Olde Homestead Golf Club's Blog

November 22, 1963 – the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. January 28, 1986 – the fateful day that the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean shortly after leaving the launch pad, killing all seven crew members. And most recently, of course, September 11th, 2001.

All of these dates seared into memory for eternity, moments that defined where we were, what we were doing, who we were with.

Now we can officially add another date to that infamous list: Thursday, April 8th, 2010 – the day that Tiger Woods returned to golf. ESPN has begged Augusta National to allow them to air Tiger’s first tee shot upon his return, and they’ve obliged the request. ARTICLE

(Excuse me now while I go off on a tangent….)

You know who should be rolling over in his grave? William Ben Hogan. The young kid who watched in horror as his father took his own life in front of him… the young kid who would then pick up odd and end jobs after school, selling newspapers and doing whatever he could to help his mother make ends meet, long before he would become a teenager. No, nothing in life came easy for William Ben Hogan, not one damned thing. He wasn’t privileged. There would be no Ed Sullivan shows to appear on, no sponsors knocking on his door offering under-the-table endorsement deals to his mother, even though they sure as hell could’ve used them. The only life that young William Ben Hogan knew was a life of struggle and hard work. But he never stopped working. And he never stopped trying, even when there was no logical reason to keep trying.

I recall reading an interview with Hogan several years back where he and his wife Valerie decided to exhaust all of their life savings – all $1400 – to chase Ben’s passionate dream of playing professional golf. The money quickly dwindled down to $86, and Valerie hinted to Ben that maybe it was time to move on to something else in life. Hogan said, “Valerie, we made a deal to spend $1400. We have $86 left. We’re going to Oakland.” So Hogan drove to Oakland to enter the tournament. He found the cheapest hotel he could find, and parked his car across the street. The next morning when he got up to go to the tournament, he went outside to see his car sitting on rocks – someone had stolen his wheels. Having an early tee time, Ben scrambled around but found someone to get him to the tournament. He got there with about 5 minutes to spare, and would have to tee off without as much as hitting a single practice ball. Hogan: “So I played. And I won $385, it was the biggest check I’d ever seen in my life, and I’m quite sure it would be the biggest check I’ve earned of all the checks I’ve ever seen.”

That was the break that Ben Hogan had worked his entire life for.

But as we all know, on February 2nd, 1949, when a Greyhound bus collided with Hogan’s car on a backroad in Van Horn, Texas, a life of struggle would once again emerge. Ben suffered a double-factured pelvis, a broken collarbone, a broken ankle, a fractured rib, and life-threatening blood clotting. The doctors said that he was lucky to be alive, and that he might never walk again, let alone ever play golf again.

Eleven months later, Hogan would not only walk again, but would play golf again. That summer of 1950, with legs wrapped in bandages, Hogan entered the US Open at Merion. And won.

THAT is a comeback. THAT is worth more than all of the ink that has been wasted on revealing who Tiger Woods was in his private life, and what his return to the game next week symbolizes.

Where will I be when Tiger hits that first tee shot next week? Not exactly sure, but I won’t be at home watching ESPN. That much you can take to the bank, all $86 dollars worth of it.