Golfing Disasters Part 11: The difficulty of predicting the winner of this week's US Open is emphasised by a look at some of the great players who never won the title. The typical characteristics of a US Open challenge seemed ideal for the game of Nick Faldo, who won six majors between 1987 and 1996, but in 18 attempts a play-off defeat to Curtis Strange in 1988 was the closest he came to victory.
Nick Price is another pure striker, who topped the world rankings and won three majors in the 1990s, but he never even cracked the top three at a US Open.
Four times British 0pen winner Bobby Locke was one of the few international players of his era to play anything close to full-time in the States. The South African played 59 PGA Tour events in the late 1940s and finished in the top four an astonishing 34 times but he too never won the US Open.
Strangest of all is the failure of Sam Snead to win his national title. He set the PGA record of 82 tour victories but by hook or by crook the one that almost all Americans covet most eluded him in 31 attempts, which produced a record-equalling four runner-up finishes. Many is the time you would have put your money on Snead with a fair degree of confidence and on a couple of occasions you might have had the winnings spent only to see Slammin' Sam somehow lose from a winning position.
Snead was born in 1912 and raised in the backwoods of Western Virginia. It was an unlikely upbringing for a champion golfer but Snead was a natural. Jack Nicklaus termed Snead's swing "the most fluid motion ever to grace a golf course". The golf writer Bill Fields likened it to a fine sentence: "It was long, laced with the perfect pause and blessed with a powerful ending."
Once Snead started to win tournaments it seemed a US Open success was only a matter of time. He led with a round to go in 1937 but finished second to Ralph Guldahl.
His most infamous late flop came in the 1939 Open at the Philadelphia Country Club. In those days the final 36 holes were played on the same day and the halfway leader, in this case Snead, didn't necessarily go out last. Without the benefit of up-to-date scoreboards, Snead became convinced nothing short of a birdie on the closing par-five would be good enough.
His drive found an awkward lie and he almost topped his two-wood second shot, sending the ball skidding into a bunker 110 yards short of the green.
Next he tried what he admitted was "a crazy attempt at a miracle", taking an eight-iron in a desperate attempt to get close to the pin. He only succeeded in burying the ball further under the lip, then hacked out to another bunker, found the green with his fifth and in a cloud of confusion and despair three-putted for an eight.
A five would have given him the title but instead he finished fifth, two shots behind Byron Nelson.
"That blow-up was so big that pieces of me were still coming down a week later," said Snead many years afterwards.
It was worse the following year, when he was tied for the lead with a round to go but crumbled with an 81. In 1947 Snead missed from two and half feet to lose a play-off to Lew Worsham. In 1948 he faded from the halfway lead. In 1949 he bogeyed the 71st and lost by a stroke to Cary Middlecoff.
Snead used claim "thinking instead of acting is the number one golf disease." It seems that when the US Open came around, he simply couldn't turn his brain off for long enough to let the sweetest of swings guide him home.
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