On 3 June 1925, exactly a century and a handful of days ago, the 29th edition of the US Open began at the Worcester Country Club (Worcester, Massachusetts). Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, and Francis Ouimet, among other illustrious figures, were there. Also present was Ángel de la Torre, who that day would become the first Spanish player to compete in the United States Open. No more, no less.
Since then, and until the debut of Josele Ballester in this tournament this week at Oakmont, only twenty Spaniards have participated in this Major. Only twenty in ONE HUNDRED YEARS, including De la Torre, the first, and Ballester, for now the last.
The pioneer Ángel de la Torre (he was also the first Spaniard to compete in the Open Championship, in 1920) would participate in one more edition of the US Open, in 1932, and then no other Spaniard would do so until Severiano Ballesteros, who made his debut in 1978.
No Spaniard has returned to the Worcester Country Club for a US Open, simply because that was the only time in history that this course hosted the tournament. However, two years later, in 1927, it would host the first edition of the Ryder Cup, but that is another story…
That 1925 US Open began on 3 June, as already mentioned, but it was a Wednesday. At that time, the tournament was still played over two days, with two rounds each day. On Wednesday morning, De la Torre signed a card of 77 strokes. No one should be shocked: those were different times, and the result was not among the highlights, of course, but neither was it a disaster. Let’s see: a total of 91 competitors played that first round, and the Spanish pioneer was in 36th place after the first 18 holes, seven strokes behind the leader, who was Francis Ouimet. Bobby Jones, for example, also signed a 77 in the first round…
The afternoon round on the same Wednesday was worse, as Ángel signed an 82 and fell to 59th place on the leaderboard, 18 strokes behind the leader, Willie MacFarlane. He would still play a third round on Thursday morning, with a score of 84 strokes, before withdrawing without playing the fourth round (there was no cut as such in that edition, but many players, as they saw themselves falling behind, withdrew, to the point that 91 started and 66 finished all four rounds).
It should be considered that the Spaniard had to pass the corresponding preliminary phase to be able to compete in the tournament, which 445 players had entered that year. MacFarlane and Bobby Jones finished the 72 holes tied in first place with 291 strokes and went out on Friday 5 June in the morning to play an 18-hole playoff, which also ended in a tie, so they had to play another 18 holes on Friday afternoon, in which the Scotsman MacFarlane prevailed.
That 1925 edition is very close to us, as it was the first with Spanish presence in the US Open, but it would actually go down in world golf history for another event. On Wednesday morning, in the first round, Bobby Jones had gone into the rough from the tee on the 11th hole of the Worcester Country Club and, once he was ready to hit the second shot, he felt the ball move slightly on the unstable surface of the tall grass… No one had seen it, but Jones imposed the corresponding penalty on himself. Later, when he received the pertinent praise for his sportsmanship, Jones uttered that legendary phrase that certainly forms part of his legacy: “you might as well praise me for not robbing a bank.”
Three months after that, in September 1925, Jones won his second US Amateur, successfully defending the title obtained the previous year, and this detail is relevant because that edition of the US Amateur was played at the Oakmont Country Club, the venue for the US Open that begins this week.
These are the TWENTY Spanish players who have played at least one edition of the US Open and the year of their debut in the tournament:
1. Ángel de la Torre (1925)
2. Severiano Ballesteros (1978)
3. José María Olazábal (1987)
4. Miguel Ángel Jiménez (1995)
5. Nacho Garrido (1998)
6. Sergio García (2000)
7. Pablo Martín Benavides (2007)
8. Gonzalo Fernández Castaño (2009)
9. Álvaro Quirós (2009)
10. José Manuel Lara (2009)
11. Rafa Cabrera Bello (2010)
12. Pablo Larrazábal (2014)
13. Jon Rahm (2016)
14. Adri Arnaus (2019)
15. Adrián Otaegui (2020)
16. Eduard Rousaud (2020)
17. Alejandro del Rey (2023)
18. David Puig (2023)
19. Eugenio Chacarra (2024)
20. Josele Ballester (2025)
