Flashback: Aussie comes out on top in “Lee vs Lee” 2012 Girls’ Junior Championship final

In honor of Aussie Minjee Lee gritting out a tough win this weekend at the KMPG Women’s PGA Championship – joining fellow Australian women Jan Stephenson and Karrie Webb as a three-time major winner – I would like to revisit my story (for a former outlet) of her record-setting 2012 USGA U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship win at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City:

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Given the number of girls in the ranks of girls’ and women’s golf who are either Asian-born or of Asian ancestry, it was almost inevitable that this would happen – Lee facing Lee for the USGA’s U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship. It is a tribute to the truly international flavor of girls’ and women’s golf, however, that the two young ladies who faced off over 36 holes of match play golf today at Lake Merced Golf Club, though sharing Korean ancestry, hail from countries on different continents, in different hemispheres, on opposite sides of the largest body of water on the planet, and are from cities that are 9300 miles apart.

Minjee Lee, 16, of Perth, Australia, raises the Glenna Collett Vare Trophy after winning the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Lake Merced Golf Club. She is the first Australian to take the title.
(Photo Credit: J. Mummert – USGA)

Alison Lee, 17, is a Southern California girl from Valencia, CA, in the Santa Clarita Valley; Minjee Lee is a 16-year-old Aussie from Perth, Western Australia. Despite the geographical distance between their home cities, on the golf course at the final of the Girls’ Junior Championship the competition between the two was as close as close can be.

Starting the morning round under a blue sky, rather than the usual marine-layer overcast that had greeted early rounds all week, Alison took a 1-up lead right out of the gate with a birdie 3 at the opening hole. They halved the next two holes, then Minjee squared it up with a par to Alison’s bogey at the fourth. Another string of three halved holes followed before Minjee went one up at the par-3 eighth hole.

Using a forward tee box, #8 was playing about 133 yards to a flag tucked back right and guarded by a bunker. Both girls went for the flag and were in good position in the back lobe of the green where the hole was cut, but Minjee was closer, and made her birdie putt to go 1-up.

Halving #9 with pars, they made the turn with Minjee 1-up, and stayed that way with a halved hole at #10. The young Aussie won another hole at #11, with a birdie to Alison’s bogey, then another string of three halved holes came and went before the next change in score, this time in Alison’s favor, when she parred the long par-3 fifteenth as Alison bogeyed. Halving the last three holes, they went to the lunch break with Minjee one up over Alison.

While the players, officials, and spectators broke for lunch, the grounds crew went out to make a few changes to the course setup for the afternoon round. No hole locations were changed, but the tee markers were moved to different locations on holes 2, 3, 8, and 12.

The second round opened with another string of halved holes, but the Alison made a clutch 25-foot putt on the 137-yard par-3 third to keep from going to 2-down.

Alison made up ground on her opponent at the par-4 fifth hole, making a clean approach from the right fringe and two-putting for par, while Minjee pulled her approach into a left-hand bunker, got out cleanly but missed the par putt

The match remained all square through the next two holes, then at #8, the par-3 where Minjee had made her move to go up in the match in the morning round, Alison made a move. Stretched to 168 yards for the day’s second 18 by the move to a different tee box, the hole played the reverse of the morning round – Alison birdied, Minjee made par, and now Alison was 1-up on the round

At the long par-5 ninth hole Alison got to the front fringe in two, while Minjee’s second shot, a low stinger, bounded and ran across the green and into the rough just off the back side. Alison’s chip to the back left flag ran 20 feet past, but she made the putt for her second birdie in a row, while Minjee chipped on and two-putted for par. Alison was now two up.

The first two holes of the final nine were halved in par, then Alison went to 3-up when Minjee’s tee shot at the 168-yard twelfth hole hit short and rolled down the hill below the green. The Aussie chipped on to about eight feet below the hole, then two-putted for a bogey four, while Alison made a clean two-putt for a par.

With a 3-up lead in hand Alison was feeling good as the match came to the 66th hole, the par-4 thirteenth. Both girls striped their drives to the bottom of the drop-off fronting the green – but here is where the match started to slip away from Alison.

