by Karl Shaw
Word spread around the course that golf history was about to be made and spectators flocked to watch Hancock’s final two holes. At that time, there were no gallery ropes to hold spectators back and fans were allowed to wander alongside the players on the fairway. By the time Hancock and his playing partner Willie Hunter arrived at the seventeenth tee, there was total chaos. A crowd of around 10,000 people streamed across the hole, refusing to heed the pleas of marshals to clear a path to the green. A spectator yelled, “Stand back! Make way for the next US Open Champion!”
After a ten-minute delay, the seventeenth fairway was finally cleared and Hancock sliced his drive into the rough directly behind a tree. The ball was also now resting in mud. The crowd swarmed around him, making it difficult for him to judge the distance to the green. Eventually, marshals cleared a path, but Hancock half-topped the ball and it stayed down. Again, the marshals had to clear a path to give Hancock enough room to swing his club. He pitched over the green and then chipped back, taking two putts for a double-bogey six.
But all was not lost. A par on the last hole would still put him in a playoff against golf legends Bobby Jones and Johnny Farrell. Five should have been an easy score on the par-five hole but, because of the delays, the light was fading fast and, amid the din and congestion from the crowd, Hancock pulled his drive left into the rough, forcing him to chip back out on to the fairway. Then Hunter hit his second shot and it struck the head of a spectator who walked out in front of him. People rushed over to aid the injured man and play was held up for a quarter of an hour as the unconscious man was carried off the fairway.
Hancock, rattled by the latest delay, hacked at his shot, coming up short of the green. He pitched up, but from twenty feet missed his par putt. From a seemingly insurmountable lead, he had lost the US Open by a single stroke.
The final-round collapse was devastating for Roland Hancock and he never again found anything like the form he enjoyed over seventy holes at Olympia Fields. He played the US Open six more times without making the cut, then completely vanished from the pro circuit.
Worst Golf Jinx
The golf legend Sam Snead, once said to have “the sweetest shot in golf”, won more PGA events than anyone in history, but incredibly he never won a US Open despite twelve top-ten finishes.
In 1937, he lost by a single stroke and, in 1947, he tied for first place and lost in a play-off, but his greatest disappointment came at the US Open in Spring Hill in 1939. Convinced that he needed a birdie on the par-five final hole, Snead tried to reach the green in two strokes. Everything went to plan until Snead hit his second shot into a bunker, finishing with a triple-bogey eight, losing the tournament by two strokes. He only learned later that he had miscalculated and had not needed a birdie after all; par on the hole would have won him the title. Electronic leader boards were not introduced until several years later. At St Louis, Missouri, in 1947, he missed a two-footer in the closing stages of a play-off and eventually lost by a stroke.
In 2002, Snead, aged eighty-nine, was invited to sign off on an illustrious career by opening the US Masters by hitting the ceremonial tee shot, marking his sixty-second and final Masters appearance. The ball travelled 100 yards before hitting a spectator directly in the face.
“Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles . . . We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.”
Arthur E. Summerfield, US Postmaster General, 1959
Least Successful Attempt to Organize a Title Fight
Bare-knuckle boxing was illegal in nineteenth-century America, but it flourished underground with fight locations kept under wraps until the last minute. The decision to host the 1887 middleweight title fight between Johnny Reagan and Jack Dempsey on New York’s Long Island beach, however, left boxers and spectators alike at sea.
Dempsey and Reagan were supposed to have met in the ring before, but both of those scheduled fights had been postponed, the first due to a police raid and the second because of fog. The third effort to match the fighters was set for 13 December 1887, in Huntington, New York, off Long Island, but they hadn’t allowed for the incoming tide. By the fifth round, the Atlantic was lapping the canvas and, by the eighth, both boxers were knee-deep in sea water. Dempsey and Reagan, along with a small audience, agreed to board a tug-boat and travel twenty-five miles in search of drier ground.
