“Where’s my father?” 24–year–old Arnold D. Palmer called out moments after he had won the U.S. Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit on August 28, 1954.
He had already given a big hug to his mother, Doris, who had tears streaming down her face.
Pap was there all right, lost in the throng. When Arnold spotted Deacon Palmer, who was not one for a big show of sentiment, the old man said, “You did pretty good, boy.” And so we have a story that begins with a happy ending.
The following week Palmer played in bandleader Fred Waring’s annual invitational in Shawnee–on–the–Delaware, Pennsylvania, where he met Winifred Walzer. Within a short time Palmer was married, turned pro and the following April played in his first Masters.
His life has been a boulevard of attract ions and the 1954 U.S. Amateur was the turning point. Not just for Arnold Palmer, but for the whole game. Just think. If Palmer had stumbled during one of his eight matches (seven of which could be classified as grueling) he might have carried on working for Ed Wehnse as a paint salesman in Cleveland for another year or two. He would have never met Winnie since Wehnse only let him off work for the Waring event because he’d won the Amateur. There might have been no Charge at Cherry Hills, no Arnie’s Army, no “Go For Broke” legend, no transformation of his sport.
“I would have bet everything I owned and everything I would ever own that we were not looking at the future king of golf,” said Tom McMahon a half–century later.
McMahon, one of the contestants in the 1954 Amateur, lost in the first round when his opponent, 18–year–old Davis Love, Jr. holed a 50–foot wedge on the 17th hole. He later served as a marshal in the final between Palmer and Robert Sweeny. The tournament took place 52 years ago in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, a wealthy enclave of auto industry titans sandwiched between the Detroit border and Lake St. Clair.
The course had been redesigned in 1951 by Robert Trent Jones, who lengthened H.L. Holt’s 1911 layout from 6,412 to 6,875 yards. Most gentlemen scratch amateurs in those days had long, languid, country club golf swings handed down from Horton Smith and Lawson Little and Bobby Jones. But the young paint salesman had the violent strike of a greenkeeper’s son, more slapshot than golf shot.
The man who brought the National Amateur to the Country Club of Detroit was James Standish, a club member who was president of the U.S.G.A in 1950 and 1951. In 1915, the only other time the Country Club of Detroit hosted the national Amateur, young Standish ousted Francis Ouimet. Standish convinced a reluctant membership to stage the 1954 Amateur, then served as tournament chairman.
August, against Frank Strafaci of Garden City, New York, a seven–time winner of the New York metropolitan title. He won one up after hitting a 4–wood from a sand trap on the 460–yard par–four 17th. His ball failed to reach, but he pitched to five feet and holed the putt to win the match after Strafaci had taken three from the fringe.
The next day he again needed the full 18 holes to defeat John W. Veghte, a Florida State golfer from Gloversville, New York, and on Wednesday morning Palmer met Richard L. Whiting, 31, the captain of the 1946 Notre Dame golf team. Palmer birdied the first to take the lead, but couldn’t close out his opponent until the 17th.
Things were easier that afternoon against 35–year–old Walter C. Andzel of Hamburg, New York. A 5&3 victory allowed Palmer to get off the course before a 5 o’clock thunderstorm that drenched the course and suspended play.
The big match of the day was pre–tournament favorite Frank Stranahan’s thrilling one–hole victory over Harvie Ward that put Stranahan, him on a collision course with Palmer the next morning. The powerful 32–year–old had defeated Palmer 4&3 in the 1950 Amateur and 11&10 in a 36–hole North and South semi–final.
The week before, Stranahan had finished first and Palmer second at the World Amateur in Chicago. But Palmer played his best golf of the tournament against his friend and rival and won 3&1. He was moving through the tournament’s toughest bracket. Stranahan, Billy Joe Patton, past Amateur champion Charlie Coe and future champ Harvie Ward were all eliminated. Suddenly the kid was the odds–on favorite.
His quarter–final opponent the same afternoon was Don Cherry, a professional singer from Wichita Falls, Texas, and the winner of the 1953 Canadian Amateur. Cherry even had a singing gig the night before the Palmer match at the Dakota Inn in Detroit. Several participants in the Amateur went to see him perform, though not Arnie.
The decisive hole was the long par–four 17th, where they went all square. Neither hit the green, but Palmer pitched close and made his putt to win. They halved the 18th, sending Palmer into the 36–hole semi–final against Edward Meister, Jr., a 36–year–old former Yale golf captain making his 13th U.S. Amateur appearance. The match was a see–saw affair. Palmer shot 76 in the morning round and was one up, though neither played well. A local sportswriter reported: “The contest ants hit shots that cheered the hearts of duffers in the gallery.” On the 18th both players had double–bogey sixes.