After a good drive to the low approach area below the green, Alison chunked a 50° wedge into the right greenside bunker. She splashed out cleanly, but missed the fairly simple 4-foot downhill par putt she was left with. Minjee flew her approach shot to the green for a 20-foot uphill birdie putt. She left it short, but rolled in the par putt– and on the heels of Alison’s mini-meltdown, picked up a shot and was only two down.

Alison’s errors compounded at the par-4 fourteenth hole when she pushed her drive into a right-hand fairway bunker and pulled a fairway wood seeking to get out of the bunker and onto the green. She topped the ball, which ricocheted off of the low shoulder in front of the bunker, killing its momentum so that it rolled out no more than forty yards down the fairway. Her medium-iron approach ran well past the hole, and with two putts, she put up a five to Minjee’s four, and gave back a hole – she was now two up with four to play.

With two bad holes behind her, Alison was feeling the pressure, and must have sensed the match starting to slip away from her. She pulled her tee shot at the long par-3 fifteenth into one of the deep bunkers left of the green, then rocketed her sand shot 20 feet past the hole, two-putted for a bogey against Minjee’s routine on-in-one, two-putt par, and squared the match.

At the par-4 sixteenth, Alison’s drove about 220 yards to the right-center on the fairway, with Minjee in equally good position just a few yards behind. Flying her approach to a spot 25 feet above the front-left hole location, Alison missed a curling downhill putt for birdie, slid the par putt past by a hair and dunked her third putt for bogey. Minjee’s approach had left her with a more straightforward uphill 5-footer, and she two putted for an easy par to go 1-up, taking the lead in the match for the first time since the 21st hole.

The pair halved seventeen in a heartbreaker. Alison got on in two from the right side of the fairway, but her 8-foot downhill birdie putt hung on the lip of the hole, but wouldn’t drop – she made par. Minjee had left her approach from the right rough in the rough below and right of the front entrance to the green. With a little popped-up flop shot, she had four feet for par – made it, and went one up with one to play – dormie.

On the dramatic par-5 closing hole, both girls made good drives, then pulled their second shots into similarly tough situations on the left side of the fairway, below a pine tree that blocked the approach to the green. Alison ran a well-judged bump-and-run shot up to a position on the green few feet below the front-left flag; Minjee was in the rough and totally blocked by the tree from a direct line to the flag – she ran her approach low and right to a position on the apron below the green. She flopped it onto the green from there, leaving herself 4 feet for par.

From her spot on the collar of the green, Alison had one chance to ensure an extension of the match – make a 6-foot birdie putt. It wasn’t to be, however – the putt slid by the hole by a narrow margin, and after Minjee made her par putt, she was the victor at +1.

The win at Lake Merced makes Minjee Lee the first Australian girl to get her name on the Glenna Collett Vare Trophy; Alison Lee, who has now played in her last (of six) Girl’s Junior, will never see her name there. The Valley Girl from Valencia has one more year of high school golf ahead of her, then she will join the ever-strong UCLA women’s golf squad, where she will undoubtedly make a fine addition to the team.

Three share the lead after first round of LPGA Mediheal Championship at Lake Merced GC

The former GM of Lake Merced Golf Club, Donna Lowe, used to remind me to dress in layers when she knew I was coming up from the South Bay for a tournament or a media event at the club. This is tribal knowledge to a native of the Bay Area, a given when visiting San Francisco, and it is especially true in the area around Lake Merced—golf’s golden circle in San Francisco, home to Lake Merced Golf Club, the Olympic Club, TPC Harding Park, and San Francisco Golf Club. I like to tell people that I have experienced three seasons in a day on a summer’s day here, and none of them was summer.

That being said, Thursday at the LPGA Mediheal Championship was the kind of day that almost justifies the area’s sky-high property values: clear blue sky, light breezes, and temperatures that had me leaving my jacket in the media center. Lake Merced is a joy to walk on a day like today was. A tree-pruning program undertaken in recent years has left the course with fairways that are well-defined by lines of weathered and wind-knotted cypress and pines, while at the same time leaving an open, airy feel with great visibility from hole to hole, and open, sunlit greens.

