The roster of strong golf movies isn’t that deep but this one is on the short list.
Director Bill Paxton brought amateur golfer Francis Ouimet’s story to the big screen on “The Greatest Game Ever Played”, released in theaters 19 years on this date, Sept. 30, 2005.
The secret weapon for Ouimet – played by Shia LaBeouf – in the 1913 U.S. Open wasn’t a particular set of clubs, nor his familiarity with the course at The Country Club, which he could see from his bedroom window.
When the amateur won the title in an upset against British veterans Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, he credited his caddie, Eddie Lowery, a 10-year-old boy who was his loudest cheerleader.
The stunning victory cemented a place for Ouimet and Lowery, as well as The Country Club, which hosted the 2022 U.S. Open, in golf history.
Eddie Lowery: Francis Ouimet’s caddie
A 20-year-old Brookline native who had caddied at TCC, Ouimet was fresh off a loss in the U.S. Amateur when the president of the U.S. Golf Association asked if he would play in the Open. Though he initially declined, Ouimet joined after his boss gave him time off to play.
Finding a caddie proved more difficult.
Lowery and his brother, Jack, played hooky from school to watch the play at TCC, and Jack agreed to caddie for Ouimet after the golfer’s original man bailed. When a truant officer caught Jack, however, Eddie took three street cars over to TCC and pleaded with Ouimet to take his brother’s place.
“I’ve never lost a ball,” Lowery advertised, not mentioning he had rarely caddied, according to TCC historian Frederick Waterman.
Her father was “just Dad, a very, very modest man,” and for most of their childhoods, Barbara and sister Jane – both of whom live on Cape Cod – never knew the grandness of what Francis Ouimet had accomplished as a young man.
At a time when golf was dominated by the Brits and the game was only for the elite, Ouimet and Lowery scripted an incredible story. In the aftermath of their playoff triumph over the greatest players of the day, Britons Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, it has been said that 2 million people began playing golf in the United States, and Ouimet has been hailed as the “Father of American Golf.” A true American sports icon.
But to McLean, Francis Ouimet was the man who greeted them in the mornings at breakfast and sat at the dinner table in the evenings. “Always, he would ask, ‘How was school today?’ He never talked about himself,” McLean said.
Later, when she attended a local college, McLean said she would drive with her father from their home in Wellesley to the public-transportation stop. “He took the train to work; I took the car to my college classes. I should have been the one taking the subway.”
Ouimet served a few years in the Army, married Stella Sullivan in 1918 and opened a sporting-goods store with his brother-in-law, Jack Sullivan.
The movie, which was released in 2005, grossed over $15 million at the box office and got good reviews. It gets 63 percent positive reviews by critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 82 percent positive reviews on the audience score. it ranks fifth on IMDB’s list of best golf movies ever made.
