Greatest Game Ever Played : Francis Ouimet

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. His father, Louis, was a French-Canadian immigrant and his mother was an Irish immigrant. He married Stella M. Sullivan on September 11, 1918, with whom he had two daughters; Jane Salvi and Barbara McLean.

Career

Ouimet won the 1913 U.S. Open as a 20-year-old amateur playing at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he used to caddie, playing against 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. He was the first amateur to win the U.S. Open.

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 every Golf Hall of Fame, and has a room named after him in the USGA Museum. He remained an amateur for his entire golf career.

Tournament Wins

- 1913 U.S. Open, Massachusetts State Amateur

- 1914 U.S. Amateur, Massachusetts State Amateur, French Open Amateur
- 1915 Massachusetts State Amateur
- 1916 French Open
- 1917 Western Amateur
- 1919 Massachusetts State Amateur
- 1920 North and South Amateur
- 1922 Massachusetts State Amateur
- 1925 Massachusetts State Amateur
- 1931 U.S. Amateur
- 1932 Massachusetts Open
- 1934 Boston Open

Major championships

Performance in Majors

Ouimet participated in the U.S. Open 6 times and The Masters once.
U.S. Open
- 1913 - Won
- 1914 - T5
- 1915 - T35
- 1919 - T18
- 1923 - T29
- 1925 - T3
- T = tied

Masters
1941 - Withdrew

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 stamp. 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.