article by Nicola Pucci
When on April 9, 1953 Ben Hogan appears on the tee of the 1st hole of the Augusta National Golf Club for the 17th edition of the Mastersalready has such a track record that he really doesn’t need to add anything else to his reputation as an excellent golfer.
In fact, the Texan champion from Stephenville is now over 40 years old he has three successes at the US Open (1948, 1950 and 1951), has triumphed twice at the PGA Championship (1946 and 1948), and has already worn the “green jacket” which goes to the winner at Augusta (1951), as well as bringing 58 titles on the PGA Tour which make him, to that day and together with Sam Snead, the most successful golfer in history. But if he was able to rise from the ashes of a dramatic accident that put his life at risk on 2 February 1949, he then returned to play (and win) despite the doctors’ predictions who believed that he would even struggle to walk, perhaps not even in his wildest expectations he would have imagined what would be the season that was going to open with the Masters.
Augusta, therefore, from 9 to 12 April, and precisely Snead is the holder of a second title (the first in 1949) which rewarded, in a past that saw the dawn in 1934, Hogan himself (precisely, 1951) and also Jimmy Demaret (1940, 1947 and 1950), Claude Harmon (1948), Byron Nelson (1937 and 1942), Craig Wood (1941), Henry Picard (1938), Horton Smith (1934 and 1936) and Gene Sarazen (1935), all of them included in a “field” of the first order from which, among the champions who have already donned the green jacket, only Herman Keiser (1946) and Ralph Guldahl (1939) are absent.
The first 18 holes inspire Melvin”ChickHerberta 38-year-old golfer from Ohio who already in 1948 was third at the Masters (behind Harmon and Cary Middlecoff), who signed a card of 68 strokes, preceding by one stroke the pair formed by Ed Oliver, the eternal placeholder of the Major tournaments (already second at the 1946 PGA Championship and at the last US Open), who will once again be the protagonist until the last hole, and by Al Besselink, who in turn was third the year before in Georgia, beaten only by Snead and Jack Burke Jr. Hogan chases, author of a round in 70 shotsone shot less than Snead, and then placed a second lap in 69 strokes which put him in the lead, one stroke ahead of Bob Hamilton, and two strokes better than Herbert himself and Tedd Krollwhile Snead relegates out of the provisional top-ten (in the end he will only be 16th).
But if for the first 36 holes Hogan remained glued to his opponents, a third round in 66 strokes, for a total of 205 strokes, or 11 under par, which represents the new course record on Saturday evening, already allowing him to mortgage the final success, distancing Oliver by four strokes, Hamilton by five and Herbert by sixwith Lloyd Mangrum (-3), Besselink, Kroll, Tommy Bolt (-2) and Chandler Harper (-1) who are the only other players to have shot under par but who are now too far from the leader of the ranking to hope to finally be able to claim victory.
Those who trust in Hogan’s failure on the last round find themselves having to deal with a very different reality, namely the Texan champion who in the first four holes, on Sunday, on a course made soggy and slow by the rain that fell abundant in the morning, equals Oliver’s two birdies to maintain a four-shot lead, scores two bogeys on the 6th and 8th which allow his opponent to return to within -2, throws him back at a safe distance due to two consecutive errors on the 10th hole and 11, for then, with three birdies on the 13th, 15th and 18th, closing with another round of 69 strokes which guarantees Hogan an overall tally of 274 strokes, 14 under par and five strokes better than Oliver (still second in a Major tournament), for a record destined to stand until 1965 when Jack Nicklaus totaled 271 shots on the day of his second victory at the Masters.
Don’t think, dear golf friends, that it’s over here: The year is 1953 and Ben Hogan, having won the Masters, has a truly anthological three out of three in store in the Slams. But we’ll tell you about this another time.
2024-04-11 08:47:00
#VICTORY #MASTERS #BEN #HOGANS #GOLDEN #YEAR #SportHistoria
