateur in the true sense of the word. A lawyer by trade, Jones never made a cent playing golf, competing only in his spare time. Still, he managed to become one of the most famous names in golf. Aside from his seven professional majors, Jones also won six amateur championships, including an amazing 1930 year when he won the professional U.S. Open and British Open and the amateur titles in both nations, winning the single-year Grand Slam.

But it's after golf where Jones made an even bigger name for himself. He gave up his amateur status by holding golf lessons in Hollywood and appearing in instructional videos, then made a fortune designing golf courses. His most famous creation is Augusta National, home of the Masters and one of the most beloved golf courses in the world. As chairman of the course, he founded the Masters and took great care to make it the renowned tournament it has become.

With all his success, his single most famous golf shot remains the 2-iron from 200 yards he used to clinch his first major title.

July 3, 1954: The Other Babe

PEABODY, Mass. - Babe Didrikson Zaharias was one of "those" athletes, the kind that could play any sport at any time and be immediately good at it. Those kinds of pure natural athletes often inspire both jealousy and awe, and when they enter a competition, people often think it's over before it begins.

Known first as Babe Didrikson, then as Babe Zaharias after she got married, she got her first job as a secretary for an insurance company in Dallas. In reality, though, she was hired so she could compete on the company basketball team, leading them to the AAU national championship.

Zaharias first gained national prominence at the 1932 AAU track and field championships, where she won six of the ten events. She was so dominant that she won the team championship despite being the only member of her team. She continued that success at the 1932 Olympics, winning three track and field medals in Los Angeles.

After the Olympics, she made money playing on travelling baseball and basketball teams, also dabbling in billiards. In 1935, she started playing golf for the first time, and by the 1940s had become America's first female golf celebrity.

She won 41 professional tournaments in her golf career, including 10 majors. But it was her last major win, at the U.S. Open in 1954, that might be her most impressive athletic achievement. The president of the LPGA at the time, Zaharias entered the Open despite being only a month removed from colon cancer surgery. Despite being physically weakened by the cancer and chemotherapy, Zaharias dominated the field. Her final-round 75 on July 3 was her low round of the tournament, and she won by 12 shots, her largest margin of victory in a major.

Zaharias won three more tournaments in her career before finally succumbing to cancer in 1956. When she died, America had lost its first true female athletic superstar. She is still mentioned as among the best female athletes of all time, despite playing in a time when women were often discouraged from competing, if not flat-out banned. Had she competed in the modern era, with women being encouraged to compete without the negative stigma that Zaharias had to deal with, she might have become even more of a celebrity.

As it stands, her legacy remains impeccable. She'll always be remembered as an Olympic gold medalist, as a founding member of the LPGA, and as the type of athlete who could beat anybody in anything at any time.

June 18, 2000: 12 under

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. - The wind was howling, the rain coming down hard. The ball was in the deep rough, more than 200 yards from the hole. Between the ball and the hole was a large cypress tree - oh, and the Pacific Ocean. Seems like a perfect time for the sensible golfer to lay up, take a par, and move on.

Not Tiger Woods. Nothing he did this week was sensible or ordinary. And when his approach shot - the one out of the rough, over a tree and the ocean, fighting the wind and the rain - landed within 15 feet of the hole, everybody else should have taken it as a sign that the tournament was over.

Most of the scores posted during the 2000 U.S. Open reflected the weather's impact. Pebble Beach is a tough course in perfect conditions, but the rain and the wind were howling in 2000. A score of 3 over was good enough for second place. But then there was Woods' score, a score that stood out so impressively and improbably that it had to be a misprint, a score that made it look like he was playing a different course than everybody else.

12 under.

Woods had wowed golf fans before. His performance at the 1997 Masters was jaw-dropping in its brilliance. But he had only one major since, and the whispers started about whether he would live up to the lofty expectations placed on his shoulders at such a young age.

But then 12 under happened, and everybody stopped doubting.

On its own, 12 under doesn't seem that impressive - after all, he had gone 18 under in winning the Masters three years before, and players routinely break 12 under in non-Majors. But he became the first player in the 106-year history of the U.S. Open to hit double-digits under par for the tournament, and his 15(!)-shot victory set the standard for all Major championships.

Woods started strong, getting a break by playing his first round in calm conditions on Thursday morning. His opening 65 was the low round of the tournament, but it left him only 1 shot clear entering the second round.

The wind and the rain picked up in round 2, and the scores plummeted. While players were taking turns falling down the leader board, Woods was improbably climbing, posting a 2-under for the day, including his impossible approach shot on 6, to push his lead at the halfway mark to 6 shots.

In the U.S. Open, the 36-hole cut line is usually set at the top 60 players and ties, plus anybody within 10 shots of the leader. In 2000, only 63 made the cut, the lowest number ever. That's because only 17 players were within 10 shots of Woods. It was only Saturday, but the tournament was already over.

Woods shot an even-par 71 in the third round, but still extended his lead to 10, as the weather continued to wreak havoc on the field. The weather clamed down for the final round on Sunday, but that only gave Woods an opportunity for more birdies. His 67 was the low round of the day, and punctuated a remarkable weekend.

The U.S. Open was the start of a three-month stretch where Woods was untouchable. He set scoring records in the British Open and the PGA Championship later that summer, firmly stamping his place at the top of the golf world. But for all his success that summer, and in the future, he likely was never better than he was in the four days of the U.S. Open. It's possible nobody ever played as well as Woods did that June.