Thursday was a day when many of the bigger names were lying low, with two-time major winner So Yeon Ryu (2011 U.S. Women’s Open, 2017 ANA Inspiration) being the most recognizable name in the Top Ten through the morning rounds.

Catching early-round leaders can be difficult at Lake Merced. The ubiquitous afternoon breeze is a chilly onshore waft that turns approach shots on east-facing holes into knuckleballs, and knocks down west-running shots short of the green, making a come-from-behind effort a tough proposition.

Of course, tough does not mean impossible, as was demonstrated by the Netherland’s Anne Van Dam, who overcame two bogeys in the first four holes to turn in two-under 34 after birdies at holes 5 and 9, and an eagle at the par-4 eighth hole. She continued her run on the second nine with a birdie on the 14th hole, and closing back-to-back birdies on 17 and 18 for a five-under 67 and a share of the lead. This is the Dutch player’s first lead after any round in an LPGA Tour event.

While the top of the leaderboard was lacking in the more-familiar names, it did display the international flavor that characterizes the LPGA Tour, with nine countries represented among the top twelve players.

Among players with a Northern California connection, former Stanford Women’s Golf standout Mariah Stackhouse posted an even-par 72 and sits at T-23 after the first round. Monterey’s Mina Harigae carded a three-over 75 for T-88. Pleasanton’s Paula Creamer closed with a bogey six, after pulling her tee shot into tree trouble on #18 and rifling a low-running second shot over the back side of the green, for a four-over 76, and San Jose native Christina Kim, whose record for becoming the youngest player to reach $1 million in earnings (in 2004) was broken by Paula Creamer the following year, had a rough day on the course, carding eight-over 80.

The weather forecast for tomorrow’s second round is for continued sunny, and slightly warmer temperatures—another great day for golf.

San Jose’s Shintaro Ban clinches U.S. Open berth

June 4 is not yet the longest day of 2018 in astronomical terms, but in the world of golf it is. “Golf’s Longest Day” – the day when 36-hole sectional qualifying tournaments for the USGA’s premier golf championship event, the United States Open, are held in ten U.S. locations and two more overseas.

Shintaro Ban, of San Jose, steps in to retrieve his ball after making an eagle on the par-five 18th hole at Lake Merced Golf Club in the June 4, 2018 U.S. Open sectional qualifying tournament. The two-foot putt clinched his spot in the field for the 118th United States Open, next week at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, on Long Island. (photo by author)

It falls on the same day every year – the Monday two weeks before Fathers Day – because the week of Fathers Day is traditionally the week of the U.S. Open. These sectional qualifiers are, with few exceptions, the final chance for golfers across the country and the world to earn a berth in the toughest, and arguably the most important, tournament in the game of golf.

The California venue for this final hurdle before the main event alternates between Northern California and Southern California venues, and in 2018, as in other even-numbered years, the event was held in the Bay Area, at the conveniently adjacent courses at Lake Merced Golf Club and across the lake, at the Olympic Club, on their Ocean Course.

Eighty-six players vied for six spots in the field in the 2018 U.S. Open, which is returning to the storied Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, on New York’s Long Island, for the first time since 2004. The field was split between Lake Merced’s par-72 layout, recently the venue for a new LPGA event, the LPGA Mediheal Championship, and the Olympic Club’s par-71 Ocean Course, sister course to the renowned Lake Course, itself a five-time U.S. Open venue. Going off in the morning starting at 7:00 a.m., the players completed 18-hole rounds on one course before taking a lunch break and moving to the other venue to compete another 18-hole round of golf – it’s easy to see why it’s called “The Longest Day in Golf”, right?

At the end of the day, an Arizona State college golfer, rising junior Chun An Yu, of Chinese Taipei, took medalist honors. Yu laid a crisp 6-under 65 on the Olympic Club’s Ocean Course, carding seven birdies and a lone bogey in the morning round. Taking on the Lake Merced course in breezy conditions in the afternoon round, Yu again had a lone bogey against three birdies for a two-under 70, for a total of eight-under 135.

A South Bay golfer makes the grade

San Jose’s Shintaro Ban, a well-known name to South Bay golfers, came in one stroke behind Chun An Yu, posting a seven-under 136.

