Finally Passing Test of Time
By KAREN CROUSE
FORT SMITH, Ark. — The former United States Open winner stood on the practice range holding a driver like the one he saw in Fred Couples’s bag during this year’s Masters. He hit a shot as straight as a crow flies, watched it roll toward a flag 250 yards away and muttered, “I almost whiffed that one.”
At 90, and notwithstanding a résumé that includes a victory against Ben Hogan at the 1955 United States Open, Jack Fleck is still trying to find his game. Bending to plant another teed ball into the ground, he said: “I’m not going to try to hit it real far. All I’ll do is injure myself.” With a swing smoother than a good bourbon, he hit a drive nearly 260 yards. “Pulled it,” he said with a sigh.
Unless it is cold or raining or the course is playing downwind, which upsets his balance, Fleck spends part of every day at Hardscrabble Country Club, a five-mile drive from the Cape Cod home here on a quiet cul-de-sac that he shares with his third wife, Carmen.
“I’m still trying to get better,” Fleck said recently over lunch at the club. He ordered half a turkey sandwich and a cup of soup. It was the same meal he wolfed down before closing with a three-under-par 67 at San Francisco’s Olympic Club to force a playoff with Hogan, who was seeking his record fifth Open title, and his seventh major championship since his near-fatal head-on collision with a Greyhound bus in 1949.
The next day, Fleck beat Hogan by three strokes, his victory so unexpected that for years, Fleck could not shake the public perception that he was an undeserving champion. Through the alchemy of time, the polish has been restored to his crown. In two books published to coincide with the return of the United States Open to the Olympic Club this week, the 1955 tournament is portrayed as having been won by Fleck rather than lost by Hogan. The one-major-wonder label that Fleck wore for so many years like a scratchy wool sweater is gone, replaced by one as comfortable as a cashmere cardigan: the oldest living United States Open champion.
A Depression Son
Fleck, the son of an Iowa farmer, grew up in the cold shadow of the Depression. “We were dirt poor,” he said, remembering picking apples for pennies while in kindergarten to help his parents pay bills. At 17 he turned professional in golf, and after serving in the Navy during World War II, he returned home to Davenport and his duties as a club pro at two municipal courses.
Beginning in 1946, Fleck spent the winter months testing his game against the best players in events staged on the West Coast and in the South. In 1955, he played the PGA Tour full time, giving himself a limit of two years to show that he belonged.
At nearly 6 feet 2 inches, the lanky Fleck was known for his long strides and his short temper. He would simmer over imperfect shots, sometimes steaming off the course in the middle of a tournament.
Tim Reilly, a pro who works at Hardscrabble, said Fleck still flashes that temper on occasion, usually by letting his club slip out of his hands on his follow-through when his ball fails to fly straight. Never known for his poker face, Fleck turned his composure into his ace card the week of the 1955 Open.
He arrived in California for his third United States Open appearance after advancing through sectional qualifying. From the time he first laid eyes on the tight, sloping fairways that turned other pros claustrophobic, until his last putt dropped on the 90th hole, Fleck was a study in equanimity. He had such a peaceful, easy feeling that he wrote a letter to the sports editor of his hometown paper, The Davenport Democrat, suggesting he attend, the better to chronicle the top-10 finish Fleck predicted for himself.
“There was something about my nervous system that whole week,” Fleck said. “I was so calm.”
Putting was never Fleck’s forte, but during the second round, he said, he felt a mysterious tingling in his hands as he stood over his ball on the fifth green. For the rest of the tournament, he wielded his Bulls Eye putter like a magic wand. After opening with a 76, Fleck carded a 69 to move into a tie for second with Hogan and two others, one stroke off the lead held by Tommy Bolt and the amateur Harvie Ward.