(The aforementioned iron shot - over the tree, et al - is at 1:12 of this highlight package)

June 16, 2008: Rocco pulls a Rocky

SAN DIEGO - It was supposed to be the feel-good story of golf. The journeyman underachiever with back problems, he of the 5 career victories, going against the greatest player of his, or any, generation. Even his name, Rocco, was just a couple steps away from that of America's most famous fictional underdog, Rocky.

Indeed, when Rocco Mediate teed off for the playoff round of the U.S. Open on June 16, 2008, he likely had many Americans pulling for him. After all, Tiger Woods had played this game before. In many of his 13 Major victories, he had been the favorite, both sentimentally among fans and statistically among oddsmakers. Sports fans tend to love dominating performances, even if they won't admit it, but they also love the underdog. So Mediate was easily the fan favorite in this playoff.

Along with the fan support for an emotional boost, Mediate also had, for perhaps the only time in his career, the physical advantage. Woods had undergone arthroscopic knee surgery that April, and as he cringed and grimaced his way through the four rounds, it was apparent to everybody watching that he hadn't completely healed from that surgery and he was playing at much less than 100 percent. After the tournament, Woods revealed that in his rehab from the surgery, he had suffered a double stress fracture in his leg. Everybody knew he was hurt, but nobody knew it was that bad.

Still, that didn't prevent Woods from sinking one of the biggest putts of his career that Sunday. With Mediate holding a one-shot lead in the clubhouse, Woods and Lee Westwood found themselves with medium-length birdie putts on the 18th hole to force a playoff. Westwood missed his 15-footer, but Woods' 12-footer snaked in, going halfway around the lip of the hole before dropping.

The Monday playoff was a battle of attrition between two men who knew about perseverance. Mediate hadn't won a tournament of any kind since 2002, and had missed upward of five years in his career because of back problems. For Woods, the perserverance was more in the present, as he was playing his fifth round of golf in as many days on a leg he shouldn't have even been walking on.

Halfway through the playoff, things seemed to be going the way everybody expected, with Woods taking a three-shot lead. But Mediate stayed patient, kept believing, and took a one-shot lead on the 15th hole. There the score remained until the 18th green, when Woods once again found himself with a medium-length birdie putt needed to force a tie. Once again, the indomitable Woods sank the putt, forcing a sudden death playoff hole. A par for Woods was enough to top the bogey of Mediate, and Woods had his 14th Major victory.

For Woods, it was the most difficult and unexpected victory of his tremendous career. Only after having surgery on his knee and missing the rest of the 2008 season did golf fans truly appreciate how difficult his accomplishment was, and only then did he start getting the credit he deserved.

For Mediate, the ending wasn't the one he had hoped for. The fairy tale didn't have the storybook ending. But for people who wanted to compare Rocco to Rocky, it shouldn't have been a surprise. After all, in the movie, Rocky stands up to the champ, doesn't flinch, and becomes America's hero. And he loses.

June 11, 1950: Comeback complete

ARDMORE, Pa. - Ben Hogan should have been dead.

Sure, the car accident that happened in February 1949 was bad enough - after hitting a Greyhound bus head-on, Hogan had a broken collarbone, pelvis, and ankle, plus had a crushed rib and developed blod clots. That's pretty severe. But he should have been dead, and if he wouldn't have thrown himself in front of his wife to protect her, the steering column would gone through him. Instead, it went through the driver's seat, and Hogan was sent to the hospital.

Doctors told him he'd never walk again, that he was lucky to be alive, but that wasn't acceptible to Hogan. While recovering in the hospital, he took small steps and practiced his golf swing, determined to get back on the course. He left the hospital after 49 days, but he still had a long way to go to be fully recovered.

One year later, he was on the course. The 1950 U.S. Open wasn't his first tournament back, but it was the tournament that became his lasting legacy. At Merion Golf Club in Pennsylvania, and playing with heavily bandage legs, Hogan found himself in contention entering the final day, a brutal 36-hole marathon that would certainly strain his still-damaged body.

With the tournament seemingly his to win, he started to fade, bogeying the 15th and 17th holes of his second round that day. On the 18th, needing a par to join a playoff, Hogan hit his most famous shot as a golfer, a 1-iron from 200 yards away, into a wind, that landed on the green within easy range for a par. The picture at left, one of the most famous in golf history, shows Hogan following through on his legendary 1-iron shot.

But Hogan's work wasn't done. He still had the playoff the next day, June 11. But after sufficient rest, his legs could handle 18 holes - it probably seemed like nothing compared to the 36 from the day before - and Hogan shot a 69 to win by four shots.

Hogan was already considered one of the best golfers in the world before his car accident. His win in the 1950 U.S. Open served notice that it would take more than a bus to slow him down.

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HONORABLE MENTION
June 11, 1997: SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - There have been many images of Michael Jordan in triumph on a basketball court, but none have looked like this: Jordan slumped over in the arms of teammate Scottie Pippen, being dragged to the bench, completely out of energy. He had woken up the day before with the flu, and, still visibly weak, gutted out Game 5 of the finals anyway. Unable to concentrate, and often on the brink of collapse, Jordan still played 44 of a possible 48 minutes, scoring 38 points, including a game-clinching 3-pointer with less than a minute to play. The Bulls won the title in Game 6, a championship that might not have been possible if it wasn't for Jordan's famouse Flu Game.