With the match tied as they moved to the 36th and final hole, Palmer played possibly the most important hole of golf in his life to that point. Meister split the 18th fairway with his tee shot, then knocked a 5–iron eight feet from the pin. Palmer found the rough with his drive and flew his second into a low area behind the 18th green. He was faced with a near impossible pitch – up and onto a green that sloped severely away from him. With little green to work with he had to dig the ball out of a grassy lie, then have it slam on the brakes. Meanwhile, Meister was up on top contemplating a makeable birdie putt. Palmer lofted a wedge that landed gently at the top of the slope and then crawled down the putting surface, stopping four feet above the hole.
“I doubt that Arnold ever hit a more miraculous shot,” Mark McCormack wrote many years later. A monument is placed on the spot where the ball lay buried in deep grass behind the 18th green in 1954.
“That was the shot of the tournament for me,” said Palmer. Meister missed his birdie attempt, but his par was conceded. Now Palmer faced a slick side–hiller to get himself into overtime. He deliberated long and hard over the putt. “If I missed it, being short would have not done me any good,” Palmer says. “It was a crucial putt needless to say. My best recollection that it was a straight–in putt, straight in the hole and that is what happened.”
On the 37th Meister rimmed a five–footer for the win. He missed another winner on the 38th. In fact he missed four times in a row on putts of 10, eight, five and 16 feet – any one of which would have closed out the kid.
On the 39th hole of the match, Palmer smacked a 300–yard drive on the 510–yard par–five 3rd hole. He then sent off a low, screaming 3–iron that stopped 30 feet from the hole and two–putted for birdie and victory, ending the longest semi–final in U.S. Amateur history.
Meanwhile, Sweeny, a 43–year–old investment banker from Sands Point, New York, was breezing through his bracket, defeating Dr. Ted Lenczyk 5&4 in the semi–final.
The lanky, 6ft 3in Sweeny was a gold coast golfer with a Rolls–Royce swing. He was born in California, but divided his time between Palm Beach, Long Island and Europe. Sweeny was a man of his times – a golfing aristocrat. He went to Oxford and won the British Amateur in 1937. During World War II, Sweeny and his brother Charlie helped organize the Eagle Squadron, a group of American pilots who fought for the Royal Air Force.
Sweeny was a bomber pilot and squadron commander, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He came out of the RAF and reached the finals of the British Amateur again in 1946. Palmer once said: ”We hailed from different galaxies.”
Palmer had led for all but 11 holes of his first seven matches, but against Sweeny he didn’t take the lead until the 32nd hole.
Sweeny was off to a flying start. He sank a 35–footer on the second green and holed putts of 20 and 25 feet on the third and fourth.
Palmer was feeling pretty low, but his spirits were lifted by his opponent as they walked off the 5th tee. Sweeny threw his arm around Palmer and said “Arnie, you KNOW I can’t keep this up.”
Palmer, who was out–driving the older man by as much as 30 yards, would soon start the charge that would make possible several other charges in the coming years.
He won the 8th, 9th and 10th holes to even the match.
Sweeny sank a 12–footer on the 11th to keep Palmer from taking the lead and on the 13th sent a twisting downhill 30–footer rattling into the cup. He had taken 29 putts in the first 18 and was two–up, shooting a 70 to the younger man’s 72.
In the afternoon, Palmer rammed home a 25–footer on the 22nd to win the hole. Sweeny squared the match on the next hole with some luck. His drive was slicing out of bounds when it struck a tree trunk and sprung back onto the fairway. From there he got down in two to win the hole and go two up again.
But by the 465–yard 27th hole Palmer had battled back. Sweeny regained the lead on the 28th, sinking a 35–footer. Palmer tied it again on the 30th and moved into the lead on the 32nd.
He extended the lead to two on the 33rd hole, a 365–yard par four dogleg left with a well–bunkered green on a plateau. Palmer drove into the right side of the fairway, hit a wedge to within seven feet and made the birdie putt.
Sweeny narrowly missed his 12–footer for birdie, his ball passing over the right side of the cup, but twisting out. Palmer was now two up with three to play. He struck a perfect drive 250 yards down the left side on the long par–four 35th, while Sweeny popped his tee shot into the right rough.
When Sweeny’s 4–wood fell into the trap short of the green, Palmer appeared to have the Amateur in hand. But Sweeny exploded out of the sand to within 12 feet and made his par putt. Arnie three–putted from 50 feet and the match went to the final hole with Palmer up by one.
First up on the 36th, Sweeny went into the thick grass on the right. It was a moment of truth for Palmer and he struck his drive 250 yards down the right side of the fairway.
The players never made it to the green. After searching fruitlessly for his ball for a few minutes, Sweeny gave up. He walked over to Palmer and said: “Congratulations, Arnold, you win.” There was some confusion at first, then a ripple of applause. Palmer waved to the gallery and Standish signaled a brass band on the clubhouse terrace to play “Hail to the Chief.”