1913
FRANCIS OUIMET’S IRONS, BALL, AND SCORECARD FROM THE US OPEN
T
he story of the humble unknown who prevails against the odds is a cliché. In the pantheon of underdogs, though, the story of the 20-year-old amateur who beat two of the world’s most dominant golfers—Britain’s Harry Vardon and Ted Ray—to win the 1913 US Open continues to impress. Francis Ouimet came out of nowhere to win the country’s most prestigious tourney and to change golf in America.
Born in 1893 across the street from The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, Ouimet got his first club by trading in balls he collected from the course. He and his brother carved a primitive three-hole layout in a backlot, sinking tomato cans for cups.1 He began caddying at age 11 and snuck onto The Country Club before dawn to practice. Over time, Ouimet built a consistent, all-purpose game.
Six weeks before the US Open in 1913, he had shown what he was capable of, shooting six birdies in a row down the stretch2 to win his semifinal match in the Massachusetts Amateur. He went on to win that title and then performed brilliantly in a match-play loss at the US Amateur.
Those performances earned Ouimet a last-minute invitation to the US Open, basically as a token local; with The Country Club hosting the Open, no one was more local than young Francis. Golf officials didn’t expect much. Neither did Ouimet, for that matter. Worried about missing work, he had to be coaxed to enter.
The tournament schedule called for four rounds over two days. After 54 holes, Oumet found himself tied with Vardon and Ray. An excellent performance, but no one thought he could sustain it. And he didn’t. He shot a wretched 43 on the front nine, then doubled-bogeyed the tenth and bogeyed the twelfth. But Vardon and Ray had also faltered. As Ouimet stood on the thirteenth tee, he was only two strokes behind.
Assessing the situation, he realized that if he could birdie two holes and par the other five, he could tie the British pros. He got the first birdie on the thirteenth, chipping in from the edge of the green. Then he picked up a straightforward par on the fourteenth and a brilliant one on the fifteenth, getting up and down from a gnarly position in the rough. The sixteenth looked like birdie bait; it was a short par three that he had deuced dozens of times. Not today, though. He had to sink a tough nine-footer just to make par. Two holes left.
The seventeenth hole, a tricky 370-yard par four with a dogleg left, was the hole Ouimet knew best: he could see it from his bedroom window. A good drive and an excellent approach put him about 20 feet from the pin; if he made the putt, he would be tied. He stroked it home almost too vigorously; the ball fell into the hole, then popped up before settling down.3 Watching from the perimeter, all but swamped by 5,000 cheering, gasping, incredulous spectators, Ted Ray analyzed the moment with precision: “That,” he said, “was a great putt for America.”4
On the eighteenth hole, Ouimet coolly sank a five-footer for par. The 20-year-old clerk/caddy had tied two of the world’s best. An 18-hole playoff would determine the winner.
September 20 dawned miserably; gray skies and drizzle dampened the already wet grounds. Even so, a record 10,000 people turned out to watch.5 At the turn, all three players were tied at 38. While the contest was close for several more holes, Ouimet never trailed after the tenth, beating Vardon by five and Ray by six. The seventeenth again played a crucial role. Only a stroke behind, Vardon decided to try to cut the corner of the dogleg on his tee shot; instead, he drove his ball into the front edge of a protective bunker. He ended up with a bogey. Ouimet drained an 18-footer for birdie. To this day, that patch of sand is known as “Vardon’s Bunker.” The eighteenth was a formality. Thus ended what golf sage Herbert Warren Wind called “the most momentous round in the history of golf.”6
Ouimet’s upset made golf front-page news. The New York Tribune called it “easily the most thrilling and spectacular event seen on a golf course in this country.” And it made Francis Ouimet an exotic species: a golf hero. Self-confident but humble, gracious but competitive, this son of working-class immigrants7 was a Horatio Alger hero with a driver.
