Remembering Francis Ouimet 100 Years Later

IT'S THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF FRANCIS Ouimet's amazing playoff victory over Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in the 1913 U.S. Open. Ouimet, of course, was an amateur. Vardon and Ray were professionals, arguably the world's two best players of that time.

The Golf Channel's Al Tays wrote a long, fine piece that puts Ouimet's shocker into historical perspective. It's titled, "Remembering Ouimet: How his win changed U.S. golf." A taste:

Before there was Bobby Jones, there was Francis Ouimet. 

Ouimet was the first amateur to win the U.S. Open. Others would soon follow – Jerome Travers in 1915, Chick Evans in 1916. World War I interrupted the tournament until 1919, and in 1923 the greatest amateur of all, Bobby Jones, won his first of four U.S. Opens (to go along with three British Opens, five U.S. Amateurs and one British Amateur). 

Only 9 when Ouimet won the U.S. Open, Jones later admitted he was inspired by the feat. “That is the first golf I remember reading about in the papers,” Jones wrote in his 1927 book, “Down the Fairway,” “and I began to feel that this was a real game.”

If you love golf history, settle into a comfortable chair and read the whole thing.