Ben's Finest Round

Even before the National Open tournament got under way last week, the nation's top golfers--and some of the best from abroad--were grousing about the rugged rough, the grainy greens and the cannily placed traps on the 6,927-yd. Oakland Hills course at Birmingham, Mich. The gripes took on added weight when Defending Champion Ben Hogan himself took a six-over-par 76 on the first round, for a dismal 19-way tie for 41st place.

But machine-like Ben Hogan was never one to let a tough course bother him for long. On the second round he cut his score to 73, moved up to 16th place (with ten others), five strokes off the leading pace set by South Africa's Bobby Locke. In the third round, Hogan's 71 gained three more strokes on Locke, then in a tie for the lead with Jimmy Demaret. Going into the final round, Hogan teed off early, wound up by giving the others something to shoot at: a spectacular 67, the first par-busting score of the tournament. Under the pressure of Hogan's blazing finish, Locke misfired to take a 73, finished third (behind Clayton Heafner); Demaret blew himself to a sky-high 78, finished in a tie for 14th.

It was Ben Hogan's third Open title in four years.* Almost in tears when a gallery of 10,000 broke into wild cheers as he sank his final 12-foot putt, Hogan relaxed into a victory grin and resorted to superlatives for one of the few times in his career: "The toughest course . . . and the finest round I have ever played."

* The year he missed: 1949, when he was recuperating from the car crash that nearly took his life. Hogan still has one Open to go; Bobby Jones won it four times.

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