By Bob Markus

It was early in the week-end of the 108th U.S. Open golf tournament when commentator Johnny Miller was asked the question: Who's the greatest U.S. Open golfer in history? With no hesitation at all, Miller replied: Ben Hogan. This, of course, was before Tiger Woods' angst-ridden Houdini act, which brought him his third national championship, leaving the golf world in awe and Tiger just one Open victory short of the record.

Miller may have to change his mind some day. But not yet. There is no doubt that Woods' victory over a valiant Rocco Mediate was grand guignol theater at its best. It may be that this was the greatest U.S. Open ever and it may be that Tiger Woods is the best U.S. Open player of all time. But not yet.

Time is on Tiger's side. He is only 32 and so far ahead of the current mediocre field they'd have to cut off both his knees to catch him. Certainly he proved that, on one knee, he could take everything they threw at him and throw it right back. He was only 24 when he won his first U.S. Open and his three Open titles have come in an eight year span.

Ben Hogan didn't win his first professional tournament until he was 28 and he was 36 before he won his first Open. But anything you can say about Tiger Woods you can say about Ben Hogan. Play through pain? Huh! Hogan survived a headon collision with a Greyhound bus, a crash so severe he suffered a double fractured pelvis, fractured collar bone, fractured left ankle and life-threatening blood clots which were to torment him the rest of his life. Sixteen months later he won the U.S. Open for the second time, won it in a three-way playoff. And in those days he had to limp his way into a playoff through a pain-wracked 36-hole final on Saturday.

Tiger wins three Opens in eight years? Huh! Hogan won all four of his Opens in a six-year span and one of those years he was in the hospital recovering from the accident. If you discount that lost season, he won three in a row and four out of five. Like Tiger, Hogan was obsessed with the majors. In 1951 he played in only five tournaments, winning three of them and finishing second and fourth in the other two. Two of the victories were in the Masters and U.S. Open. In 1953 he won five of the six tournaments he entered, including all three of the majors in which he teed it up. He passed up the P.G.A. that year to play in--and win--his only British Open, at Carnoustie in Scotland. The Scots adored him, called him The Wee Ice Man, and by that time all of America adored him, too.

Before the accident Hogan was, as the actor Laurence Harvey says of his character in The Manchurian Candidate, "not loveable." The accident didn't change him, but it changed the public's perception of him. More specifically, it was the movie Follow The Sun, released in 1951, that wrought the change. Glenn Ford played Hogan and the physical resemblance was uncanny. The movie covered Hogan's career through the crash and up to his dramatic comeback victory in the 1950 Open. I remember seeing the movie with a couple of my golfing buddies and, like most of the rest of America, became a Ben Hogan fan. Arnold Palmer is generally given credit for golf's rise in popularity. But Hogan set the table for what was to become a moveable feast.

After his fourth Open win in '53, Hogan became obsessed with winning his fifth. He came close in 1955, losing in a playoff to unheralded Jack Fleck, even more of an unknown in his day as the journeyman Mediate was until this week-end. Fleck was from Davenport, Iowa, just across the Mississipi River from Moline, Il., where I was working at The Moline Dispatch at the time. I think I was the only guy rooting against Fleck in the entire Quad Cities.

The next year Hogan finished in a tie for second and, in 1960, was in a three way battle with Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, then still an amateur, until spinning his approach at the 17th back into the water in the final round. Palmer won his first--and only--U.S. Open that day and Nicklaus finished second. An era was ended and another one was about to begin.

Nicklaus, too, has four U.S. Open wins and certainly belongs in the discussion. Until Nicklaus came along Hogan was considered by many as the greatest golfer ever if you discount the amateur Bobby Jones. Jack has succeeded Hogan in most minds by the sheer numbers of his victories. But if you're talking strictly about the U.S. Open, it took Jack 18 years to garner his four Open championships, 12 more than it took Hogan.

Now, it appears Tiger Woods is going to erase most of Nicklaus' records in the fullness of time. It is entirely likely that he will win five or even six U. S. Opens before he retires. When that happens it may be time for Johnny Miller--and me--to change our minds. But not yet.