When they found a place to their liking, they docked and resumed their battle. This time, hail and snow disrupted the bout, but the champion Dempsey wasn’t to be denied. Reagan finally threw in the towel in the forty-fifth round and Dempsey retained the title. A grand total of twenty-five spectators had watched the entertainment on offer.
“My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions . . . As soon as men will find that, it one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.”
Alfred Nobel, 1833–96
Unluckiest Boxer
When Thomas Hamilton-Brown of South Africa lost his opening-round boxing match at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by a split decision, the disappointed lightweight consoled himself by going on an eating binge.
It was only several days later that it was discovered there had been a scoring error. One of the judges had accidentally reversed his scores and the South African had actually won the fight – he was through to the second round. By this time, Hamilton-Brown had already put on five pounds. Unable to make the scales for his next bout, he was disqualified for being too heavy for his weight class.
“The dangers of atomic war are overrated. It would be hard on little, concentrated countries like England. In the United States, we have lots of space.”
Colonel Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, 1950
Most Controversial Boxing Defeat
Olympic boxing has a long and murky history. One of the most unusual controversies took place at the Paris Games in 1924 when the defending middleweight champion, Britain’s Harry Mallin, lost a split decision to France’s Roger Brousse in the quarter-finals. Mallin complained of foul play, offering bite marks on his chest and shoulder as proof. After an appeal, the home fighter was disqualified, clearing the way for Mallin to go on to win his second home medal. It emerged later that Brousse’s first-round opponent had also complained of being repeatedly bitten. The press later suggested that Brousse had been “sampling the unroasted beef of Old England”.
Four years later in Amsterdam, there were unscheduled ringside fisticuffs after some brazenly biased home decisions and, at the Rome Games in 1960, judges were sacked for “getting the score wrong”.
At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, a number of controversial decisions went the Americans’ way. Of the thirty-eight boxing matches involving Americans that went the full three rounds, thirty-seven ended up being judged as home victories. One of several South Korean officials sent to the Los Angeles Olympics as observers noted, “We came here to learn a lot about the Olympic Games, because we are the hosts in 1988, and we’ve decided there’s nothing to learn.” Except, it seems, how to get revenge.
Four years later at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in the light-middleweight class, America’s nineteen-year-old boxing sensation Roy Jones Jr was the hot favourite to win gold. It had taken him just two minutes to dispose of his opening opponent M’tendere Makalamba. His second-round opponent managed to stay on his feet, but lost by a unanimous 5-0 decision. In the quarter-final, he pummelled his opponent Yevgeni Zaytsev to win by a similar margin. In the semi-final, Britain’s Richie Woodhall fought bravely but lost to another unanimous decision by the judges.
Jones’s opponent, South Korea’s Park Si-hun, had been far less impressive on his way to the final. In fact, some commentators felt he should have lost all four of his fights. Some of his opponents certainly felt that way. In the quarter-final, the Italian Vincenzo Nardiello was so upset when the 3-2 split decision went to the South Korean that h
e had to be dragged away from the ring.
The final, as expected, was an utterly one-sided affair. Jones was barely troubled, landing eighty-six punches to Park’s thirty-two. The Korean took two standing eight counts and was twice warned by the referee. NBC ringside pundits scored the rounds a massive and convincing 20-3, 30-15 and 36-14 in Jones’s favour.
The three judges didn’t see it that way. Uganda’s Bob Kasule, Uruguay’s Alberto Durán and Hiouad Larbi of Morocco gave Park the fight, two others giving it to Jones. When the referee, Aldo Leoni, raised Park’s hand in victory, the Korean fighter looked embarrassed. Even the referee was shocked by the decision. “I can’t believe they’re doing this to you,” he whispered to the American.
In the aftermath, the Moroccan ringside judge, Larbi, told the angry American press, “The American won easily; so easily, in fact, that I was positive my four fellow judges would score the fight for the American by a wide margin. So I voted for the Korean to make the score only 4-1 for the American and not embarrass the host country.”