Ban, a 2014 graduate of Archbishop Mitty High School in San José, also played Olympic in the morning and Lake Merced in the afternoon, knocking down four birdies and an eagle, on the par-4 sixth hole, against two bogeys for a four-under 67 in the morning round.

The eagle came as a surprise to Ban, “(I) had a hundred yards in. There were a couple of people up there, but they didn’t react and I’m like, ‘Aw, it must be close’, and  I walk up and they’re like, ‘Oh, it went in.’ ”

Ban carded another eagle in the afternoon round at Lake Merced, but it didn’t come without some troubles beforehand. “I struggled to make birdies on the front (nine) par-fives, and I really needed to take advantage of the back nine.” The 2018 UNLV grad put himself in a hole briefly in his afternoon round when a pushed drive on the 5th hole, a downhill, left-bending 399-yard par-four, landed him in a gully between the fourth and fifth fairways. His second shot, out of the gully, hit a tree, resulting in a total of four shots to reach the green, and a two-putt double-bogey. A birdie on the par-3 eighth brought him back to even par for the front nine.

Three birdies and two bogeys through seven holes on the back nine had Ban back under par for the afternoon and within range of advancement to the big show – the United States Open – next week on Long Island, but it was his performance on the final hole of the tournament that closed the deal.

The 18th hole at Lake Merced is a scenic, but problematic, par-five. It’s not the hardest hole on the course, but it is the longest, and it is distinguished by a generous helping of elevation change, dropping over 25 feet down to the lowest point in the fairway from the elevated tee box, and climbing more than double that back up to the putting green. With more than 200 yards to the flag after his drive, Ban had to take into account a climb of about 42 feet from his position in the fairway to the the left-front hole position.

“I didn’t expect to hit it to two feet.”

Lake Merced’s number 18 is a tough reach in two, so it was quite an accomplishment for Ban to place his second shot, a 5-iron from 215 yards, to within two feet of the hole. Ban’s approach shot went inside the excellent approach of playing partner Tim Widing, a USF Don who is originally from Sweden, who laid his second shot to about four feet.

Widing missed his eagle putt, a crucial error which led to him missing out on an opportunity to go to Shinnecock – at least directly. His five-under finish tied him with Edward Olson, of Aptos, California, and the two became the 1st and 2nd alternates from this event.

Ban took due care with the short but crucial putt, dropping it into the heart of the hole to close out his day at 7-under and ensure himself of a place  in the field for the 118th U. S Open.

There was a lot riding on those two eagle putts on #18. If Widing’s had dropped and Ban’s hadn’t, there would have been a five-for-four playoff, with Ban, Widing, and eventual T-3 finishers Rhett Rasmussen, of Draper, Utah; Franklin Huang, of Poway, California; and Sung Joon Park, of Irvine, California, returning to the 10th hole to battle it out for the four qualifying spots behind Chun An Yu.

Next year the U.S. Open will return to Pebble Beach Golf Links for the sixth time, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the opening of the world-famous seaside course.

Lydia Ko seals the deal as LPGA returns to the Bay Area

Bay Area golf fans have always enjoyed an abundance of opportunities to see high-level competitive golf. The PGA Tour visits twice a year, for the season-opening Safeway Open in October, and the venerable AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February. The Champions Tour comes to Pebble Beach in September for the First Tee Open (now sponsored by PURE Insurance), the USGA visits fairly regularly for various championship events, and the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA) holds their championship events around the area every year.

Lydia Ko, winner of the inaugural LPGA Mediheal Championship, accepts the trophy from Mediheal Chairman, Oh-sub Kwon. This was Ko’s third win in four LPGA tournaments at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City. (photo by author)

What has been missing too often in recent years has been the consistent presence of professional women’s golf. From 1996 to 2010 a tournament known as the Twelve Bridges LPGA Classic, and later as the Longs Drugs Challenge and the CVS Pharmacy/LPGA Challenge was held on Sacramento–area courses before moving to Blackhawk Country Club in the East Bay for its last five years. After CVS dropped its sponsorship in 2010, Northern California entered a drought period—until 2014, when the Taiwanese golf association known as “Swinging Skirts” brought an LPGA tournament to Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City.