The rulers of golf had shown little interest in promoting the game outside the narrow precincts of wealth and status they inhabited. Ouimet’s victory changed that. In the decade following the 1913 Open, two million Americans began to play,8 and hundreds of new courses were built, including such classics as Pebble Beach and Winged Foot. Ouimet’s victory had a particular influence on a gifted 11-year-old in Atlanta. Reading about the final rounds, young Bobby Jones “began to feel that golf was a real game.” Thenceforth, he took it more seriously (see the 1930 entry on him).9
Ouimet returned to win the US Amateur in 1914, but then, in one of the true travesties of sports administration, he was banned from amateur golf. His crime: investing his life savings in a sporting-goods store. This, the wealthy stewards of the game decreed, smacked of professionalism. Ouimet was not forgiven the sin of needing to earn a living until 1919.10 When he was reinstated, he ran into Bobby Jones. Three times during the 1920s, the two would duel in the US Amateur. Jones won every time.
Still, Ouimet had his moments. He won a second US Amateur in 1931, the year after Jones retired, and was a Walker Cup stalwart. A favorite in Scotland for his sportsmanship and love for the game, in 1951 Ouimet became the first American to be elected Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.
The 1913 US Open did not make American golf. The game had been advancing steadily for a dozen years; at the time, there were about 350,000 players, and a working infrastructure of courses, teaching, and competition. But Ouimet’s victory pushed the game to another level, much faster than would have happened otherwise.
1921
RADIO BROADCAST OF THE DEMPSEYCARPENTIER FIGHT
A
s a fight, it wasn’t much. As a spectacle, it was considerably more. And as a precedent, it was decisive, the beginning of the marriage between sports and broadcasting.
The event was the fight between heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey and the pride of France, Georges Carpentier, on July 2, 1921. Dempsey, known as the Manassa Mauler (after his Colorado hometown), had pummeled Jess Willard for the title in 1919, knocking him down seven times in the first round. Dark-haired, with deep-set eyes, Dempsey made his boxing bones in the mining camps of the West. He bobbed and weaved with deft subtlety; what made him famous, however, was his unrelenting ferocity. His left hook was devastating.
Carpentier had won European championships in four weight divisions before World War I; during the war he won the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire for his bravery in combat. There was also a certain je ne sais quoi about the Frenchman. The scribes of the era swooned at his blond tresses, his lean torso, his aquiline features, and his overall élan. “Michelangelo would have fainted for joy with the beauty of his profile,”1 wrote one breathless New York Evening World reporter. Heywood Broun of the New York Tribune said he had “one of the most beautiful bodies the prize ring has ever seen.” His nickname was the “Orchid Man,” for the flower he wore in his lapel.2
Unfortunately he was only 172 pounds of perfect beauty, compared to Dempsey’s 188. Moreover, Dempsey had a better record against stronger competition. Even rumors that the Frenchman’s manager could cast hypnotic spells did not sway the judgment of the cold-eyed pros: Carpentier, they said, didn’t have a chance.
That was a conviction fight promoter Tex Rickard shared, but quietly. To make the kind of money he had in mind, people needed to believe the war hero with the fabulous legs had a chance. One strategy was to create a good versus evil story line. Dempsey wore the black hat. Accused (and acquitted) of draft dodging, the faint whiff of cowardice clung to him. No one ever compared him to a Greek god.
The bout became one of those events that caught the spirit of the time. Leasing an empty lot in Jersey City known as Boyle’s Thirty Acres, Rickard built a ring and temporary stands for 50,000 people. As the hoopla grew, he added more. Eventually, there was room for more than 90,000 people—the largest audience to ever witness a sporting event in person to that time3—with seats costing from $5 to $50.4 The event brought in almost $1.8 million.5 Ringside seats were filled with names like Astor, Ford, Guggenheim, Fairbanks, Rockefeller, Roosevelt, and Vanderbilt. Forevermore, boxing would mix seamlessly with high society and show biz.6
France was also caught up in the spirit. Six military planes were deployed to fly over Paris. When the results were relayed via the telegraph, they would flash red lights for a Carpentier victory, white for Dempsey. Carpentier was Europe’s finest fighter. But still—this was the Manassa Mauler versus the Orchid Man.
