The late esteemed TV journalist Jack Whitaker was born in Philadelphia on this date in 1924. On a somber note, on May 18, 1950, Bobby Jones underwent a second spinal surgery in Boston to alleviate his syringomyelia condition, but it was eventually not considered a success. A wire-service news item read: “Bobby Jones Goes Under Surgery--BOSTON, May 18 -- A surgical operation today on golfdom’s great Bobby Jones--at the base of his skull--was expected to correct a long-standing spinal ailment caused by an accident 20 years ago. Jones was taken to the New England Baptist Hospital for the operation after a checkup at the Lahey Clinic. Dr. Frank Lahey, head of the clinic, said an examination there showed the former golf champion was suffering from pressure on the spinal cord.” And on this date in 1964, Arnold Palmer won his 44th PGA Tour Event at the Oklahoma City Open. Arnie took on rain, a condensed schedule and government testing of sonic booms and still won. The Feds were testing the effects of sonic booms—seriously—and OKC was the testing ground. Maybe that’s why the heavens let loose and caused Thursday and Friday to be unplayable due to rain, pushing everything back to a 36-hole finale on Monday. Palmer won first prize of $5,800, at Quail Creek Country Club (72, 7,042).
In 1947, the United States had gone 11 years since winning the Walker Cup, but that was a gap mainly caused by World War II. Great Britain & Ireland beat the U.S., 7-4, in 1938, but the match wasn’t held again until May 16 and 17, 1947, which was won by the Americans, 8-4, at St. Andrews. And on this date in 1992, the LPGA Championship concluded at Bethesda Country Club, won by Betsy King, for her fifth major, in a runaway by 11 strokes over three runners-up.
In the sixth Walker Cup Match that started May 15, 1930, and ended on the 16th, U.S. captain and player Bobby Jones led the Americans to a 10-2 victory over Great Britain & Ireland at Royal St. George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England. Also on this date in 1982, Kathy Whitworth won the Atlanta LPGA event for her 83rd LPGA victory to take the all-time lead over Mickey Wright. On the same day in Atlanta, Joan Joyce had 17 putts in her round to break the record of 19 held by Beverley Klass. Also in 1982, Jack Nicklaus won the Colonial National Invitational for his first victory in nearly 2 years. He shot a 67 to win by three over Andy North.
Ken Venturi was born on this date in 1931 in San Francisco. He had a fine amateur record, nearly winning the 1956 Masters as one, but he fell short of the predicted stardom, primarily suffering from a hand ailment. He won a legendary 1964 U.S. Open title, achieved notoriety in the television booth, and ultimately was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame. He died two days after his 82nd birthday in 2013.
On this date in 1995, Kelly Robbins won the only major of her career at DuPont Country Club in the LPGA Championship. She held on by one shot over Laura Davies. And pardon the indulgence on this day: Today would have been my father, Donald Schrock's, 96th birthday and on this occasion each year I like to recall the one round of golf we played together, at the Illinois State University Golf Course. The year and score details escape me except for two notes: he took a lot of swings, and on the 150-yard par-3 17th, when he missed a 3-foot putt, he asked me to knock the ball back to him. He kept trying that putt and missing it, and raking it back to keep trying over and over. Eventually, I could hear the voices of the guys on the tee travel across a pond, "Can you believe these guys?!" That's when I told Dad to give it up and we went to play the final hole.
Arnold Palmer's final PGA Tour victory was the 1973 Bob Hope Classic at age 43, so by the end of the 1980s he was not having great success in his late 50s. He still had the Byron Nelson Classic on his schedule because of his love for Lord Byron. At the 1988 GTE Byron Nelson Golf Classic, Arnie shot 70 in the first round but on May 13 had a 75 in Round 2 and had to withdraw with a rib-cage muscle pull. It was the last time he played the Nelson Classic. Also on this date, in 1962, Mickey Wright won the LPGA Western Open on Montgomery Country Club after a four-hole playoff with Mary Lena Faulk.
At the Colonial National Invitation on May 12, 1962, Arnold Palmer shot a 66 in Round 3 to be in full command of the lead. But he shot 76 the final day to fall into a tie with Johnny Pott, but then won an 18-hole playoff, 69-73. Arnold had rounds of 67-72-66-76—281 and first-place prize money of $7,000. Also on this date in 2013, Tiger Woods won his second Players Championship, TPC at Sawgrass by two shots over three players.
In the span of a year, Arnold Palmer went from rags to riches on May 11. In 1958, he tied for 51st in the Arlington Hotel Open, shooting 69-71-76-76—292. At that time on tour, however, if you made the cut you weren't necessarily going to make even a penny. Sometimes the prize money wasn't enough to get to all the players. Arnie got zero dollars that week. In 1959, however, he shot 73-64-67-69—273 in the Oklahoma City Open for first place and $3,500, a more memorable May 11. Also on this date in 1928, Walter Hagen, who became good friends with Palmer, won his third Open Championship, by two strokes over Gene Sarazen at Royal St. George's Golf Club.
One of the most flamboyant figures in golf history is in today's item. Walter Hagen won his fourth Open Championship, and 11th and final major championship, on May 10, 1929, at Muirfield, Scotland. His winning score was 12 over par, and that won by six shots over fellow American Johnny Farrell. Known for his outsized personality and colorful wardrobe, Hagen is in the World Golf Hall of Fame.
