A pair of Open Championships from the 1800s ended on this date, playing the entire event in one day each time. In 1862, the third championship was won by Tom Morris Sr. in defense of his title, at Prestwick by 13 shots over Willie Park Sr. when he shot 163. Only eight players competed on the 12-hole course. Morris would be known as Old Tom after his son Young Tom became a legendary player himself. And in 1890, also at Prestwick, amateur John Ball won by three shots over Willie Fernie and Archie Simpson.
At least three famous people were born on this date. Arnold Palmer in 1929 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania; Larry Nelson in 1947 in Fort Payne, Alabama, and William Dale Hynd of Moline, Illinois. Golfers will know who the first two are, but Mr. Hynd? That would be my father-in-law, who was born on this day in 1933. Palmer is the subject of my new biography, The Ultimate Arnie, available on amazon.com. And the 1875 Open Championship was held on this date at Prestwick Golf Club, South Ayrshire, Scotland. Yes, the entire tournament was on one day. Eighteen players began at 11:30 a.m. Willie Park, Sr. won by two strokes over runner-up Bob Martin with a score of 166, playing three rounds of 12 holes. Park had won the first championship in 1860 and his 1875 victory gave him four wins.
The great, feisty Louise Suggs began her march toward winning the St. Louis Golf Open on this date in 1955. Three days later she had shot a four-under 289 to beat Mary Lena Faulk by six shots and win first prize of $900. She died in 2015 at age 91. And in 2019 on this date, one of the great characters in golf history, Englishman Brian Barnes, died of cancer. Barnes won nine times on the European Tour, and never won a major, but his greatest claim to fame was beating Jack Nicklaus twice on the same day in singles at the 1975 Ryder Cup.
On this date in 1963, Jack Nicklaus shot a second-straight 70 to win the World Series of Golf, an unofficial 36-hole event involving the winners of the year’s major championships, held at Firestone C.C., par-70, 7,165-yard South Course, Akron, Ohio. The final standings: September 7-8, 1963—Jack Nicklaus 70-70—140, $50,000; Julius Boros 72-69—141, $15,000; Arnold Palmer 71-72—143, $5,000; Bob Charles 70-77—147, $5,000. And on this date in 1968, in Eugene, Oregon, Sandra Haynie, 25, bogeyed two of her last three holes but still won the $12,500 Pacific Ladies' Classic by three strokes. The Fort Worth, Texas, golfer won $1,875. She finished 54 holes at 213, three-under-par on the 6,361-yard, par-72 Eugene C.C. She hadn't won since the September 1967 Mickey Wright Inv’l. in Bonsall, Calif. Sandra Palmer and Kathy Cornelius tied for second.
Steve Jones, who had a brief but successful time on the PGA Tour that included winning the 1996 U.S. Open, won the Canadian Open on this date in 1997 with a score of 275. And Louise Suggs, an LPGA Tour cofounder and ultra-tough competitor, was born on this date in 1923 in Lithia Springs, Georgia. Winner of 11 majors, Suggs is in the World Golf Hall of Fame and won the 2007 Bob Jones Award, named in honor of a fellow Georgian.
The 19th playing of the U.S. Amateur golf championship finished on this day in 1913 and was won by Jerry Travers. He won for the second year in a row and defeated John Anderson, 5 & 4. On this date in 1929, Dow Finsterwald was born in Athens, Ohio. He won the 1958 PGA Championship, the first year it was held at stroke play after conducted at match play since 1916.
On this date in 1925, the great amateur Bobby Jones, President in Perpetuity of Augusta National Golf Club, won the 29th playing of the U.S. Amateur., beating Watts Gun, 8 and 7, at Oakmont for his second title. And in 1982 the U.S. Men's Amateur Golf Championship was won by Jay Sigel on this date at The Country Club when he handily won, 8 & 7, over David Tolley.
Two American golf stars, both in the World Golf Hall of Fame, were born on this date. In 1942, Raymond Floyd, a four-time major winner, was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. And in 1949, eight-time major champion Tom Watson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Also, Jay Sigel won the 1983 U.S. Amateur Golf Championship on this date at North Shore Country Club, by an 8 & 7 score over Chris Perry, to give him two consecutive victories. He had also won 8 & 7 the previous year over David Tolley at The Country Club.
Billy Casper, the odd-man out of the Big Three of Palmer, Nicklaus and Player, won his 50th PGA Tour victory on this date in 1973 at age 42. He finished at 20-under-par 264 to beat Australian Bruce Devlin by one stroke to win the Sammy Davis Jr. Greater Hartford Open. When he finished on the 18th green, a group of people 30,000 strong surrounded it as he celebrated his fourth victory in the tournament. Casper’s final round was a 64. He made a 15-foot birdie putt on No. 17 to pull ahead of Devlin.
The 1940 PGA Championship ended on this date. It was the 23rd PGA, held at Hershey Country Club in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It was a meeting of titans: Byron Nelson won his first PGA, defeating Sam Snead, 1-up, in the 36-hole final, getting to hold up the Wanamaker Cup.
The 1893 Open Championship, the 33rd, ended on this date. The tournament was played over two days, 36 holes each day. The winner at Prestwick Golf Club, in Scotland, was Scotsman Willie Auchterlonie, who shot 322, two shots ahead of amateur player Johnny Laidlay. It was the 33rd Open Championship.
