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Francis Ouimet
Francis Ouimet in 1913
Personal information
Full name	Francis DeSales Ouimet
Born	May 8, 1893(1893-05-08) Brookline, Massachusetts
Died	September 3, 1967 (aged 74) Newton, Massachusetts
Nationality	United States
Career
Status	Amateur
Professional wins	3
Best results in Major Championships (Wins: 3)
The Masters	WD: 1941
U.S. Open	Won: 1913
Open Championship	T56: 1914
PGA Championship	DNP
U.S. Amateur	Won: 1914, 1931
British Amateur	SF: 1923
Achievements and awards
World Golf Hall of Fame	1974 (member page)
Bob Jones Award	1955

Francis DeSales Ouimet (May 8, 1893 – September 3, 1967) was an American golfer. He is widely known for winning the 1913 U.S. Open, and was the first American elected Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974. He married Stella M. Sullivan on September 11, 1918, with whom he had two daughters: Jane Salvi and Barbara McLean.^[1]

Early life

Ouimet was born to Arthur and Mary Ouimet of Brookline, Massachusetts. His father was a French-Canadian immigrant, and his mother was an Irish immigrant. When Francis was four years old, his family purchased a house on Clyde Street in Brookline, directly across from the 17th hole of The Country Club. The Ouimet family grew up relatively poor, and found themselves near the bottom of the economic ladder, which was hardly the position of any American golfer at the time. As far as the general public was concerned, golf was reserved for the wealthy.^[2] Ouimet found an interest in golf at an early age and started caddying at The Country Club at the age of nine. Using clubs from his brother and balls he found around the course, Ouimet taught himself the game. Soon enough his game caught the eye of many country club members and the caddie master. It wasn't long before Ouimet was the best high school golfer in the state. When he was a junior in high school, his father insisted Francis drop out and finally begin to do "something useful" with his life. He worked at a drygoods store before a stroke of good luck helped him land a job at a sporting goods store owned by the future Baseball Hall of Famer, George Wright.^[3][4]

Career

In 1913, Ouimet won the Massachusetts Amateur at the age of 20; this was his first significant title. He would go on to win that event five more times. Soon afterward he was asked personally by the president of the United States Golf Association, Robert Watson, if he would play in the nation's championship; the U.S. Open.^[5] The event was played at the course Ouimet knew best, The Country Club. He went on to win the 1913 U.S. Open over Britons Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. Ouimet's victory after an 18-hole playoff against Vardon and Ray was widely hailed as a stunning upset over the strongly-favored Britons who were regarded as the top two golfers in the world. He was the first amateur to win the U.S. Open. His achievement was front-page news across the country.

Ouimet (center) with Harry Vardon (left) and Ted Ray

He also won the U.S. Amateur Championship twice, in 1914 and 1931. He played on the first eight Walker Cup Teams, and was Captain of the next four for a team record of 11-1. In 1951, he became the first American elected Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, and in 1955 was the first-ever winner of the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. Ouimet has been named to many golf Halls of Fame, and has a room named after him in the USGA Museum.

His wish was to remain an amateur for his whole career: he had decided before his U.S. Open success that he wanted to work in the world of business. However, in 1916, the USGA, in one of the most controversial decisions in their history, stripped Ouimet of his amateur status. Their reasoning was that he was using his celebrity to aid his own sports goods business, and was therefore making a living from golf. This was at the time when caddies were not allowed to continue caddying after they reached the age of sixteen years old unless they declared themselves professionals. The decision was greeted with uproar from Ouimet's fellow golfers. In 1918, Ouimet enlisted for the U.S. Army, and the USGA quietly reinstated his amateur status at the same time. He would go on to win his second U.S. Amateur Championship 13 years later in 1931. He did not bear a grudge against the Association, and served on several committees. Ouimet was also a golf member of Charles River Country Club, in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, and was a member of the Woodland Golf Club of Auburndale, Massachusetts.

Winning in 1913; Eddie Lowery (his 10-year-old caddy) is in front

Tournament wins (19)

• 1909 Boston Interscholastic
• 1913 U.S. Open, Massachusetts Amateur
• 1914 U.S. Amateur, Massachusetts Amateur, French Amateur
• 1915 Massachusetts Amateur
• 1917 Western Amateur
• 1919 Massachusetts Amateur
• 1920 North and South Amateur
• 1922 Massachusetts Amateur, Houston Invitational
• 1923 St. George's Challenge
• 1924 Crump Memorial
• 1925 Massachusetts Amateur, Gold Mashie Tournament
• 1927 Crump Memorial
• 1931 U.S. Amateur
• 1932 Massachusetts Open
• 1934 Boston Open

Professional and amateur majors shown in bold.

