June 2025 - Jack Fleck, Giant Killer

Quad Cities club pro with Chicago ties slayed the immortal Ben Hogan 70 years ago
Photographs courtesy of USGA
This article appeared in the June 2025 edition of Chicago District Golfer.
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Jack Fleck (left), a Quad Cities native who was married to a Chicagoan and would eventually work as a club pro in the Chicago District, stunned the legendary Ben Hogan (right) in the 1955 U.S. Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.

Seventy years ago, Jack Fleck took several days to drive from Davenport, Iowa to San Francisco – the Interstate Highway System was only paper then, not concrete or asphalt – and proceeded to win the United States Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.

An unknown municipal course pro wins the National Open? And beat Ben Hogan, who thought for a bit he’d won his fifth Open? Using clubs made by Hogan’s fledgling equipment company?

C’mon. There’s no way. You couldn’t even put that on TV.

But it happened. Though not on TV. NBC screened 60 minutes of the 1955 Open from The Olympic Club, covering the last two holes, but when Hogan putted out at 287 for 72 holes, analyst Gene Sarazen (a/k/a “The Squire”) congratulated him on winning, and soon signed o, noting that “Joe Fleck” was still on the course.

The car company Dodge had paid for only an hour’s air time, and their $111,000 tab didn’t include cash for an overrun or a stat man for the Squire. So when Fleck, needing a birdie on one of the last two holes to match the Hawk, spun a 50-footer on the 17th hole out of the cup, then hammered his approach from the rough at the last to within seven feet and sank that bird for a closing 3-under 67 to force a 18-hole playo, only the 10,000 people at The Olympic Club saw it. Or heard it. NBC Radio had signed off as well, also calling Hogan the winner.

Due to the media limitations of the era, word of Fleck's shocking victory was slow to spread. The method through which many found out about the result was through newspapers like the one enjoyed by the victor above.

Jack’s wife, Lynn Fleck, a native Chicagoan, had to wait for a Saturday night (pre-1965, all pro tournaments ended with 36 holes of play on Saturday, as Sunday was reserved for church-going) phone call to find out what happened.

And then the Sunday playoff happened. Fleck led Hogan from the fifth hole on, scoring 1-under 69 to Hogan’s 2-over 72 for the title, $6,000 and golf immortality.

Even when Fleck finished the playo by two-putting for par, many in the gallery around the 18th green still thought Hogan, who sank a 30-foot downhill putt, was the winner, surmising it was a dramatic tournament-winning birdie. Thanks to Olympic’s topography, they didn’t see Hogan fail to get out of the rough on his second and third shots on 18. That long putt was for double bogey. Fleck could have four-putted for his stunning victory.

“Something was driving me all the way,” Fleck told a gaggle of reporters. “I never played this well before in my life, and all of a sudden, I just started to play.

For Hogan, 1955 marked the closest he would ever get to a fifth U.S. Open crown.

“I’m overwhelmed!”

Hogan semi-retired. As much attention nationally was paid to his announcement than Fleck’s heroics, but in Davenport, it was a different story. A hero’s welcome included a throng at Mount Joy Airport, a downtown parade, a fund-raiser for a new car and every possible bouquet sent his way.

“Now that I’m champ, I can’t just go into hiding and rest on my performance,” Fleck told the home folks. “Other Open champs have done well later on. I hope to follow in their ranks.”

Fleck would win twice more on the circuit, tie for third in the 1960 U.S. Open won by Arnold Palmer and finish seventh in the 1962 PGA. However, he spent most of the rest of his career back in pro shops. This included a stint at the now-defunct Green Acres Country Club in Northbrook, during which time he won the 1964 and 1965 Illinois Opens. His other notable win came in 1979 in what was then called the PGA Seniors’ Championship. Just before the birth of the Senior Tour, he collected $8,000.

Fleck’s other achievements, though, pale in comparison to an astonishing weekend in San Francisco, where his game and his pluck combined to beat the unflappable Hogan.

Tim Cronin has written a dozen books on golf.