’53
#3 THE WEE ICE MAN
AT CARNOUSTIE
BY MIKE PURKEY
PERHAPS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART
was the decision to enter the Open Championship in the first place. Ben Hogan
was asked whether he would compete in
the 1953 Open from the time he won that
year’s Masters in April.
“I have no plans to travel to England,”
he told reporters at Augusta, either not
knowing that the Open was to be played
at Carnoustie in Scotland or simply just
ignoring the fact. However, no less than
Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen urged
Hogan to play the Open, nothing less than
for the good of the game.
A true champion, they surmised,
couldn’t end his career without a victory
in the Open Championship. Even Hogan’s
wife, Valerie, did her best to persuade her
husband to play the major championship
that he had never even attempted.