Major championships

Professional wins (1)

Year	Championship	54 Holes	Winning Score	Margin	Runner(s)-up
1913	U.S. Open	Tied for lead	+8 (77-74-74-79=304)	Playoff 1	Harry Vardon, Ted Ray

¹ Defeated Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in an 18-hole playoff - Ouimet 72, Vardon 77, Ray 78

Amateur wins (2)

Year	Championship	Winning Score	Runner-up
1914	U.S. Amateur	6 & 5	Jerome Travers
1931	U.S. Amateur	6 & 5	Jack Westland

Results timeline

As an amateur, Ouimet could not play in the PGA Championship.

LA = Low Amateur
NYF = Tournament not yet founded
NT = No tournament
DNP = Did not play
WD = Withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place
DNQ = Did not qualify for match play portion
R256, R128, R64, R32, R16, QF, SF = Round in which player lost in match play
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10

Source for U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur: USGA Championship Database

Source for 1914 British Open: www.opengolf.com

Source for 1914 British Amateur: Ouimet, Francis A Game of Golf (Northeastern University Press, 2004) pg. 61.

Source for 1921 British Amateur: The American Golfer, June 4, 1921, pg. 24.

Source for 1923 British Amateur: The American Golfer, July, 1923, pgs. 48 & 50.

Source for 1926 British Amateur: The American Golfer, July, 1926, pg. 58.

Source for 1930 British Amateur: Ouimet, Francis A Game of Golf (Northeastern University Press, 2004) pg. 217-9.

Source for 1934 British Amateur: The American Golfer, July, 1934, pg. 16.

Source for 1938 British Amateur: TIME Magazine, June 6, 1938

Source for 1941 Masters: www.masters.com

Effect on U.S. golf

Ouimet's U.S. Open success is credited for bringing golf into the American sporting mainstream. Before his surprising win over Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, golf was dominated by British players. In America, the sport was restricted to players with access to private facilities. There were very few public courses (the first, Van Cortlandt Golf Course in The Bronx borough of New York City, had opened in 1895). Ten years after his 1913 victory the number of American players had tripled and many new courses had been built, including numerous public ones.

Depictions

In 1988, a portrait of Ouimet appeared on a commemorative 25 cent United States Postal Service postage stamp in his honor.^[6]

In 2002, Mark Frost wrote a biographical account of Ouimet's U.S. Open victory titled The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth of Modern Golf. Shortly afterward, Frost was tapped by Walt Disney Studios to write a motion picture adaptation. The Greatest Game Ever Played was released in theaters in 2005. The film starred Shia LaBeouf as Ouimet, was directed by Bill Paxton, and produced by Larry Brezner.

Appearing on the cover of The Greatest Game is a photograph of Ouimet at the U.S. Open with his ten-year-old caddy, Eddie Lowery. This iconic image is one of the best known in American golf, and was used as the logo for the United States Golf Association's Centennial celebrations. A statue of Ouimet and Lowery based on the photograph stands in Brookline, Massachusetts.

References

• Gibson, Nevin H. The Encyclopedia of Golf (A.S. Barnes & Company, 1958)
• Frost, Mark The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth of Modern Golf (Hyperion, 2002)

Notes

1. ^ Duca, Rob. "America's triumph: Remembering a legend". Cape Cod Times. Archived from the original on 2000-12-15. http://web.archive.org/web/20001215080700/http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/1999/sept/21/ouimet21.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-12. "The year was 1913. He was a young man of modest means, but he shook up the exclusive world of golf." 
2. ^ http://massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=272
3. ^ http://www.massmoments.com/moment.cfm?mid=272
4. ^ Frost, Mark The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth of Modern Golf (Hyperion, 2002)
5. ^ http://www.hickoksports.com/biograph/ouimetfrancis.shtml Ouimet, Francis D.
6. ^ Scott catalog # 2377.

External links

• Francis Ouimet Biography from the Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund
• World Golf Hall of Fame profile
• 1913 U.S. Open by Bernard Darwin
• Electronic Resources From SoHG Archives
• Hagen Swing Sequences - Brassie, Iron and Putt From SoHG Master Classes