The immortal Harry Vardon was born on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, on this date in 1870, 10 years after the first Open Championship, which he would go on to win six times, the most in history. He is also immortalized with the term Vardon grip, the label for the overlap method of gripping the club. Another World Golf Hall of Fame member born on this date was Betty Jameson, born in 1919 in Norman, Okla. She won the 1947 U.S. Women's Open and the 1939 and 1940 U.S. Women's Amateur.
One of the author’s golf heroes is the man who shook the golf world: Francis Ouimet, born on this day in 1893 in Brookline, Mass. He won the U.S. Open in his hometown in 1913 at The Country Club, beating British stars Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a playoff to elevate American golfers on a global scale. He was also a U.S. Amateur champion and as the "father of amateur golf," he is credited with influencing golf participation in the United States. When the U.S. Open was played in Brookline again in 1963, Ouimet was honored on the 50th anniversary.
The Greenbrier is a major component of golf resort heritage. On this date in 1950, Ben Hogan won the Greenbrier Pro-Am, at the golf club in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., winning $1,250 after shooting 64-64-65-66—259. Also, two World Golf Hall of Fame members died on this date, well before their time. Craig Wood succumbed to a heart ailment at age 66 in 1968, and in 2011, Spanish legend Seve Ballesteros died after fighting brain cancer.
On this date in 1962, the year he won two majors, Arnold Palmer won the Tournament of Champions. He had scores of 69-70-69-68 for 276 and first prize of $11,000. Also, the Olympic Club in San Francisco, a club noted for its track-and-field prowess before golf, was founded in 1860. And, in 1936, the Curtis Cup was completed on the King’s Course at Gleneagles, ending in a 4.5 to 4.5 tie. Baseball bonus: Babe Ruth hit his first Major League home run, playing for the Boston Red Sox, in 1915. It was against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Ruth, who started as a pitcher, was 3 for 5 at the plate and pitched 12 and a third innings but took the loss in a 4-3 defeat.
One of the greatest gentlemen in golf history, and most prominent height-wise (6-foot-4), was born on this date in 1923. William (Bill) C. Campbell, was born in Huntington, W.Va. He excelled on the course as a lifelong amateur, winning the 1964 U.S. Amateur, two U.S. Senior Amateurs and 15 West Virginia Amateurs, and off the course as a past president of the U.S. Golf Association and captain of the Royal & Ancient. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1990, and died on August 30, 2013. One of the most unique—and successful—putters in history, Leo Diegel, died on this date in 1951 at age 52 from cancer. Diegel, a two-time PGA champion, pointed his elbows straight outward and swung them like a pendulum. His style was called Diegeling.
A pair of major figures in golf history were born on this date. World Golf Hall of Famer Betsy Rawls was born in 1928 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She won 55 LPGA Tour events, including four U.S. Women’s Opens (1951, 1953, 1957, 1960), and two LPGA Championships in 1959 and 1969. Future hall of famer Rory McIlroy was born in 1989 in Holywood, Northern Ireland. At 35, McIlroy is at a critical time to keep building up his resume and has been needing a Masters victory since 2015 to complete a career Grand Slam. He won his last of four majors in 2014. Also on the birthday list today are 1986 PGA champion Bob Tway (1959) and the second African-American on the LPGA Tour Renee Powell (1946); she is also one of the first seven women to be members of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club.
On this date in 1990, Brooks Koepka, five-time major championship winner, was born in West Palm Beach, Florida. And on this date in 1964, the late Pete Brown won the Waco Turner Open at Turner Lodge in Burneyville, Oklahoma, becoming the first African-American to win an official PGA Tour event.
On this date in 1960, Arnold Palmer lost a playoff to Bill Collins at the Houston Classic, 69 to 71, to take second place after the two had tied at 280. And Bing Crosby, the legendary singer and the first major entertainer/personality to promote the celebrity pro-am format with his Crosby Clambake at Pebble Beach, was born on May 2, 1904, in Tacoma, Wash.
On this date in 1930, Glenna Collett led an American squad against a British team at Sunningdale, England, in a precursor to the first Curtis Cup Match played two years later. The British won the 1930 match. Also, opinionated and insightful Frank Beard, an 11-time PGA Tour winner, was born on May 1, 1939. And Pete Brown, a pioneering African-American golfer who won the Waco Open in 1964 on the PGA Tour, died on this date in 2015 at age 80.
On this date in 1961 and 1962, the great Mickey Wright won the LPGA Titleholders Championship at Augusta Country Club. In 1961 it was by one shot over Patty Berg and Louise Suggs, and in 1962 it was in a playoff with Ruth Jessen. Also in the early 1950s, the newly begun LPGA Tour held four 36-hole events over the duration of several weeks, recognizing an overall winner at the conclusion of the 144-hole event. In 1950, the events were held at Pebble Beach, Chicago, Cleveland and New York. Babe Zaharias won the Pebble Beach portion on April 30, and would win later in Cleveland. Louise Suggs won the other two stages, but Zaharias was the overall winner.
This date in 1857 is credited as the publishing date for the first golf instruction book, The Golfer's Manual, “A Keen Hand” by H. B. Farnie. Birthdays today include two-time major winner, TV analyst and World Golf Hall of Famer Johnny Miller in 1947, and present tour player Justin Thomas born in 1993. Miller was born in San Francisco and won the 1973 U.S. Open and 1976 Open Championship. In retirement he was a golf analyst for NBC Sports.