The three judges who awarded Park the win were later suspended and an IOC investigation in 1997 proved that they had been bribed by South Korean Olympic officials. However, Park was allowed to keep his medal and the injustice suffered by Jones was never put right.
Least Successful Professional Boxer
In November 2000, light-middleweight Des Sowden from Plymouth was knocked out four seconds into his bout at the Leisure Centre, Ebbw Vale, Wales.
Spectators were still taking their seats when Sowden was KO’d by a single right hook to the jaw from his opponent Russell Rees. Sowden’s previous record over eleven fights was one win and ten losses.
His only victory came when Irishman Martin “The Dancing Leprechaun” Moore was disqualified during the second round at the Leisure Centre, Bracknell, in May 1999 for continuing to hit Sowden as he lay on the canvas.
“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?”
Associates of David Sarnoff responding to his call for investment in the radio in 1921.
Most Successful Attempt to Shorten a Test Career
The Yorkshire slow left-arm bowler Bobby Peel, who played cricket for England from 1884–96, was frequently drunk during matches, a condition tactfully interpreted by the cricketing bible Wisden as “unwell” or “gone away”. After one county game, the Yorkshire captain Hawke suspended Peel for “running the wrong way” and “bowling at the pavilion in the belief that it was the batsman”.
He was sacked from the Yorkshire team after his performance against Warwickshire at Edgbaston in May 1896. During an unbeaten partnership of 367 with Hawke, Peel was caught short and urinated on the wicket. He never played for England again.
“That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.”
Admiral William D. Leahy, US Admiral working on the US Atomic Bomb Project, advising President Truman on atomic weaponry, 1944
Most Easily Dismissed Batsman
James Southerton spent most of his first-class cricket career playing for Sussex, and represented his country in the two first ever Test matches against Australia. He was almost fifty when he made his Test début, making him the oldest ever Test débutant, a record unlikely ever to be beaten.
In 1870, he was the tail-ender for Surrey against Marylebone and the great W. G. Grace at the Kennington Oval. Southerton hit the ball to Grace who picked it up on the rebound. Nobody but Southerton thought he was out, but he walked anyway. When the umpire called him back, he refused. It went into the scorebook as “J. Southerton retired thinking he was out.”
The easy dismissal of Yorkshire’s Ludd when he faced the Nottinghamshire fast bowler John “Foghorn” Jackson was more excusable. Jackson was a formidable figure at well over six foot tall, weighed over fifteen stones and was credited by some cricket historians as the true inventor of “bodyline” bowling. Ludd, after being struck on the foot by a particularly hostile delivery from Jackson, was given “not out”.
“Maybe not, but I’m going anyway,” said Ludd as he was leaving the field.
“The French people are incapable of regicide.”
King Louis XVI of France, 1789
Worst Bowling Figures
The Australian left-arm spinner “Chuck” Fleetwood-Smith had a very rarely seen bowling action known as left-arm wrist spin or a “Chinaman”. He was also famous for several other eccentricities on the field: he would sing, whistle, practice his golf swing, imitate kookaburras, pretend to catch imaginary butterflies and chat to spectators with his back to the play. This attitude was a constant source of irritation to his teammates.
He once said, “If you can’t be the best batsman in the world, you might as well be the worst.” Taking a leaf out of his own book, he achieved the worst bowling figures in Test match history. Playing against England at the Oval in 1938, England declared at 903 for 7. Leading the Aussie attack, Fleetwood-Smith pitched in with 1 for 298.
Most Boring Batsman
The batting figures of Nottinghamshire and England left-handed batsman William “Stonewall” Scotton (1856-93) read like binary code. In the 1886 Oval Test, he hit 34 runs in 225 minutes including a spell of over one hour without hitting a single. He once carried his bat through a first-class innings and scored 9 not out, and in another innings he took 155 minutes to hit 17. Following another soporific display in 1890 when Scotton took two hours to hit six runs, the magazine Punch paid tribute with a piece of verse, a parody on Tennyson called Wail of the Weary.