Fifty years ago on this date, Bruce Fleisher won the U.S. Amateur at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, with Vinny Giles the runner-up for a second straight year. The Associated Press story read: “Young Bruce Fleisher withstood the furious late charge of Marvin (Vinny) Giles III Saturday and rode an even-par 70 to a one-stroke victory in the 68th U.S. Amateur Golf Championship. The 19-year-old from Hialeah, Fla., nailed down the big prize in his first national tournament, finishing with a 72-hole total of 284, four over par for the distance. Giles, the 25-year-old University of Virginia law student from Charlottesville, made a gallant bid to overtake the leader with a sizzling five-under-par 65, a course record on the tough 6,760-yard Scioto layout.” Also, three major championship winners share life events on this date. Pádraig Harrington was born in 1971 and the Irishman won the Open Ch. of 2007 and 2008 and the PGA Ch. of 2008. The 2011 Masters winner, Charl Schwartzel, was born in 1984 in South Africa. And the 1967 Masters champion, Gay Brewer, died on this date at age 75 in 2007.
Three U.S. Amateur champions were crowned on this date, August 30: in 1969, Steve Melnyk won at Oakmont, shooting a 70 in the final round during a year the event was stroke play. Billy Mayfair in 1987 won by defeating Eric Rebmann, 4&3, at Jupiter Hills, and in 1992 Justin Leonard defeated Tom Scherrer, 8 and 7 at Muirfield Village G.C., Dublin, Ohio.
Brandie Burton won the du Maurier Classic on this date in 1993 when she defeated Betsy King in a playoff. The two were tied at 11-under 277 at the London Hunt & Country Club in London, Ontario, after regulation. First prize was $120,000. And In 1908, the U.S. Open Championship ended on this day at the Myopia Hunt Golf club in South Hamilton, Massachusetts when Fred McLeod defeated fellow Scot Willie Smith by six strokes in an 18-hole playoff. It was McLeod’s only major victory. In his dotage, he became an honorary starter at the Masters with Jock Hutchison.
Having won three straight U.S. Junior titles, Tiger Woods, on this date in 1994, won the first of three straight U.S. Amateur championships. At Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., he defeated Trip Kuehne, 2 up, winning the final three holes on the Stadium Course after once trailing 6 down during the 36-hole match. At the time, the victory made Woods the youngest, at 18, to win the Amateur. He became the first golfer to win both the U.S. Junior and U.S. Amateur in a career. It was the 94th playing. In 1995 Woods defeated. George (Buddy) Marucci Jr., 2 up, at Newport (R.I.) Country Club, and in 1996 Woods defeated Steve Scott in 38 holes at Pumpkin Ridge G.C. (Witch Hollow Course), North Plains, Oregon. Woods was also the medalist that year.
On this date in 1995, the Canadian du Maurier Classic was won by Jenny Lidback at Beaconsfield Golf Club in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, with an eight-under-par total of 280. She won by one over Liselotte Neumann of Sweden. Brooke Henderson was another Canadian who won her native country's CP Women's Open, by four shots in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada,, in 2018. And on this date in 1957, Bernhard Langer, who won two Masters in his prime despite being plagued by the yips, was born in Anhausen, Germany. Langer had a second life with the long putter and continued to win well into his 60s on the senior tour.
Marlene Hagge shot 284 at Lakewood Country Club to win the Denver Open on this date of the fourth round in 1956. She took home $800 for first; Fay Crocker was second , six shots behind. And on this date in 2012, when 15 year-old Lydia Ko of New Zealand won the Canadian Open by three shots, she became the youngest winner in LPGA Tour history and was the first amateur winner since JoAnne Carner won the 1969 Burdine’s Invitational. Ko was the fifth amateur winner in tour history. She broke the age record of 16 set by Lexi Thompson at the Navistar Classic in September 2011.
This is the latest the PGA Championship finished in the month of August. The 1946 playing ended on this date with Ben Hogan winning the title, 6&4, over Ed (Porky) Oliver. This was Hogan's first of two PGAs he won. The championship was held at Portland (Ore.) Golf Club. This PGA was also notable for it being the last time Byron Nelson played in the major. He lost to Oliver in the quarterfinals and overall had a 37-8 record. Hogan was age 34, and this was his first major championship.
English golfer Jack Whaley, 22, became only the third English player to win the U.S. Amateur, on August 16, when he defeated American Jay Leng, Jr., 4 and 3, to win the 126th championship in the 36-hole final at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia. Whaley plays at Florida State and Leng at Stanford. On this date in 1997, Matt Kuchar won the U.S. Amateur, defeating Joel Kribel, 2 & 1, at Cog Hill's Dubsdread course in Lemont, III. Kuchar, 19 at the time, was from Lake Mary, Fla., and a golf team member at Georgia Tech. He was playing in the U.S. Amateur for the first time. And on this date in 1975, Al Geiberger won the second Tournament Players Championship, finishing three shots ahead of Dave Stockton at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
On this date in 2009, the Solheim Cup wrapped up at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois. The U.S. won a third straight match, 16-12, and won eight of the 12 singles matches held on the final day. Also, Beth Daniel won the World Championship of Women's Golf on this date in 1981, at Shaker Heights (Ohio) Country Club. She went home with the $50,000 first-place prize money.