Stat profiles for 1500 golfers
How many times I was close at the U.S. Open
First on GolfObserver: June 13, 2004
Bob Rosburg called shots for many ABC broadcasts of the U.S. Open, but before that he was a player who played some of his best golf at that event. Rosburg finished in the top five in five U.S. Opens, including runner-up finishes in 1959 and 1969, one shot back both times. In 1971, he finished third, two out of a playoff. Here he looks back at those near misses--and those of some players he played with.
Now as Dave Marr said for almost three decades, "Back to you Rossie."
- GolfObserver editors
--------------------------------------------------------------I was never a tremendously long hitter, but I was long enough, and I always felt I could drive the ball into the fairway. I think that's what helped me so much in the Open. Also, I could putt very well when the greens were fast. The faster they got, the better I liked them.
My first chance to win an Open came in 1955 at Olympic in San Francisco, the course I grew up playing, where I tied for fifth. I thought I had a pretty big edge knowing the course as well as I did. I had never seen it with rough like that, though. I couldn't believe how tough the rough was. I played a practice round with Gene Littler, we were playing for a dollar a stroke, and he shot about an 86.
I opened with a 78, then I shot a 74 on Friday and was eight shots behind. The final day was 36 holes and I started getting it going in the morning, and when I got to the 18th I think I was tied for the lead. I bogeyed it to shoot a 67 and went into the final round two behind the leader, Ben Hogan. I could never get it going in the afternoon and shot a 76.
I remember seeing Hogan in the locker room when they told him Jack Fleck needed a birdie on the 18th to tie. He said, "I hope he makes par or eagle, because I don't think I can go tomorrow. I've never been so tired in all my life." Then I went up to the clubhouse and looked down at 18 when Fleck made that miracle approach shot and made a birdie. I guess Hogan was tired, he lost the playoff the next day.
At Southern Hills in 1958, I played three practice rounds against Hogan and Claude Harmon with Frank Stranahan as my partner. In fact, we won quite a lot of money off them. I played a lot with Stranahan as a partner because he had a ton of money; he'd put up the money and I'd play. That was good for me because I didn't have a whole lot.
I kept thinking that since I was beating Hogan and Harmon, who was a great player, too, I had a chance. I did play well and finished fifth, but I had to birdie the last four holes to do it. Tommy Bolt played great with 283 on a really hard course and routed the field.
One of my best chances came at Winged Foot in 1959, and that was after a terrible first round, a 75. After a 70 and a 67 I was tied for third entering the final round, four shots behind Billy Casper and one behind Hogan.
That was still during the time of 36-hole finishes, but they ended up playing 18 on Sunday because of rain on Saturday. They didn't do the pairings by scores then. Hogan and Casper went off early and I went off late. When I was playing the 14th hole, I found out that Casper had finished with a 74 on a pretty tough day, and I knew I needed one birdie to tie. Those are hard holes, though, and I never had a birdie chance from inside 35 feet.
I gave myself a chance when I holed out from a bunker on 11 and holed about a 50-footer on 12 for birdies. Then I made a double bogey on 13. It was a great, great experience, it really was. All the best players in the world were there and I had a chance to win. The double at 13 hurt, but before that I had performed two miracles.
In both 1961 and 1962, I was tied for the lead after two rounds and didn't play well in the 36-hole finish. At Oakland Hills in 1961, I ended up 21st and at Oakmont in 1961 I was 13th. Both times I wasn't too far back after three rounds, especially 1962 at Oakmont where I was only one back.
That was probably the toughest day I ever played in my life as far as the crowd and everything. I was tied with Arnold Palmer after 36 holes, so I played with him in the third and fourth rounds. That pairing might have hurt me, not that Arnold did anything bad, he was great to play with. But there was a tremendous amount of pressure--and on Arnold, too, because he was playing in his hometown.