The new event was well received by players and fans alike during its three-year run, but the Taiwanese group pulled their support after the 2016 event, leaving Bay Area LPGA fans in the lurch again.

Fast-forward to late 2017, and the announcement of a new LPGA tournament, again at Lake Merced Golf Club—sponsor unknown—then, in March 2018, the official LPGA press release gave the name of the sponsor for the event, Mediheal, a South Korean maker of cosmetic facial mask products.

The players love coming back to the San Francisco Bay Area, and the fans love to see them. Often touted as a U.S. Open-quality course, Lake Merced Golf Club (which was considered for an Open in the past, but rejected for lack of room for infrastructure support) is a favorite among LPGA players, though acknowledged to be a tough layout. Hilly, with mostly small, diabolically contoured greens, LMGC also challenges with the changeable Peninsula weather.

Same course, new order

One change from the LPGA’s previous visits to Lake Merced is in the course’s order of play. I was told that the new sponsor wanted a new look to help differentiate the event from the Swinging Skirts event which was held here 2014-2016, also that television coverage was a factor. While the normal order of play yields a visually dramatic finish—the course’s 532-yard par-five 18th hole plays down to a valley from an elevated tee, then up to a two-tiered green overlooked by the clubhouse, but is a no-kidding three-shotter even for elite-level men—the new routing provides more potential for a dramatic finish.

The final trio of holes are, in order: a dramatic downhill 417-yard par-4, followed by a challenging par-3 that can play as long as 184 yards, and closing with a 518-yard par-5 that has the potential to be a two-shotter even for the mid–range drivers in the LPGA’s ranks. The 15th hole is a par–5 that is reachable for most of this field, adding another potential shot of drama to the closing holes.

The new event saw a pair of players separate themselves from the pack on Saturday, when Lydia Ko and Jessica Korda came in at –11 and –10, respectively, with Minjee Lee at –8, and a smattering of players at –6 coming up behind. Ko made an impressive move in the third round, posting a 5-under 67 to pass Korda for the 54-hole lead.

Players battle bright but breezy weather

Chilly, breezy conditions for the morning wave prevented any strong moves by the back-markers on Sunday—though it would have taken quite a jump to spring into contention from the even-par-or-worse territory inhabited by first 19 groups.

The second half of the field teed off under a blue sky scoured free of clouds by a brisk onshore breeze, and the final pairing of Ko and Korda immediately came back to the field by one, each dropping a shot on the par-4 first hole.

The final round turned into a horse race on the back nine as Minjee Lee, the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion on this course, was in red numbers for the round while Ko and Korda dropped shots and opened the door for their pursuers. Angel Yin posted a 5-under 67 to move to 8-under, moving up 11 spots to T-3, but ran out of holes before she could truly threaten for the lead.

Jessica Korda faded in the middle of the back nine, a cold putter resulting in bogeys at 10 and 12 and a drop to –8. A birdie at 15 moved her to –9, and put her in solo 3rd with three to play, behind Ko at –11 and Lee at –10. She failed to capitalize on a read from Ko’s putt at 16, missing high, and also missing a chance to pull  into a tie for 2nd with Minjee Lee.

Lee, in the meantime, hit her second poor iron shot in two holes when her 8-iron off the tee at the par-three 17th strayed right and and found the bunker, but she was redeemed by a chip-in for birdie – and was now tied for 1st with her antipodean rival, Ko.

New Routing Pays Off

The closing holes of the tournament highlighted the wisdom of the decision to swap the nines. Though less visually arresting than the usual 18th hole, with no clubhouse backdrop, and noise from the nearby freeway and BART intruding, the new closing hole left the door open for a dramatic finish that would not have been possible with the original routing.

Lee birdied the final hole to take the lead at -12, throwing down a gauntlet for Ko. Not to be outdone, the two-time champion at Lake Merced answered with a birdie of her own, setting up a playoff between two former winners on this challenging, windswept course.

Ko’s tee shot on the playoff hole showed her savvy and course knowledge. Laying her tee shot near the right side of the fairway, short of Lee’s drive but better placed, Ko laced a 234-yard 3-wood to within three feet of the front-right flag, throwing down a gauntlet of her own. Lee’s second shot finished in the rough short and right of the green—in almost identical position to her second shot on 18 in regulation—leaving her facing a chip-in from 20 yards to prolong the contest, but it wasn’t to be.