Rickard had no doubts, murmuring to Dempsey, “Don’t kill the son of a bitch.” He didn’t, but left no doubt about who the superior fighter was. He broke Carpentier’s nose in the first round. Carpentier got in a good blow in the second but broke his hand in the process. (Dempsey professed not even to remember the swat.) In the fourth round, Dempsey decided enough was enough. He knocked Carpentier down. The Frenchman stayed down for a nine count, bounced up, then caught Dempsey’s right fist with his chin. There was no getting up this time.7
So that was that, a fairly routine Dempsey pummeling. But what made this match historic was the audience. It was not just 90,000 people in Jersey City. Less than a year after the first commercial radio station began broadcasting, a ringside, round-by-round account of the fight could be heard in real time over the radio, like this Westinghouse Aeriola Senior shown opposite. The Battle of Boyle’s Thirty Acres was the first time a sporting event had been widely broadcast. Listeners tuned in as far away as Vermont.8
All told, Wireless Age magazine estimated that some 300,000 people heard the fight, some in theaters and other public places, some at home. It’s difficult even now to estimate audiences, so the 300,000 figure can only be regarded as a guess, no doubt on the high side. But it was certainly the biggest radio audience to that date.
Other sports took notice. Tennis had its first on-air moment a little over a month later,9 and in 1922 broadcasters called their first live World Series.10 This Westinghouse radio cost $65 in 1921,11 the equivalent of $861 in 2015 dollars. At the time, radio was still a boutique technology. But that would change fast, as costs fell and coverage improved. By 1927, when Dempsey fought Gene Tunney in a bid to retake his title in the fight famous for the “long count,” some 60 million Americans could listen in.12
FRANCIS OUIMET’S IRONS, BALL, AND SCORECARD FROM THE US OPEN
T
he story of the humble unknown who prevails against the odds is a cliché. In the pantheon of underdogs, though, the story of the 20-year-old amateur who beat two of the world’s most dominant golfers—Britain’s Harry Vardon and Ted Ray—to win the 1913 US Open continues to impress. Francis Ouimet came out of nowhere to win the country’s most prestigious tourney and to change golf in America.
Born in 1893 across the street from The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, Ouimet got his first club by trading in balls he collected from the course. He and his brother carved a primitive three-hole layout in a backlot, sinking tomato cans for cups.1 He began caddying at age 11 and snuck onto The Country Club before dawn to practice. Over time, Ouimet built a consistent, all-purpose game.
Six weeks before the US Open in 1913, he had shown what he was capable of, shooting six birdies in a row down the stretch2 to win his semifinal match in the Massachusetts Amateur. He went on to win that title and then performed brilliantly in a match-play loss at the US Amateur.
Those performances earned Ouimet a last-minute invitation to the US Open, basically as a token local; with The Country Club hosting the Open, no one was more local than young Francis. Golf officials didn’t expect much. Neither did Ouimet, for that matter. Worried about missing work, he had to be coaxed to enter.
The tournament schedule called for four rounds over two days. After 54 holes, Oumet found himself tied with Vardon and Ray. An excellent performance, but no one thought he could sustain it. And he didn’t. He shot a wretched 43 on the front nine, then doubled-bogeyed the tenth and bogeyed the twelfth. But Vardon and Ray had also faltered. As Ouimet stood on the thirteenth tee, he was only two strokes behind.
Assessing the situation, he realized that if he could birdie two holes and par the other five, he could tie the British pros. He got the first birdie on the thirteenth, chipping in from the edge of the green. Then he picked up a straightforward par on the fourteenth and a brilliant one on the fifteenth, getting up and down from a gnarly position in the rough. The sixteenth looked like birdie bait; it was a short par three that he had deuced dozens of times. Not today, though. He had to sink a tough nine-footer just to make par. Two holes left.