The third and fourth rounds were played on Saturday. Fleck awoke that morning and was shaving at the Daly City motel where he was staying when he heard a voice say he was going to win. It sounded as real as the Mario Lanza recording of “I’ll Walk With God” playing on the phonograph in the next room. Fleck, who was alone, said, “I got goose pimples, like electricity was going through my body.”
Al Barkow, in his book “The Upset,” credited Fleck’s practice of hatha yoga with his mystical state.
“He was 25 years ahead of the curve in his daily yoga practice,” Barkow said in a telephone interview. “My take on it is that the yoga he was into helped him reach a meditative state that had something to do with his ability to defeat Ben Hogan in the playoff.”
Fleck credits his clubs, which bore Hogan’s signature. Earlier in 1955, Fleck came across a set of forged irons that were made by Hogan’s golf company and loved how they felt in his hands. He wrote to Hogan asking if he could acquire a set.
To his surprise, Hogan approved the request. Fleck became only the second pro, after Hogan, to use the clubs, which included a 3-wood and a 4-wood. He received the last two irons, the sand wedge and pitching wedge, from Hogan in San Francisco. They replaced his Tommy Armour Silver Scots.
Fleck said he believed Hogan respected his rise from humble roots, and could afford to be generous because he did not perceive him as a competitive threat.
“He wouldn’t let any of the big names past the front door of his factory,” Fleck said.
Proving TV Wrong
During the final round at the Olympic Club, Fleck was leaving the 13th green when a roving marshal told him he stood one stroke behind Hogan, who had finished with a 72-hole total of seven-over 287. On the par-4 14th, Fleck hit an aggressive approach that landed in a bunker, and he failed to get up and down for par. Two strokes behind Hogan with four to play, Fleck birdied the par-3 15th and reached the 18th tee needing one more birdie to tie Hogan.
“It was late in the day,” Fleck said. “The sun was breaking through the clouds. It was so serene, it was just like heaven.”
His drive landed in the first cut of rough on the left side of the fairway, 125 yards from the hole. Fleck’s ball was sitting up nicely, and he had a perfect angle for attacking the right pin position. The distance called for an 8-iron or a 9-iron, but Fleck took his Hogan 7-iron and hit a rainbow shot that landed like a leaf on the green, which sloped from back to front, and stopped 7 feet from the pin.
“Hit it right on the sweet spot,” said Fleck, who had practiced the high shot, devised to avoid backspin, many times on the range.
He took less than 25 seconds to line up and hit the downhill putt, which broke slightly from right to left and disappeared into the hole. By the time Fleck finished, NBC had finished its coverage, its hourlong telecast ending with Gene Sarazen, in his role as a commentator, pulling Hogan aside to congratulate him on his victory.
In the 18-hole playoff the next day, Fleck took 14 putts on the front nine — three fewer than Hogan — to card a 33 and build a two-stroke lead. He was three ahead after a birdie on No. 10. Hogan made a par at No. 11 to gain a stroke on Fleck but three-putted the 12th green to fall three behind. After Hogan birdied No. 14 and Fleck bogeyed No. 17, the players stepped to the 18th tee with Fleck leading by one.
Hogan’s right foot slipped during his swing and he pulled his drive into the left rough, then needed three swings with his wedge to land his ball on the fairway. From there, he got up and down for a double-bogey 6. Fleck two-putted from 20 feet for a routine par to seal his remarkable victory.
Hogan congratulated Fleck on the green and later posed for a photograph fanning Fleck’s “hot” putter with his white cap. During the trophy presentation, Hogan announced that he was through with competitive golf.
“From now on,” he said, “I’m a weekend golfer.”
Bill Callan, the Olympic Club’s historian, was 13 when he worked the 1955 Open as a scorecard runner. He recalled sobbing along with other fans when Hogan said he was done. Fleck did not look at the spectators’ tears as rain on his parade.
“Listen,” Fleck said, “Hogan was my idol. You know what my 4-year-old son said? He said, ‘I rooted for you, Dad, but I was sorry Ben Hogan lost.’ ”
After Triumph, Decline
Fleck earned $6,000 for the victory and about 10 times that amount in endorsements, exhibition fees and other off-course income.
