Golden Years

In 1953, Ben Hogan won the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open, all in a row, with record scores at Augusta, Oakmont and Carnoustie.

What about the PGA? What about professional golf’s first Grand Slam?

Hogan didn’t even enter the tournament.

Why?

For a number of reasons:

* It was impossible. The PGA and the British Open overlapped. Qualifying for the British Open, in Scotland, was on July 6, which was the second day of the PGA, in Birmingham, Mich. There were no exempt lists in the ‘50s. Hogan, the American champion, had to play a 36-hole qualifier to get in the British Open. And had he instead entered the PGA, he would have had the same situation. Only defending champions were exempt.

* Physically, it would have been virtually impossible. Winning the PGA would have meant playing 36 holes for six consecutive days of match play. Hogan, after surviving a head-on crash with a Greyhound bus on a foggy day in west Texas in February 1949, had difficulty playing even 18 holes a day because of his tender legs. Although he had won the PGA in 1946 and 1948 he never entered it after the accident until it became medal play in 1958.

* There was no such thing as the Grand Slam, as we know it now--winning the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA in the same year. The original Grand Slam, won only by amateur Bobby Jones in 1930, consisted of the U.S. and British Amateurs and the U.S. and British Opens. O.B. Keeler, Jones’ biographer, called it the “Impregnable Quadrilateral.”

The term Grand Slam was popularized by Arnold Palmer and Pittsburgh Press sportswriter Bob Drum in 1960 after Palmer won the Masters and U.S. Open. Palmer finished second in the British Open at St. Andrews that year.

Talk of a modern Grand Slam returned when Jack Nicklaus flirted with it by winning three in a row, but not in the same year--the 1971 PGA and the 1972 Masters and U.S. Open. Nicklaus, whose idol had been Jones, spoke openly of his desire to win all four in the same year, but it never happened. His hopes were dashed in 1972 when Lee Trevino edged him by one stroke in the British Open at Muirfield.

Now it’s Tiger Woods’ turn to revive Grand Slam talk. He has already joined Hogan, Nicklaus, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen as the only ones to win career Grand Slams, and ahead of him lies the possibility of a Grand Slam in the same year. He would be shooting for it this week in the PGA at Valhalla had he not finished fifth in the Masters, six shots behind Vijay Singh.

Woods now is the titleholder in three of the four but, like Nicklaus, not in the same year. But he can thank Nicklaus, the man he wants to surpass, for all the fuss over the four majors.

When Hogan won at Carnoustie, he was heralded for having won the “Triple Slam.” Greg Gregston wrote in Sports Illustrated, “His ‘Triple Slam’ was the closest to Jones’ ‘Grand Slam’ yet achieved.”

In a search of newspaper and magazine articles, and books about Hogan and the 1953 season in the Ralph Miller Golf Library at Industry Hills, there was no reference anywhere to a “Grand Slam,” except for Jones’.

The PGA, which was a match-play tournament until TV dictated a switch to more predictable medal play in 1958, was lightly regarded during Hogan’s era.

Even though the two tournaments were held at basically the same time, when Hogan was asked why he chose to play in Scotland, he said, “Because it came at a time when it didn’t conflict with any of my commitments in this country.”

No conflict? What about the PGA?

That is indicative of how little the PGA meant then. For one, it was usually played on second-tier courses, although the 1953 site of Birmingham Country Club was not one of them; the field was composed largely of club professionals who were not touring pros; it was a disaster for the growing TV influence because often the headliners lost in early rounds, as in 1953 when Walter Burkemo met Felice Torza in the final; and it was more of a marathon, calling for two 18-hole rounds on the first day, followed by 36-hole matches the following four days.

“We counted some other tournaments as majors when I first came up,” wrote Sam Snead, Hogan’s most competitive contemporary, in his book, “Sam Snead: The Lessons I’ve Learned.”

“If you won the Los Angeles Open, the Metropolitan Open, the Western or the North and South, you had beaten the best fields and earned yourself a bonus from the equipment manufacturers.”

What happened early in the 1953 PGA showcased why TV opposed match play. On the first day, Sarazen, Jack Fleck and medalist Johnny Palmer lost in the morning round, with Snead, Cary Middlecoff and Tommy Bolt sidelined in the afternoon.

It left semifinals between Burkemo and Claude Harmon and Torza with Jack Isaacs, not marquee matches.

That would be like having Jim Carter vs. Rocco Mediate and Robin Freeman vs. Larry Mize in this week’s PGA semifinals. No Tiger, no Ernie Els, no David Duval, no big names. And no TV interest.

Since 1958, the PGA has been like all the other majors, 72 holes of medal play.

*

There was little reason to anticipate Hogan’s remarkable year of 1953.

He had played only three tournaments in 1952, still taking time off to recuperate from the horrible crash of 1949. He entered the Masters and U.S. Open and the Colonial at his home course in Fort Worth, which he won.