But Scotton was no Geoffrey Boycott. He was, by all accounts, an extraordinarily sensitive man who took criticism of his style of play badly. According to a teammate, he was prone to bursting into tears at the least provocation. It all got a bit too much for him on 9 July 1893 when he was dropped by Nottingham. He retired to his lodgings in St John’s Wood and killed himself.
“If God had wanted a Panama Canal, he would have put one here.”
King Philip II of Spain, c. 1552
Worst Loss of an Unassailable Lead
The year was 1956; the place, Aintree; the event, the world’s greatest steeplechase – the Grand National. An enthusiastic crowd was looking forward to witnessing the first royal victory in the famous race for more than fifty years when nine-year-old Devon Loch, owned by the Queen Mother, took up the running three fences from home.
Devon Loch was not the bookies’ favourite that day because a couple of past winners were in the race, but the horse was a hugely popular choice thanks to his royal connections. He had already won twice that year and ran a good third at Cheltenham that season; all was looking good for a crack at the title. His prospects looked even better when two of the favourites, Must and Early Mist fell at the first, leaving M’as-tu-vu in the lead and Devon Loch still going well.
Devon Loch’s jockey Dick Francis was impressed with the ease with which his horse was jumping. Clearing the last and going on to the long run-in, Francis recalled in his autobiography, “Never had I felt such power in reserve, such confidence in my mount, such calm in my mind. It was clear that there was only going to be one winner.” He accelerated away from the field in search of his place in Grand National legend. Men in the stand were already throwing their hats into the air to salute a great win for Devon Loch, Francis and the Queen Mum.
Then just fifty yards from the line, with a huge lead and the race apparently sewn up, Devon Loch pricked up his ears, appeared to jump a phantom obstacle and belly-flopped to the turf with his four legs splayed out. As the horse slithered along the turf to an embarrassing halt, his nearest pursuer, ESB, galloped past to win.
Numerous theories abounded as to what had caused Devon Loch to fail when failure seemed impossible. The horse was checked at the stable afterwards and was found to be in good health with no sign of abnormality. In fact, it went on to win more races. Dick Francis believed that the roar of the crowd fri
ghtened his horse. A police officer on duty that day reported seeing “a dark wet patch on the course and that caused the horse to stumble”. It was also suggested that the horse had been spooked by a shadow causing it to think there was a fence. It remains to this day one of sport’s greatest mysteries.
There was probably no one more disappointed than the stricken Devon Loch’s owner, the Queen Mother, but she was remarkably sanguine in defeat, merely noting, “That’s racing.” After the race, she even congratulated the winning jockey Dave Dick, who had profited so unexpectedly from Devon Loch’s inexplicable dive.
“What did you think when my horse fell down?” she enquired.
Replied Dick, tactlessly, “I was absolutely delighted, Ma’am.”
Slowest Racehorse
On paper, the brown gelding Zippy Chippy should have been a contender in the ultra-competitive world of US thoroughbred racing. It had a decent enough pedigree, including several famous winners. Sadly, of course, it didn’t work out that way.
His racing career began in 1994 in New York State where he was never placed better than third in eleven races. Fearing the winless horse could end up in the meat market, owner and trainer Felix Monserrate took pity and acquired Zippy Chippy in 1995 in a straight swap for an eight-year-old Ford truck.
Racing glory, however, proved elusive. By 1998, Zippy Chippy’s reluctance even to leave the starting gate saw him receive a ban from every track in the area except one. On 6 September 1999, he lost his eighty-sixth consecutive race, setting the record for lost races among US thoroughbreds. The following year, Zippy Chippy lost a forty-yard dash with a baseball player in a publicity stunt.