Without fail, the next few days will bring a litany of complaints from professional golfers who will tell us the rough is too high and unfairly lush. Unless they are focused on the greens, which have too much speed, or the par-3 eighth hole, which at 289 to 301 yards is too long.
It is the week of a U.S. Open at Oakmont and the grousing and growling of the setup will lead to countless descriptions from players about “hard” and “grueling” and perhaps “excruciating” conditions. All the time, of course, left unsaid is the fact said players are blessed to be playing for obscene gobs of money – a purse of $21.4m a year ago, $4.3m to the winner.
It's all so much noise, of course, which is why it was a delight to discover a brilliant antidote: There’s a special group that annually salutes a U.S. Open champion who faced “hard” and “grueling” and “excruciating” challenges like nothing this year’s field at Oakmont will encounter.
Bravo their desire is to keep the memory of Ken Venturi’s 1964 win at Congressional CC in Bethesda, Md., very much alive.
“If you forget your past, what are you?” asked Ed Love, a longtime member at Congressional. “History is important.”
History when it is rich and layered in human drama needs to be handled properly, which is where Love and his friends from Congressional CC enter the picture. In advance of a U.S. Open at Congressional in 2011, Venturi was invited to speak and oh, the stories he weaved. There were the priceless highlights – from a third-round front-nine scorecard of 3-3-4-3-3-4-3-3-4 for 30 to tie what was then a U.S. Open record for nine holes, to discovering he had so many fans rooting for his success.
“Maybe I had Arnie’s outcasts,” Venturi had laughed to reporters 61 years ago, alluding to Palmer, who played right ahead of him for those final 36 holes on Saturday. “For a long time all I thought I had was Venturi’s Vultures.”
But the focal point to Venturi’s 1964 triumph will forever be the excessive heat in the area – reported to be over 100 degrees for the final day of competition – and how a physician who was on hand feared for Venturi’s health.
He played on, of course, and it is the stuff of legends how Venturi, then 33, managed to come from six off Tommy Jacobs’ lead through 36 holes and shoot 66-70 – 136 over the closing 36 holes in extreme heat Saturday, June 20, 1964 to finish at 2-under and win by four.
It's also the stuff of legends how the physician, Dr. John Everett, walked the afternoon’s fourth round to make sure Venturi took his salt tablets to combat dehydration.
“Ken Venturi frankly put Congressional on the map,” said Love, who along with clubmates Bob Murphy, Paris Fisher, Bubby Rogers and others, were overwhelmed with Venturi’s conversations that night in 2011. In ensuing years, they frequently reminisced about Venturi’s impact on the club until in 2015 when they decided to give birth to the Venturi Society.
This wasn’t going to be “a beer-fest thing,” chuckled Love. “We wanted it to be a little more sophisticated.”
They hit their mark.
The Venturi Society holds the 1964 U.S. Open champion in deep reverence and their tribute, which is held each June 20th, speaks to that respect. The men wear tuxedos, the women fashionable attire, and the group walks down the 18th fairway where they stop and have a champagne toast in memory of the great champion whose determination in dire circumstances shined through and whose dignity graced the game until his death at 82 in 2013.
Four days after Ken Venturi's '64 U.S. Open victory, he received this congratulatory letter from Bobby Jones, the legend behind the Masters. Calling Venturi's tournament "magnificent in every respect," Jones went on to recall how Venturi had rebounded from the heartache of the 1956 Masters by winning in California several months later. We suspect Jones was referring to Venturi's second California State Amateur triumph. This letter is on display inside the clubhouse at Congressional.
Beyond the walk and the champagne, the group annually adds other small tributes to the day. Venturi hit a 6-iron into the front right bunker on his 72nd hole, then splashed his third to 10 feet and made the putt to win in style.
As part of their commemoration, the group uses that same 6-iron from 1964 to hit shots into the 18th and then roll the 10-footer that Venturi famously made.
Matt Venturi, Ken’s son, has come three or four times and watching him take swings with his father’s 6-iron leaves Venturi Society members with warmth in their hearts.
It is a small affair, nothing elegant, but the Venturi Society speaks to the passion that so many of us have for the game and its history. “Congressional is a big, big club,” said Love. “Part of the reason we have the (Venturi) Society is to try and make the club a littler smaller.”
“It’s a nice experience for all of us.”
It’s also a beautiful reminder that great golfers did great things decades ago, even if there are a few generations of fans who date the game’s starting point to when ShotLink came on line or when Social Media discovered golf.
To pay homage to Venturi is so deserving because his connections to game are plentiful – a brilliant amateur, a 14-time PGA Tour winner, and a 35-year fixture at CBS starting in 1968. Few have treated the game with more respect than Venturi and his epic performance at Congressional 61 years ago is worth recalling.
“Venturi could not eat. His face was ashen, his eyes glazed and he walked to locker without saying a word to anybody,” is how Sports Illustrated’s Alfred Wright reported on seeing Venturi in thost 50 minutes between Rounds 3 and 4.
Venturi had miraculously shot 4-under 66 to get to 2-under, two behind Jacobs, who had shot a morning 70. But he had labored noticeably, especially late. Venturi nearly collapsed on the 15th hole and had to use cold compresses and ice packs. At 17 he hiccupped over a 17-inch putt and made bogey. At 18 he missed a short birdie putt.
In what would be the last time the U.S. Open was played with a 36-hole finale, pairings remained the same for the afternoon – Jacobs with Palmer, who was six off the lead, and Venturi, the closest pursuer, out with a young man by the name of Raymond Floyd. But between the third and fourth rounds, Floyd found Ken Venturi’s wife, Conni, told her, “He’s sick.”
Dr. Everett, a club member, urged Venturi not to continue. To do so, he said, “might be fatal.” Venturi, whose career had gone sideways in 1961-63, shook his head. According to a USGA story written by Dave Shedloski, Venturi said, “I’m already dying. I have no place else to go.”
On the first tee for the final round, Venturi was accompanied by Dr. Everett, who was in full supply of salt tablets; a marshal who lent an umbrella when the player needed the shade; and Joe Dey, the executive director of the USGA.
Though Venturi wobbled at the 14th and said to Dey on the next hole, “if you won’t slap a two-stroke penalty on me, Joe, I’m going to slow down,” he incredibly remained in command of his golf.
No so for Jacobs (76 – 282) and Palmer (74 – 286), both of whom wilted in the heat and the pressure.
But Venturi? It was the heat, he insisted, not the pressure. “I was not shaking from nerves. It was just the loss of my salt, I suppose, he said. Then he added: “I’ve tasted the bitterness of defeat, and now I’m going to taste the sweetness of success.”
As for Ed Love, Bob Murphy, Paris Fisher, Bubby Rogers, and Matt Venturi and so many others who cherish the memory of Ken Venturi, there is an annual reminder to toast the sweetness and courage of a champion golfer.
Well played, gentlemen.
