John McDermott Won Back-to-Back U.S. Opens Before Succumbing to Mental Illness. It’s Time to Remember Him
The year is 1913, and a young and brash two-time defending U.S. Open champion has some choice words for the visiting Brits who have traveled across the ocean to try to dethrone him. After he wins a local tournament in the run-up to the U.S. Open, the American makes some remarks that are, to put it mildly, not well-received.
"We hope our foreign visitors had a good time," he says, "but we don't think they did, and we are sure they won't win the National Open." A newspaper reports it thusly: "The Open champion, with a sneering twirl of his mouth, jumped on a chair and said the visiting English golfers may as well go back home, as their quest of the American championship honors will get them nowhere in particular."
The impetuous American quickly realizes that he’s created a storm. The New York Times later notes that the young star is "worried greatly over the affair and has almost broken down under the strain” and that he claims he was misquoted, his words taken out of a joking context.
USGA officials, publicly off-put by his arrogance but more likely offended by his lack of social standing, threaten to ban him from the next U.S. Open, but cave to public pressure and allow him to play. He then disappointingly (for him) places eighth at that U.S. Open, a huge come-down for the man who had won the previous two.
--
The man was John J. McDermott, all of 21 years old in 1913. He made his remarks after running away from the field at the Shawnee Open, then a big tournament. He finished in eighth place at that 1913 U.S. Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass. which would go down as the one of the most famous in history as American amateur Francis Ouimet won in a playoff over British legends Harry Vardon and Ted Ray.
Ouimet may have had the greatest public relations team of all time. For to this day pretty much everyone halfway knowledgeable about golf will tell you that Francis Ouimet was the first American to win the U.S. Open, and that he was a well-deserved subject for the movie about his win, “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”
They might as well have named that movie “Stolen Glory.”
Because it was McDermott who was the first, and today remains still the youngest, American to win the U.S. Open (19 years, 10 months, 14 days in 1911). And he won it again in 1912. He was the second-youngest player to win any of golf's four major tournaments, after Young Tom Morris.
And then, tragically, by the age of 23 he was gone from the game and public view, committed by his family to the State Hospital for the Insane in Norristown, Penn. With occasional stints at rest homes and at home with his sisters, he lived in that hospital until he died at age 80, almost 60 years after being committed.
Neither of his sisters married, and though their brother was consigned the rest of his days to Norristown, they would take him out on many weekends, almost always to play or watch golf. But history was not so kind, thereafter consigning him to its dustbin, his extraordinary and pioneering accomplishments sunk under the waves of oblivion all those years ago. And all the while, Francis Ouimet continues to be regarded as the fair-haired American golf pioneer.
Contrast the fate of McDermott with what might have been had he lived and played today.
Today he would be considered colorful, perhaps John McEnroe-like, outspoken and with millions of Instagram followers. And with today’s focus on the mental health of athletes, with Michael Phelps hawking Talkspace OnLine Therapy, and with Simone Biles receiving national sympathy for her emotional travails at the recent Olympics and her courage to confront them, McDermott might have — for example — announced he was taking a six-month sabbatical from the game to work on his emotional well-being. He would likely be praised for it.
The PGA Tour might have made McDermott the leader in the clubhouse for the $40 million bonus pool for its most popular players, as his “colorful” remarks above at Shawnee would have played well on social media. He would be a sought-after guest on PGA Sirius XM radio.
Look no further than Matthew Wolff for a young phenom golfer who stepped out of the crucible for a while this year. He appears to have returned to the show with a better frame of mind.
Last week Bubba Watson confirmed that his own eccentricities, visible clearly over the years, are in fact a manifestation of mental health struggles that fortunately for him and his fans, he is able to manage (see his just-released book, Up and Down: Victories and Struggles in the Course of Life)
How did this all come to pass, the meteor that was John J. McDermott?
