At 360 yards with a sharp dogleg left, the 17th hole was no brute. A birdie could be had, and he needed one desperately. His second shot, piercing through the cool grey sky, settled fifteen soggy feet from the hole. Surveying the putt, he knew it was now or never. Feet squished in the turf as he took his stance, and the putter swept back and forward into the ball. The line and pace down the slippery slope were perfect, and the large crowd held its collective breath as the ball curved right and rolled quickly toward its target. Slow down! It struck the back of the cup hard, bounced into the air, and disappeared from sight. An explosion of ecstatic shouts, whistles, and applause reverberated through the moist autumn air.
Twenty-year-old Francis Ouimet had done it! He was tied for the lead in the U.S. Open with Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. A hard-earned par on the last forced a playoff, a fitting conclusion to a story few people would believe had it not really happened. “In years to come it will become more famous,” declared The American Golfer. “Not a soul who witnessed it, including Vardon and Ray, will ever forget.” Nor shall we.
Ouimet’s victory was a watershed moment. As Herbert Warren Wind put it, the luckiest thing “that happened to American golf was that its first great hero was a person like Francis Ouimet.”He wasn’t a rich kid; he wasn’t a hard-nosed professional.“Here was a person all of America, not just golfing America, could understand.”
