Walter Hagen was in effect the first American professional linksman – not golf professional , professional golfer . He made his livelihood only by play the secret plan .
When Hagen did take his one and only head - pro job at a cabaret , at the Oakland Hills C.C. outside Detroit , it was while the course of action was under construction . When it open up for play , he quit the Wiley Post .
It was not for Walter Hagen to stand for hours in thesungiving golf game lessons ; to drop his time in a small , cluttered shop class sellingclubs , orb , and tees ; to be an foot soldier in the employ of anyone .
That was a brave way to go in the first 10 of the twentieth century , when golf game was still new to theUnited Statesand there was only the mere beginnings of a tournament circuit .
Did Hagen foresee a meter when many men might trace his lead ? likely not . Hagen was simply dancing to his own interior medicine . Still , in his daring Hagen had set a precedent . It was not to be follow by too many in his time , but he broach the opinion that an prominent linksman could make his room in the mankind by showing off his talent to the public eye .
As Herb Graffis , a groundbreaker golf game periodic publishing firm , put it in 1980 : " Today ’s [ Tour ] pros should get down a candle every day of their lives in the memory of Walter Hagen . "
Because Hagen was such a colorful personality , he also got the plot of golf on its room as a significant sporting pastime among the populace at large .
How did Hagen do it ? It was n’t with his long biz . With his long , loose cut , he was often wild off the football tee and inconsistently precise even from the fairways .
Nevertheless , Walter played at the in high spirits level from 1914 - 36 . During that 22 - class flow , Hagen pull ahead a total of 44 events , including two U.S. Opens , four British Opens , and a book - setting five PGA Championships , four of them in a row ( 1924 - 27 ) .
He did it with a vivid imagination when in worry – an middle for finding a gap in the trees and a gift for fitting a ball through it – plus a magnificently dexterous tinge as a chipper and putter .
Just as important , he had not a doubt at all of his ability . dally one of the most frustrative of games , he never let golf get him down . His " philosophy " of golf was expressed in a couple of simple homily : If you find yourself hooking the ball on a given 24-hour interval , just aim to the right a little more ; also , he expected to lack seven shot per round and did n’t fuss when they occurred .
While the majority of Hagen ’s victories were at stroking play , his forte was as a match - free rein challenger . In this mano - a - mano format , he was a victor psychologist who , for one matter , have intercourse full well that his disorderly tee - to - immature biz made him seem like well-fixed pickings for the purer ball - striker , but who would be rendered limp , if not tempestuous , by Hagen ’s amazing recoveries from hassle .
Adding to that was the animation with which he pulled off his miracles . He also understood the effect of pressure on athletes . In this esteem , Hagen ’s most memorable remark came when he was tell , while ready to expend a dark on the town on the eve of the final match for the 1926 PGA Championship , that his opponent , the neural Leo Diegel , was already in layer .
" Yes , " said Hagen , " but he is n’t sleeping . "
Walter Hagen reflected a definitive American success narration , the athlete toy his way out of menial circumstances . He was deliver in 1892 in Rochester , New York , the son of working - year German immigrants . His father , a blacksmith , advised his son to take a business deal and remember his boy a " bullhead catfish " for extend up woodworking .
As a juvenility , Hagen was an fantabulous ice skater andbaseballplayer . His first acrobatic deal were limit on playing major league baseball game , and in a test with thePhiladelphiaPhillies in the winter of 1912 , he received a very favorable review .
But he also had been playing golf , beginning as a pre - teen caddie . During the summertime after his baseball game trial run , he tied for fourth in the second golf tourney he had ever entered , the U.S. Open . When he won that championship the next class , his futurity was settle .
What set Hagen asunder , away from his gymnastic gift , was his inherent aptitude and flair for showmanship . " Barnum and Bailey wave into one , " said Graffis . But Hagen somehow give his " circus act " a kind of beauty parlor quality . He had a style of walk with his head slant up , like royal house , that – along with the life-style he developed – would earn him the lifelong sobriquet " Sir Walter . "
His son , Walter Jr. , once suggested that his dad ’s love of the eminent life came from the day when his father caddied at the Country Club of Rochester for such citizenry as George Eastman ( founder of Eastman Kodak ) and other flush , sophisticated people .
Hagen was catch by the public lecture he heard of change of location and the high liveliness . Watching from a hefty distance as the club members trip the light fantastic toe away summer evening , the young Hagen was entrance . He did not resent the rich ; he simply wanted a piece of their action .
In Walter Jr. ’s intelligence : " It set Dad ’s standard . He always wanted a look of success . " Walter Sr . put it another way , memorably : " I do n’t want to be a millionaire ; I just want to know like one . " He did just that .
And yet , for the silk shirts , tailored knickerbockers , beady cuff links , and other accoutrements associated with the high life that Hagen fancied , he also projected the down - to - earthiness of the common man . Certainly the average citizen linksman could distinguish with Hagen ’s unkempt , razzmatazz golf .
Hagen stood at the nut with the all-encompassing stance of a home running game hitter , made a rainbow - discharge golf shot that terminate with an unshackled lunge , sprayed shaft all over the mountain , and was systematically flirting with risk – from which he recovered with insouciant aplomb .
moreover , with Hagen there was none of the forbidding gravitation brought to the game by the Scottish pros whoemigratedto theUnited Statesand were golf ’s first showcase players in the country . Hagen was a joy to learn because he manifestly love what he was doing . He never complained about a golf course – he cry them all " sporty small layouts " – and as a friend once remarked , he " never had a pettishness . "
It was an intriguing combination Hagen put together , and through it he was a major ingredient in the maturation of American golf . In the period when he was most active as a golfer , the pro tour was in its embryonal state and paid little in purse money .
Hagen pull in most of hismoneyplaying exhibitions , some 4,000 18 - hole outings from 1914 - 41 that brought in an estimated $ 1 million . This was an telling sum for the sentence , but what made it all the more so was that Hagen did not perform for preset fee and expenses . He barnstorm , playing to whatever size audience he could take out , normally at a dollar a ticket .
Sir Walter did not restrict himself to playing in established golf game country . He also travel to the hinterlands – the Dakotas , Wyoming – where the courses were normally quite primitive and where he had to pull in every golf fan and curiosity seeker within a 500 - mile radius .
Hagen fulfil one and all , and he never slowed down the proceedings with dry dissertation on the mysteries of the game . He was the Johnny Appleseed of American golf game .
No one can say for sure how many persons Sir Walter inspired to take up golf game , but a clean guess is that he corral one for every dollar he made on the expo circuit alone , not counting their sons and girl .
