golfrewind.com

Meant to post this during US Open week. Hope it's not too late.

Francis Ouimet, whose great playoff victory in the 1913 US Open has rightfully received much attention, was not in fact the first native-born American to win the US Open. That was done by 19-year-old Johnny McDermott, at the 1911 US Open. He successfully defended his US Open title the following year.

He's a tragic figure, and apparently someone that the USGA doesn't want to talk too much about. But GolfWorld magazine has done a great service to his memory, and to those of us who like golf history, in this wonderful story:

http://www.golfdigest.com/majors/uso...mcdermott.html

McDermott has always had special meaning for me. The hospital mentioned in the story (Norristown [PA] State Hospital) was very close to where I grew up. So was the golf course (Jeffersonville Golf Club) where I learned to play, and where (I was told) Johnny played an occasional round later in life.

Yes, a really great article that I too can recommend about a really important figure in the history of US golf. He was also the first player to finish the championship under par.

That story told by Jack Burke Sr. about McDermott's being able to hit a few dozen balls onto a tabloid sized newspaper was quite a tribute to the man's accuracy!

GolfWorld has really been putting out some good issues lately. In fact, I didn't bother renewing my Golf Digest subscription. I also get Golf Magazine, so my golf literature was getting a bit out of hand; besides, I wanted to punish the Golf Digest company anyway for their "politically correct" harping on Augusta National's policy on female membership. Yes, I know that Golf World is a product of the same company, but it is just too timely a magazine to give up.

Thanks for the response, valeogut. Yes, apparently Johnny was pretty handy with his irons. And I hear ya about the accumulation of golf magazines. GolfWorld is the only one I subscribe to now. No time to read a few golf mags plus do other things (like post to GolfRewind :D ).

Not sure why I'm so intrigued by the McDermott story. I guess it's partly because I may have seen him once. As I mentioned, Jeffersonville [PA] Golf Club was my first course. I was going there a lot (with my dad and by myself) in the mid-1960s, when McDermott was living, I believe, at the state hospital just minutes from the course. I definitely remember my father telling me the story of his historic victory and subsequent decline; I vaguely remember seeing a smallish, well-dressed elderly man teeing off on No. 1 one day and my father telling me it was Johnny McDermott ("doesn't hit it too far anymore, but he's always right down the middle"). But I can't be sure about that.

Anyway, off and on for about the past year I've been doing Google searches trying to come up with some substantial info on McDermott with little success. I'm really grateful to GolfWorld for doing the story.

Another reason I'm intrigued is that McDermott strikes me as a fragile individual who had this one connection (golf) to the world, and by gawd he held on for dear life. But his demons, they were just too much for him, and the connection became too frayed to work anymore. And the worst part: he seems to have understood (not exactly, but in a general way) the fate that had befallen him. And yet he clung to the game! Hit one more shot, put one more ball in the fairway. There are lots of measures of success, lots of ways to define victory. And they vary according to the individual and his or her circumstances. I humbly submit that John J. McDermott enjoyed some of his greatest triumphs late in life, dressing well and shooting 41 for 9 holes somewhere.

Interesting post, Jim. By the way, did you see that a reader of the article wrote in, offering to pay to add McDermott's sister's name to the tombstone? A nice gesture if the guy's legit.

I'm convinced that the only difference between overwhelmed souls like Johnny McDermott and the rest of us is that we have the ability to ignore a lot of what's going on around us. If I couldn't put all of the craziness going on in the world out of my mind, I'd go out of my mind too!

Then too, golf has a structure and discipline to it, with a need to focus entirely on the shot, that might give comfort to a troubled mind. Maybe that's why I enjoy the game so much: I'm self-medicating!

Careful there valeogut....most of us "self medicators" end up addicted, or worse

That's a great point, valeogut. Reminds me of something I've wondered about Ben Hogan ever since I read Hogan, by Curt Sampson. As you probably know, Hogan's father fatally shot himself when Hogan was 9. Hogan was in the house at the time, and may have witnessed it. In the Intro to the book, there's some speculation that Hogan, who "virtually invented practice in golf," may have been using the repetitive nature of practice as a "self-soothing device," a means of finding some comfort in the familiar and "an oasis of control in a world of chaos." Sampson's excellent book is by means a psychobiography, so don't be put off by such speculation. Does make me wonder, however, about the multiple purposes that all the solitary drilling may have served in Hogan's life.

(And yeah, I saw the letter with the offer. Hope something happens.)