Lee’s penultimate shot rolled past, leaving an easy comebacker for birdie—but her opponent had a near kick-in for eagle, and the win.

It was almost anticlimactic. The newly minted 21-year-old took her time, stroked the putt – and sealed the deal for her third win in four LPGA tournaments at Lake Merced Golf Club.

“It’s a huge relief (to win after 43 winless starts), because people are saying ‘You’re not winning because of this, you’re not winning because of that,’ ” Ko said, “It was nice to be in the final group again, to be in the position to win again.”

An Evening with a Champion – 1966 U.S. Open Winner Billy Casper at Lake Merced Golf Club

The Lake Course at San Francisco’s Olympic Club has gained a reputation for producing come-from-behind winners whenever it hosts the U.S. Open golf tournament. The first time that the Olympic Club hosted the Open, in 1955, an unheralded municipal course pro from Iowa named Jack Fleck overtook the great Ben Hogan to tie in regulation play, and then defeated Hogan in a playoff the next day. In 1966, Arnold Palmer had a seven-stroke lead over Billy Casper going into the final round. Overly-complacent with such a large lead in hand with nine holes to play, Palmer had pressed too hard on Olympic’s back nine in pursuit of Ben Hogan’s U.S. Open scoring record. Casper made birdies while Palmer made bogies, and once again a leader was overtaken to force a playoff, and the come-from-behind player won. In this instance it was less of an upset than the Fleck vs. Hogan battle eleven years earlier – Casper had twenty-nine wins to his credit at that point, including the 1959 U.S. Open.

The U.S. Open returned to the storied environs of the Olympic Club this year, for the fifth time, and these past champions returned to the Bay Area to revisit the scene of their long-ago triumphs, and to be fêted by appreciative golf enthusiasts. On the evening of Wednesday, June 13th, the night before the opening rounds of the 112th U.S. Open were to begin, one of these great champions from the past shared his recollections of those events with a roomful of golf fans – Billy Casper joined a group of the members of Lake Merced Golf Club for an evening of conversation and recollection, not only about those five eventful days in 1966 at the Olympic Club, but his entire career. I was privileged to be among Mr Casper’s audience that evening, as a guest of Lake Merced’s general manager, Donna Lowe. It was a wonderful evening with a great past champion of our game, and a fitting prelude to the competition that was to begin the following morning, less than a mile away, at the Olympic Club.

Billy Casper, 1966 United States Open champion, spoke to an attentive group at Lake Merced Golf Club on the evening of Wednesday, June 13th, 2012 – the night before the start of the 2012 United States Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, the site of his Open victory 46 years before. Photo credit: Sarah Reid/LMGC

As reflected in the title of his recent autobiography, The Big Three and Me, Casper languished somewhat in the shadow of the three most recognizable players of the late 1960s – Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, and Jack Nicklaus. This is quite amazing given their respective records: in the period from 1964 to 1970, Casper won 27 times on Tour to Nicklaus’ 25, and Palmer and Player’s combined 21. Casper’s victories in that six-year span included the 1966 U.S. Open, of course, and the 1970 Masters, both wins coming in playoffs. Casper acquired a reputation as something of an eccentric at the time – for instance, it was well known that he included exotic game meats such as buffalo, bear and elk in his diet; what was not so well known was that his eccentric diet came as a result of doctor’s orders to rotate different types of protein because of food allergies.

The Big Three and Me, the new autobiography of Billy Casper.

His audience learned this and much more as Mr Casper spoke that evening, sitting in the handsome dining room of the Lake Merced Golf Club’s clubhouse with the evening sun playing shadows across the 18th hole just over his shoulder. Introduced by his long-time friend, retired attorney James Parkinson (Mr Parkinson assisted Mr Casper in the production of his book), who acted as MC and prompter, Casper offered a retrospective of his life and career, with an emphasis on the events of that same week, 46 years earlier, when the U.S. Open came to the Olympic Club for the second time.

