OPEN HISTORY REPLETE By JOSEPH C. DEY, JR. WITH "IT-MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN USGA Executive Director • poet-philosopher put it thi&.way: Only two players have been runner-up A "Of all sad words of tongue or as many as four times, and the other is pen, Robert T. Jones, Jr. Twice he lost in "The saddest are these: - 'It play-offs. One of the play-offs might not might have been!'" have been necessary if Bob had not seen A golfer-philosopher named Sam Snead his ball move as he addressed it during said it more eloquently if less elegantly: the Championship proper. "What a game! One day you're a Champion. Next day, you're a It was in the last round of the 1925 Open at the Worcester Country Club in turkey." Massachusetts. On the 16th hole Jones Whatever the language used, the drove into the rough. He took his stance United States Open Championship has for his second shot, was just about to hit been a' fertile field for It-Might-Have- the ball, then suddenly backed away Been. The near-misses sometimes are from it. No one but he knew just what more appealing than the deeds of the had happened. Champions. After Bob had holed out, his scorer Sam Snead's deathless words about checked with him, said he had had 4, Champions and turkeys sprang from a and was told by Jones then he had had full heart. The time was 1947, the place' 5. His ball had turned over while he was was the St. Louis Country Club, and the addressing it. The self-imposed penalty occasion was the presentation of prizes stroke probably kept Jones from winning for the Open. Sam was the reigning Bri. the Championship. He tied with Willie tish Open Champion, but in the United Macfarlane, who won after two separate States Open he had just lost a play-off 18-hole play-offs. to Lew Worsham. Snead had entered the play-off by roll. Jones is one of three who share the ing in an 18-foot putt on the 72nd green. record of four victories for the Open. The Next day he led Worsham by two strokes others are Ben Hogan and Willie Ander- with three holes to go. Worsham's bird W~. 2 and par 4 on the next two holes evened Hogan looked very much as if he had things. fractured the record when, in 1955, he At the home hole, Worsham was just holed out in 287 after four arduous over the green in 2. Snead was nicely on, rounds over the Olympic Country Club's at about the same position from which he Lake course in San Francisco. The ball had holed to tie the day before. Worsham with which he completed the last round chipped beautifully below the cup. Snead was presented to the USGA for "Golf putted short. Sam was addressing the ball House." for his next putt when Worsham, evi- But Jack Fleck made two birdies in the dently feeling he might be away, called last four holes, downing an eight-footer for a measurement. Snead was 30% on the home green for 3, and so created inches from the hole, Worsham 291f2. a tie which Fleck successfully broke in Snead stepped up to putt again, missed. a play-off. Worsham holed, and was the Champion. Again the next year, 1956, Hogan came This was one of four occasions on tantalizingly close to the elusive fifth which Snead was second in the Open. Open victory. A missed putt from 30 Another time, 1939, he had 8 on the par-5 inches on the 71st hole kept him from home hole and missed the play-off by tying Cary Middlecoff at Oak Hill Coun- two shots. try Club in Rochester, N. Y.

12 USGA JOURNAL AND TURF MANAGEMENT: JUNE, 1962 Mr. and Mrs. Lew Worsham hold Open Championship Cup he won in 1947. Sam Snead wears It-lUighi-Have-Been smile.

The family championship for It-Might- 278. Later that day Ben Hogan beat even Have-Been is held by the Smith brothers. that with 276, which still is the record. Alex Smith was runner-up three times, Then in 1957 at Inverness in Toledo, De- as well as twice Open Champion. Willie maret was a likely winner until Dick Smith ran second twice, and won once. Mayer and Cary Middlecoff both edged Macdonald Smith, one of the great un- him by a stroke. crowned swingers of all time, never could There was never a sadder It-Might- win the Open but twice was runner-up, Have-Been than in 1940 at Canterbury, 20 years apart-1910 and 1930. The latter Cleveland. With a storm brewing, six was Bob Jones' Grand Slam year and players in two groups started the final Mac Smith's closing round of 70 left the round on their own initiative, in the Scot just two strokes shy of a tie. absence of the USGA official starter, The first American home bred to win between 32 and 40 minutes ahead of the Open was young John J. McDermott. their scheduled times. They played out As a very young man, in three straight the round provisionally. Opens he won twice and was second once One of them, Ed Oliver, made an un- after a play-off, 1910 through 1912. Had official 287. The score never entered the an illness not forced McDermott to drop records: all six players were disqualified out of golf, there is no telling how the for violating a Rule which provides that history of the Championship might have competitors shall start at the times ar- been affected. ranged by the Committee. And what was Delightful little Bobby Cruickshank the best score in the Championship?- knew the pangs of the runner-up when 287 by both Lawson Little and Gene he lost the 1923 Open in a play-off to Sarazen, and Little won the play-off. Bob Jones at Inwood, N.Y. Eleven years Ed Oliver passed away last year. With- later, at Merion, Cruicky led all the way out any effort at all, he had come to be until he lost seven strokes to par in the known as one of the jolliest of players. last five holes and ended two shots be- He met the adversity of a lingering ill- hind Olin Dutra, in a tie for third. ness with marked courage. Jimmy Demaret twice came very close Who is to say, then, that there are not indeed. At Riviera in Los Angeles (1948) deep treasures in the Land of It-Might- he broke the all-time Open record with Have-Been?

USGA JOURNAL AND TURF MANAGEMENT: JUNE, 1962 13