The seventeenth hole, a tricky 370-yard par four with a dogleg left, was the hole Ouimet knew best: he could see it from his bedroom window. A good drive and an excellent approach put him about 20 feet from the pin; if he made the putt, he would be tied. He stroked it home almost too vigorously; the ball fell into the hole, then popped up before settling down.3 Watching from the perimeter, all but swamped by 5,000 cheering, gasping, incredulous spectators, Ted Ray analyzed the moment with precision: “That,” he said, “was a great putt for America.”4
On the eighteenth hole, Ouimet coolly sank a five-footer for par. The 20-year-old clerk/caddy had tied two of the world’s best. An 18-hole playoff would determine the winner.
September 20 dawned miserably; gray skies and drizzle dampened the already wet grounds. Even so, a record 10,000 people turned out to watch.5 At the turn, all three players were tied at 38. While the contest was close for several more holes, Ouimet never trailed after the tenth, beating Vardon by five and Ray by six. The seventeenth again played a crucial role. Only a stroke behind, Vardon decided to try to cut the corner of the dogleg on his tee shot; instead, he drove his ball into the front edge of a protective bunker. He ended up with a bogey. Ouimet drained an 18-footer for birdie. To this day, that patch of sand is known as “Vardon’s Bunker.” The eighteenth was a formality. Thus ended what golf sage Herbert Warren Wind called “the most momentous round in the history of golf.”6
Ouimet’s upset made golf front-page news. The New York Tribune called it “easily the most thrilling and spectacular event seen on a golf course in this country.” And it made Francis Ouimet an exotic species: a golf hero. Self-confident but humble, gracious but competitive, this son of working-class immigrants7 was a Horatio Alger hero with a driver.
The rulers of golf had shown little interest in promoting the game outside the narrow precincts of wealth and status they inhabited. Ouimet’s victory changed that. In the decade following the 1913 Open, two million Americans began to play,8 and hundreds of new courses were built, including such classics as Pebble Beach and Winged Foot. Ouimet’s victory had a particular influence on a gifted 11-year-old in Atlanta. Reading about the final rounds, young Bobby Jones “began to feel that golf was a real game.” Thenceforth, he took it more seriously (see the 1930 entry on him).9
Ouimet returned to win the US Amateur in 1914, but then, in one of the true travesties of sports administration, he was banned from amateur golf. His crime: investing his life savings in a sporting-goods store. This, the wealthy stewards of the game decreed, smacked of professionalism. Ouimet was not forgiven the sin of needing to earn a living until 1919.10 When he was reinstated, he ran into Bobby Jones. Three times during the 1920s, the two would duel in the US Amateur. Jones won every time.
Still, Ouimet had his moments. He won a second US Amateur in 1931, the year after Jones retired, and was a Walker Cup stalwart. A favorite in Scotland for his sportsmanship and love for the game, in 1951 Ouimet became the first American to be elected Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.
The 1913 US Open did not make American golf. The game had been advancing steadily for a dozen years; at the time, there were about 350,000 players, and a working infrastructure of courses, teaching, and competition. But Ouimet’s victory pushed the game to another level, much faster than would have happened otherwise.
1921
RADIO BROADCAST OF THE DEMPSEYCARPENTIER FIGHT
A
s a fight, it wasn’t much. As a spectacle, it was considerably more. And as a precedent, it was decisive, the beginning of the marriage between sports and broadcasting.
The event was the fight between heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey and the pride of France, Georges Carpentier, on July 2, 1921. Dempsey, known as the Manassa Mauler (after his Colorado hometown), had pummeled Jess Willard for the title in 1919, knocking him down seven times in the first round. Dark-haired, with deep-set eyes, Dempsey made his boxing bones in the mining camps of the West. He bobbed and weaved with deft subtlety; what made him famous, however, was his unrelenting ferocity. His left hook was devastating.
