One of the five new members of the World Golf Hall of Fame is Doug Ford. Ford”s PGA Tour career began in the post-World War II era of Sam Snead and Ben Hogan and concluded more than two decades later at a time when golf was televised and the likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Lee Trevino ruled the game”s leaderboards. One of those longevity linksters, Ford is the oldest surviving winner of the Masters. He will be inducted into golf”s HOF this May.
Doug Ford was born in West Haven, Connecticut in August of 1922. His legal surname was Fortunato, but his family changed its name to Ford to make it sound more Americanized. As a child growing up in the heart of the Depression, Ford was a gifted baseball player who also played a lot of golf in the summer. His father was the head golf professional at Putnam Country Club in Yonkers, New York. Ford also had three uncles who were golf professionals.
Ford served in the United States Coast Guard”s Air Division during World War II. Upon his discharge at the conclusion of the war, Ford returned home and took up the game of golf in earnest. For a three-year period in the late 1940s, Ford made his living as a golf gambler. Purses on the PGA Tour weren”t all that big in the late 1940s as evidenced by Ben Hogan leading the circuit with $32,000 in earnings in 1948. Ford estimated that during that period of time, he made more money by playing high-stakes golf than he would have had he been the leading money winner on the PGA Tour. It also hardened him to the game and its pressures. In many ways, it was Ford”s version of playing mini-tour golf.
Doug Ford did finally turn professional as a 27-year-old. He had his first breakthrough win three years later at the 1952 Jacksonville Open. He won three times in 1954, taking home victories at the Virginia Beach Open, the Labatts Open and the Miami Open. The next year he added two more titles to his golfing resume with wins at the Greater Greensboro Open and the Fort Wayne Open.
The following season was a high-water-mark year. Ford opened up with a victory at the All American Open, captured the big-money Carling World Classic, and then hit the pinnacle of his career with a win in the 1955 PGA Championship. Still contested at match play, Ford defeated three-time major champion Cary Middlecoff by a 4-and-3 margin in the 36-hole final match at Meadowbrook Country Club in Detroit. At the conclusion of the year, Ford was named the PGA golfer of the year.
Ford won the Metropolitan Open in 1956, took home the Los Angeles Open title in early 1957, and then had a most memorable spring by winning the Masters and donning the green jacket. Acknowledged as one of the game”s top-notch short game players, Ford holed out a bunker shot from a buried lie on the final hole of the Masters to shoot a final-round 66 and defeat Sam Snead. Ford concluded a very successful 1957 by winning the Western Open at Plum Hollow.
Ford would win 10 more times during the next five years, taking home the prestigious Canadian Open title in 1959 and 1963 as well as winning the 1962 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach. When all was said and done, Ford had 19 total wins on the PGA Tour as well as four other unofficial victories, including the 1957 Panama Open. He played on four consecutive Ryder Cup teams from 1955 through 1961. Ford remained active on the tour into the early 1970s and ended up playing competitive professional golf at its highest level for parts of four decades.
Ford continued to stay in golf”s limelight, playing in a total of 49 Masters tournaments through the year 2001. He also won twice on the PGA Senior Tour in the mid-1980s.
There is some great golfing folklore regarding Doug Ford. A fast-paced golfer, Ford”s 1955 PGA Championship finals match against Cary Middlecoff, a notoriously slow player, presented quite a dichotomy. Ford added to the flavor of the finals match by having his young son carry around a lawn chair. He would sit down in the middle of the fairway on his chair while Middlecoff went through his time-consuming pre-shot routine. Ford always contended that his gesture wasn”t gamesmanship. Instead, it was a way to conserve his energy during the scheduled 36-hole match.
Ford had a reputation as one of the tour”s biggest high-stakes gamblers. Johnny Pott, the PGA director of golf at Langtry Farms and a past winner of the Bing Crosby, recalls that Ford would play his practice rounds with a close circle of fellow pros, including big-hitting George Bayer, Julius Boros, Bill Collins and Sam Snead. There was always something financial on the line during those money matches.
“Doug Ford was a real star when I began the tour,” Potts said. “He was a tough competitor who loved to play the game. He seemed to enter every tournament. He was our fastest player who was always a shot ahead of you, even though he rarely played out of turn. He chipped and putted like a wizard and many players tried to copy his short-game technique.”
Pott added, “I see Doug each year at The Legends and he”s always ready to go.” Ford won The Legends in 1987 and 1996.
Ford is no stranger to Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. He entered the Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame in 1972 and he became a member of the National Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame in 1992. Doug Ford is most deserving of his place in the World Golf Hall of Fame because of his two major championship titles, his 23 wins, his place on four Ryder Cup teams, and his two senior titles. He played the game at its highest level at a time when his chief competitors included Hall of Famers with names such as Snead, Hogan, Palmer, Player, Demaret, Middlecoff, Burke and Nicklaus. In May, he”ll finally be alongside them in the World Golf Hall of Fame.