With a level of recall that is quite remarkable in a man 80 years of age, Casper related the events of that midsummer weekend nearly a half-century ago to a rapt audience. Palmer and Casper had come to the last nine holes on Sunday with Palmer in command of a 7-shot lead over Casper, and Jack Nicklaus another two shots back. As they made their way to the 10th tee, Palmer heard Casper say, “I’m going to have to play like hell just to finish second.” and responded “I’ll do everything I can to help you.” That somewhat cocky response from Palmer stiffened Casper’s resolve, and while Palmer turned his attention toward the larger goal of breaking the Hogan scoring record, and away from his fellow competitor and victory in the tournament at hand, Casper determined to do his best to do better than to “just finish second.”

With a nearly stroke-by-stroke recollection of their play over the last nine holes of Olympic’s Lake Course, Mr Casper related to the audience Palmer’s fall, and his own rise, over the closing holes of regulation play: Palmer’s duckhook into the rough at 10 for a bogey to Casper’s par, paring his lead to six; their matching pars and birdies at the 11th and 12th holes, respectively; another pull to the left by Palmer at the par-3 13th to Casper’s par – cutting Palmer’s lead to five with five holes to play. After matching pars at 14, the 15th hole changed things up – Casper was safely on in one, facing a breaking 20-foot putt for birdie, but Palmer’s over-confident try for the flag bounced off the firm, fast putting surface into the back rough. Casper rolled in his birdie putt and Palmer made bogey – a two-shot swing, and Palmer’s lead was now three, with three holes to play.

Now they came to the 16th hole, a big sweeping left-hander of a par-5 which was playing at 604 yards that day. The sixteenth hole had been a subject of conversation leading up to the beginning of play at the 2012 Open, due to a new tee box which stretched the length of the hole to a record-setting 670 yards. Though no one could have known it on that Wednesday evening before the tournament, the 16th hole was to play a part in the final result of the 2012 tournament that was similar to the part it had played in 1966.

Just as Jim Furyk was to do the Sunday following this evening’s talk, Palmer’s tee shot in 1966 went hard left off the tee. While Furyk’s tee shot ended up in the left-hand trees from a shortened tee – only 562 yards that day – Palmer’s drive from 604 ended up in the thick rough left of the fairway. He had tried for a long drawing tee shot that would get him close enough for a chance to get on in two, but he had tried too hard, and pulled it left. After two slashes at the ball with an iron, Palmer was out. His spoon (3-wood) from the fairway ended up in a greenside bunker, but he salvaged a bogey six with a blast out of the bunker and a 4-foot putt – “…the greatest six I ever made,” he called it later.

As good as Palmer’s save at 16 was, Casper had made a birdie with a conservative drive to the fairway, an advance to within a pitch-shot of the green with a spoon, and a wedge to fifteen feet. He rolled in the 15-footer for birdie and another two-shot swing – Palmer’s lead was down to a single stroke.

Stories of his life and career came easily to mind for Mr Casper – with only a little prompting from his long-time friend, and co-producer of his book, James Parkinson (seated). Photo credit: Sarah Reid/LMGC

Mr Casper recounted these events as if they had happened last week instead of nearly a half-century ago, and his audience of Lake Merced club members and guests hung on every word. He recalled how Palmer missed a seven-foot putt for par on the 17th hole, tying the tournament, and how, after matching pars at the amphitheater-like finishing hole, they finished in a dead-heat 278 after 72 holes of regulation play. The seven-stroke slide over the last nine holes seemed to have taken the wind out of Palmer’s sails, though, and Casper rolled up the victory in the 18-hole playoff the following day, carding a 1-under 69 to Palmer’s 3-over score of 73.

Two U.S. Opens at the Olympic Club, eleven years apart, two come-from-behind victories – and those of us in the audience at Lake Merced Golf Club that evening were lucky enough to hear the story of the second directly from the victor, Billy Casper. Mr Casper took a couple of questions from the audience before wrapping things up (asked if he still played as well as he used to, he said “I hit it so short now, I can hear my ball land.”), and then the evening was over – much too soon. He signed souvenir pin flags and copies of his book for audience members before leaving – mementoes of a memorable evening with a great champion.