“I had to make money,” he said.
On the banquet circuit, Fleck abandoned his strict diet, which forbade red meat; stopped doing yoga; and hit too few golf balls — not counting the ones he was paid to hit from home plate over the center-field fence at a baseball game in Des Moines.
Fleck never won another major. For decades afterward, accounts of the 1955 Open described him inaccurately as “a club pro” or “a driving-range pro” and referred to his victory as a fluke, which led him to build up a calloused attitude toward the news media.
In a telephone interview, Neil Sagebiel, the author of “The Longest Shot,” which also chronicles Fleck’s victory over Hogan, said: “In the immediate aftermath, the newspapers trumpeted Jack’s upset. It wasn’t until his game went into a three-year decline after he beat Hogan that this sentiment took root that it was an unworthy victory and his name became associated with fluke. If you look at how he played that week, you don’t come away with that feeling at all.”
Fleck won two more titles and finished his career with 5 seconds, 6 thirds, 41 top-10 finishes and 261 cuts made in 271 events, according to the PGA Tour. One of Fleck’s third-place finishes came at the 1960 United States Open at Cherry Hills in Colorado, where he finished behind Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus after a rash of three-putts down the stretch.
“If I had been a little better putter, I’d probably be a miserable character because of all the wins I’d have,” Fleck said.
Staying Busy at 90
The trophy from the 1955 Open sits on the Flecks’ kitchen table. Like its recipient, it does not stand as tall as it once did.
“We found it in a closet,” Fleck said. “Something fell on it and bent it.”
Fleck has not slowed much. Most days, he makes more than one trip to the golf course. One morning last month, Carmen Fleck said during lunch at the club, he hit balls, then settled in to watch the final round of the Wells Fargo Championship, which Rickie Fowler won in sudden death.
“He was watching the playoff,” she recalled, “and he just jumped up all of a sudden and said, ‘I saw something I want to practice,’ and he was gone.”
After he was done hitting balls on the Hardscrabble range, he dropped off his wife at home and switched cars, to the sport utility vehicle driven by Ed Tallach, a friend and former touring pro who manages two preowned-automobile dealerships in Hot Springs. He and Tallach headed to Calvert McBride, the local printer that produced Fleck’s paperback instructional guides and his hardcover autobiography, “The Jack Fleck Story.”
From the back seat, Fleck barked directions and commented on the shortcomings of the drivers. He started with Tallach, whose caution in making a left turn onto a busy thoroughfare annoyed him.
Leaning forward, Fleck hollered: “Turn! Now! You have room! Ahh, geez. What are you waiting for?”
In a softer voice, Fleck revealed that he had been pulled over by a police officer earlier in the week for speeding in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.
“He asked, ‘Have you been playing much golf?’ ” Fleck said. “And let me off with a warning.”
At the printing plant, Fleck and Tallach were greeted by Larry Reed, who produced a pin flag for Fleck to sign. It was from the 2001 United States Open at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla., won by Retief Goosen in a playoff with Mark Brooks. Fleck perused the other signatures, among them Raymond Floyd’s and Gene Littler’s, before writing his name in neat script.
Fleck said: “People ask me: ‘Why do you write such a beautiful signature? It makes it easier for people to forge.’ I say, ‘Who cares?’ ”
Reed led Fleck and Tallach to a stack of boxes containing collectors’ editions of Fleck’s books. Each box weighed close to 30 pounds, but Fleck lifted them without complaint and handed them to Tallach, who arranged them in the back of his car. The history that was heavy in Fleck’s arms, he carries lightly in his heart.
“You know, Hogan never thought I’d beat him,” Fleck said. “He thought he had a victory. Someone put the odds at 8,000 to 1 that I’d win. But old Flecky Baby did.”
