Francis ouimet biography and family

This story was originally published June 9,

Given the width of separation – years from his birth on May 8, , nearly years from his epic U.S.

Open triumph and almost 53 years since he died – few people alive can say they met Francis Ouimet.

So how is it that so many can’t forget him?

Ouimet was of niblicks and mashies, spades and spoons – instruments foreign to nearly all of us.

But he also was of dignity and grace, conscience and character – qualities still at the core of our being.

What he accomplished on those September days in – a year-old who walked across the street from his home to The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he had caddied just a few years before, to not only play in the U.S.

Open but to win it – is why Ouimet’s memory is still feted.

But it is what he did for the next 54 years that hits at the essence of the man. He never lived off his celebrity.

It is no question t