Carpentier had won European championships in four weight divisions before World War I; during the war he won the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire for his bravery in combat. There was also a certain je ne sais quoi about the Frenchman. The scribes of the era swooned at his blond tresses, his lean torso, his aquiline features, and his overall élan. “Michelangelo would have fainted for joy with the beauty of his profile,”1 wrote one breathless New York Evening World reporter. Heywood Broun of the New York Tribune said he had “one of the most beautiful bodies the prize ring has ever seen.” His nickname was the “Orchid Man,” for the flower he wore in his lapel.2
Unfortunately he was only 172 pounds of perfect beauty, compared to Dempsey’s 188. Moreover, Dempsey had a better record against stronger competition. Even rumors that the Frenchman’s manager could cast hypnotic spells did not sway the judgment of the cold-eyed pros: Carpentier, they said, didn’t have a chance.
That was a conviction fight promoter Tex Rickard shared, but quietly. To make the kind of money he had in mind, people needed to believe the war hero with the fabulous legs had a chance. One strategy was to create a good versus evil story line. Dempsey wore the black hat. Accused (and acquitted) of draft dodging, the faint whiff of cowardice clung to him. No one ever compared him to a Greek god.
The bout became one of those events that caught the spirit of the time. Leasing an empty lot in Jersey City known as Boyle’s Thirty Acres, Rickard built a ring and temporary stands for 50,000 people. As the hoopla grew, he added more. Eventually, there was room for more than 90,000 people—the largest audience to ever witness a sporting event in person to that time3—with seats costing from $5 to $50.4 The event brought in almost $1.8 million.5 Ringside seats were filled with names like Astor, Ford, Guggenheim, Fairbanks, Rockefeller, Roosevelt, and Vanderbilt. Forevermore, boxing would mix seamlessly with high society and show biz.6
France was also caught up in the spirit. Six military planes were deployed to fly over Paris. When the results were relayed via the telegraph, they would flash red lights for a Carpentier victory, white for Dempsey. Carpentier was Europe’s finest fighter. But still—this was the Manassa Mauler versus the Orchid Man.
Rickard had no doubts, murmuring to Dempsey, “Don’t kill the son of a bitch.” He didn’t, but left no doubt about who the superior fighter was. He broke Carpentier’s nose in the first round. Carpentier got in a good blow in the second but broke his hand in the process. (Dempsey professed not even to remember the swat.) In the fourth round, Dempsey decided enough was enough. He knocked Carpentier down. The Frenchman stayed down for a nine count, bounced up, then caught Dempsey’s right fist with his chin. There was no getting up this time.7
So that was that, a fairly routine Dempsey pummeling. But what made this match historic was the audience. It was not just 90,000 people in Jersey City. Less than a year after the first commercial radio station began broadcasting, a ringside, round-by-round account of the fight could be heard in real time over the radio, like this Westinghouse Aeriola Senior shown opposite. The Battle of Boyle’s Thirty Acres was the first time a sporting event had been widely broadcast. Listeners tuned in as far away as Vermont.8
All told, Wireless Age magazine estimated that some 300,000 people heard the fight, some in theaters and other public places, some at home. It’s difficult even now to estimate audiences, so the 300,000 figure can only be regarded as a guess, no doubt on the high side. But it was certainly the biggest radio audience to that date.
Other sports took notice. Tennis had its first on-air moment a little over a month later,9 and in 1922 broadcasters called their first live World Series.10 This Westinghouse radio cost $65 in 1921,11 the equivalent of $861 in 2015 dollars. At the time, radio was still a boutique technology. But that would change fast, as costs fell and coverage improved. By 1927, when Dempsey fought Gene Tunney in a bid to retake his title in the fight famous for the “long count,” some 60 million Americans could listen in.12
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