I was leading going to the 17th hole of the third round, a short par four where Arnold drove the green and made an eagle while I made a five. In the last round I stayed fairly close for six or seven holes, then folded my tent, I played awful. After the same thing happening in 1961, it was kind of a sickening feeling. But, hey, that's the way things go. And things can go south very quickly at the Open. You get going a little bad on a tough golf course, and you can make a lot of bogeys. Still, if you give yourself a chance to win the Open it makes you feel halfway good.
I ended up taking a club job in St. Louis in 1967 when I was having problems with my hand, but by 1969 it was better. I still wasn't playing the Tour regularly, but I qualified for the Open and I went down to Champions in Houston and easily could have won it. I had a three-foot putt on the 72nd hole that would have tied Orville Moody, who was playing behind me. It was straight uphill and into the grain. The funny thing is I wasn't really nervous. I thought I hit a pretty good putt, but it stopped on the front lip and didn't go in. That one hurt more than any other putt I ever missed.
At Merion in 1971, I was involved in a very strange situation. On the 18th hole of my second round, my drive hit a tree and dropped down. When we got there, a forecaddie had marked the ball. It was a Titleist 4, which is what I was playing. Then an official comes running across the fairway and says that isn't your ball, I saw yours trickle down that hill and it's in that bush down there. So they went down and found about 10 balls in the bush. One of them was a Titleist 4.
I called for another ruling. The fellow said, I can't say anything because I wasn't here. I said whose ball is that at the top of the hill? Your man right here said that's my ball. We went on and on, and it was ruled that I had to play the ball from the bush. I was able to advance it about five feet, and when I hit it out you could see that the ball was gray. I ended up making a 15-foot putt for a six, and I was fuming.
It turned out that I had about a 25-foot putt on the 72nd hole that would have gotten me into a tie, and I three-putted. I'm not sure I would have won if the incident hadn't happened. It was only the second round, and it probably made me play better the last two days. But it left a very bitter taste in my mouth.
In fact, I never got along with the USGA when I was playing. But there was a changing of the guard, and when I got to know them when I started broadcasting, things were a lot better. Probably I mellowed, and they changed a little bit. We had the U.S. Open at ABC for a long, long time, and I think it's the best tournament in the world.
It doesn't bother me that much that I never won an Open. You can go back and look at it and say, man, I could have won two or three of them. But that's something that happens. I was lucky enough to win one major, the 1959 PGA Championship, and if you can win one, that's pretty good. The funny thing is that in 1959 I probably should have won the Open at Winged Foot and I probably shouldn't have won the PGA. Things even up in the long run.
I wasn't the only one who wasn't able to win one. I played with some people in the final round who also had their frustrations. In 1959, I played with Sam Snead, who won 82 tournaments but never an Open. On the 11th hole, I think he may have been tied for the lead and he hit a four-iron to about two-and-a-half feet. That's the hole where I holed out from a bunker. He missed that short putt and that was the end of him. I think he bogeyed five of the next six holes.
I had played with him for the first two rounds in 1955. Then I sat with him at lunch between the third and fourth rounds when he was one stroke back of Hogan. I said, Sam, if you're ever going to get it, this is an Open for you to take. Hogan was one shot ahead, but he was tired and it was hard for him to walk. I said, Sam, you can win. He said, nobody can win the Open and miss as many putts as I've missed this week. That's the way Sam thought. As soon as he said that, I knew he wasn't going to win.
In 1961, I played with Doug Sanders on the final day, and he finished one back of Littler. When you're playing with a guy, you're almost rooting for him. I can't say I was rooting for him, because I was a great friend of Gene, but I did feel sorry for Doug. He never did win a major, which is a shame, because he had the game to do it.
Then I was with Palmer in 1962 when he tied with Nicklaus in regulation and ended up losing the playoff. None of us knew Jack very well, he had just started on the Tour. I think everybody was rooting for Arnold. I remember on the last hole I putted out and Arnold had about a 20-footer to win the tournament. I went over to him and said, man, if you ever made one, make this one, will you? He ran it about four feet by, and it looked like he was going to three-putt another one, but this time he made it. He three-putted everything that day. He should have won the tournament easily. He played beautifully, but putted awful.
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