He was 40, smoked two packs of cigarettes during every 18-hole round and had to have his legs massaged nearly every day, but his passion for perfection was stronger than ever.

His putter had also been failing him, causing biographer Curt Sampson to write:

“What a spectacle it was to see Hogan hit every full shot like a god, then to watch him putt like an expectant father on his third cup of coffee.”

During the winter, however, Hogan moved to Rancho Mirage, took a position as head professional at Tamarisk Country Club and spent nearly all his waking hours tuning his game. That meant hitting 600 balls every morning, 50 with each of 12 clubs, three balls a minute, and then playing a round in the afternoon with young assistant pro Gardner Dickinson.

“This is no plug for Palm Springs,” Hogan said before opening his season at the Masters, “but the turf there is ideal of development of your swing. It’s firm and the sand underneath gives it a good cushion.”

Despite having not played a tournament in 10 months, Hogan shot 70-69-66-69--274 to win the ’53 Masters, setting tournament records with a 205 for 54 holes and 274 for 72, five shots better than the old record set by Ralph Guldahl in 1939. And that included missing a number of putts from five feet or less.

“That’s as good as I can play,” he said. “Practice means as much as playing itself. A tournament is an anticlimax to preparation, the way I see it.”

It would be 12 years before anyone bettered Hogan’s winning score at Augusta. Nicklaus shot 271 in 1965.

Between the Masters and U.S. Open, he traveled to Mexico City, where he won the Pan-American, and to West Virginia, where he lost by three to Snead on Slammin’ Sam’s home course in Greenbrier. Then he returned home to Fort Worth and won the Colonial for the fourth time.

Hogan had won three of the previous five U.S. Opens, but that didn’t mean a thing in 1953. He had to survive a 36-hole qualifier, just like every other golfer except defending champion Julius Boros.

The Open was at Oakmont, Pa., that magnificent golf course that sits alongside the Allegheny River and is bisected by the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Its most memorable characteristic is an unusual number of bunkers--nearly 200 in all.

As was often the case in the ‘50s, the Open came down to a match between Hogan and Snead. Hogan shot 67-72 for the first two rounds, Snead 72-69. The final 36 holes were played on the same day, and Hogan broke open a tight match by finishing 3-3-3 (par-birdie-birdie) to finish six shots ahead of Snead with a five-under-par 283.

Ahead was the British Open, to be played on the wind-swept east coast of Scotland, at Carnoustie, often called the most difficult of all British Open courses.

There was also the matter of playing the smaller British ball, 1.62 inches in diameter compared to 1.68 for the American ball. That doesn’t sound like much, but differences in trajectory, distance and control were immense. Since then, the larger American ball has been adopted worldwide.

Hogan took one look at Carnoustie’s barren fairways, burned out from a lengthy drought and with no sprinkler system, and said, “I’ve made a mistake in coming.”

In an Oct. 17, 1953 Saturday Evening Post article, “Greatest Year of My Life,” Hogan wrote:

“When they build a golf course [Carnoustie], they just go out and seed a tee, seed a green, mow a fairway between them and leave the rough the way it has been for a thousand years and will be for two thousand more.”

A strong wind blew off the North Sea on the first day and Hogan’s 73 left him three shots behind Frank Stranahan, the American amateur. Only one other American, 1946 U.S. Open champion Lloyd Mangrum, was in the tournament.

It rained the second day and after shooting a 71, Hogan trailed Britishers Dai Rees and Eric Brown by two. As was the custom then, the final day called for 36 holes. After a morning 70, Hogan was tied with Argentine Roberto De Vicenzo.

“There were no scoreboards at Carnoustie,” Hogan said later. “I had no idea what Roberto was doing. I just had to keep playing as hard as I could and see how I came out when it was all over.”

Hogan shot a final-round 68 and when it was all over, his 282 total gave him a four-stroke cushion over Stranahan, Rees, Peter Thomson and Antonio Cerda.

Despite Hogan’s insulting remarks about British courses, and his unsmiling stoic personality, the Scots took him to their hearts, calling him the “Wee Ice Mon” with great affection.

That would be the last “major” Hogan would win. It was his ninth, six of which came after the accident.

He and his wife, Valerie, celebrated by returning home on the S.S. United States, docking in New York and being greeted by a ticker tape parade down Broadway.

It was also the end of his 1953 campaign--five wins in six tournaments and runner-up in the sixth.

No Grand Slam, but one of the most impressive seasons of golf ever recorded.

OK, Tiger, now it’s your turn.

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BEN HOGAN IN 1953

April 12: Won the Masters

June 13: Won U.S. Open at Oakmont

July 5-8: Did not play in PGA Championships at Birmingham

July 12: Won the British Open at Camoustie

Overall: Won five of the six tournaments he entered.