McDermott was born into a working class Irish family in West Philadelphia, the son of either a railway conductor or a mailman (there are conflicting reports on his father’s livelihood). McDermott began caddying at age 9 and was apprenticed to the shop at Aronimink, where he was a hard worker and completely in love with the game. Contrary to his family’s desire that he learn a trade, as opposed to the frivolity of golf, he made something of himself quickly.
Standing but 5’8” and 130 pounds, he had large and powerful hands. "He had a long, loose, flowing swing," according to golf historian Robert Sommers. "Somewhat like the old St. Andrews swing of the feather-ball period, but with more body turn.” An extensive search turned up photos of McDermott but no videos.
He was a phenom from the moment he held a club. He dropped out of West Philadelphia High after ninth grade and caddied at nearby Merion and Aronimink. At 17 he finished 49th in the 1909 US Open; the following year he lost the Open in a playoff. And then he reeled off back-to-back U.S. Opens wins in 1911 and 1912. At the latter victory he became the first player to win with a score under par.
His accuracy was legendary. He was the toast of the game in America, winning $1,000 dollar challenge matches (about $27,000 today), endorsing products for pay (a first for a golfer) and charging $100 a guest to play with him at resorts (about $2,700 in today’s dollars).
But it all fell apart, and fast. Even at his peak it was not easy to like him, what with his pugnacious and proud demeanor and chip on his shoulder. Sympathy for him was scarce.
Some say his demise was hastened in 1914 when a ship he was taking home from England was rammed and he had to hop into a lifeboat. He also lost most of his fortune around that time after some poor stock investments, and he was rumored to have broken up with a young lady in Boston. What we do know for certain is that he suffered some sort of breakdown in 1914, and he never played in another major.
His career results in the majors:
U.S. Open, 1909-1914: T49, 2, 1, 1, 8, T9.
The Open Championship, 1913: T5
And then he was gone.
While clearly his words before that 1913 U.S. Open are extremely tame by today‘s standards, his eruption at Shawnee was indeed deemed offensive. With the benefit of hindsight, his outburst was a signal that he likely had he had emotional or mental issues that went barely diagnosed and certainly untreated. It was sadly customary at the time.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 20 percent of adults experience mental illness each year and five percent have what’s deemed a serious mental illness. It’s a huge cause of suicide.
A layman might speculate that McDermott’s emotional and mental well-being were too fragile to handle by himself the challenges — including his successes — that life tossed at him.
But today it’s easy to imagine that McDermott probably had something in common with others who are now, thankfully, unashamed of being open about their mental challenges, and who have sophisticated medical, pharmaceutical and therapeutic assistance available to address and overcome their challenges and enable a return to competition.
I stumbled across McDermott’s story while researching young players with multiple majors. He won seven tournaments (two U.S. Opens, three Philadelphia Opens and a Western Open — then considered a major — and the Shawnee Open). His story touches me. White-hot genius that needed some care and feeding and instead received an official state designation of being a Lunatic and residing in an institution for almost 60 years. He is not enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame which, I submit, is an omission needing to be rectified.
The coda to McDermott’s life struggles came in 1971, when his sisters and some hospital attendants took him to the U.S. Open at Merion that was won by Lee Trevino, another star not to the manner-born and in 1971 at the peak of his powers.
One can only imagine how McDermott was beheld by the swells at Merion, how they might have wondered why this small, shriveled, old, oddly dressed man was allowed access to the Merion locker room and clubhouse — and they surely wondered who he was.
If they only knew.
But one man did know. As relayed by golf historian John Coyne:
“At Merion because of his dress and appearance, he was ordered out of the golf shop and told not to go near the clubhouse where he had hoped to visit the players. With his hospital attendants, he turned away and started to leave, to go back to the hospital when Arnold Palmer [the King was a keen student of golf history], of all people, recognized the old man, this two-time U.S. Open Championship winner, and put his arms around Johnny McDermott. They talked golfer to golfer, champion to champion, and Palmer then arranged for McDermott to stay at the tournament as his special guest, with all clubhouse rights and privileges.”
Just weeks later, at 80, John McDermott, the first American to win the U.S. Open and still the youngest, passed away in his sleep, with very little notice taken.