Spell of Francis Ouimet hangs over US Open’s return to Brookline
The major championship is back for only the third time at the course where an amateur golfer who lived over the road scored an epic win that drove golf’s popularity in America.
It is a simple black-and-white photo that is embedded in the American sporting consciousness as firmly as images of Babe Ruth slugging balls over the infield at Yankee Stadium or Jesse Owens bursting out of the blocks at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The photograph is of 20-year-old amateur golfer Francis Ouimet walking down the fairway at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, during the 1913 US Open, when he went head-to-head against famous British golfers Harry Vardon and Ted Ray.
