Woody Hayes, lieutenant commander in World War II, legendary Ohio State football coach and ... golf blogger? That's right. Hayes covered the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills when an amateur by the name of Jack Nicklaus lost by two to a man by the name of Arnold Palmer after Palmer shot an outrageous final round of 65 in Colorado.
An Ohio native and Ohio State alum, Nicklaus told the story last week at the Memorial Tournament.
"[Hayes] came to Cherry Hills in 1960 because [journalist Kay Kessler] and Paul Hornung were not sent out by your newspaper," said Nicklaus. "So he said, 'What do you mean, they're back in Columbus, they've got the U.S. Amateur champion playing in the National, and they don't send out a newspaper guy to cover what's going on out here?' So he stayed and sent back a story every day, right?"
Kessler responding: "He did."
"So anyway, he goes, and he's following me there, and comes up to Oakland Hills the next year and follows me, and I finished second. And then I finished fourth the next year. And he comes to Oakmont, and he came there as a fan because ... they were covering those. The paper felt that 200 miles wasn't too far."
Crazy, right? Thinking about Hayes grinding over a subject-verb agreement in his piece on Nicklaus potentially winning the U.S. Open as an amateur? What a world.
Nicklaus said Hayes (and this is much easier to believe) got so angry at the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont, which Nicklaus won over Palmer in a playoff near Palmer's hometown, that Nicklaus' father had to restrain him from going after some fans.
"I didn't know about that until a time later," said Nicklaus. "But Woody was a little outspoken, as you might know. He was a big fan. And I want to tell you one thing, if Woody liked you and supported you, you'd better not be saying something against who he's supporting. That was Woody. He was something else."
Wink of the CBS eye to ESPN
