Julius Boros

2003

PGA Professional

U.S. Open champion 1952, 1963; National PGA champion 1968; National Senior PGA champion 1971, 1977; U.S. Ryder Cup team 1959, 1963, 1965, 1967; National PGA Player of the Year 1952, 1963; winner of 15 PGA Tour events; leading money winner PGA Tour 1952, 1963; PGA Hall of Fame 1974; World Golf Hall of Fame 1982; Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame 1961.

Julius Nicholas Boros was born in Bridgeport , Conn. , March 3, 1920, and without much dispute, he is the best golfer and, when measured against the singular standard of ultimate success in his chosen sport, the greatest athlete ever to have been born in Connecticut .

I t is ironic, however, that if he were to be judged on his golf accomplishments in Connecticut alone, he would not be in the state's Golf Hall of Fame. For although Julius was clearly the odds-on favorite in the Connecticut Amateur and Open championships he entered in 1947, 1948 and 1949, his main competitive years here, he never won either of those state majors. He was a losing semi-finalist to champion Holly Mandly in 1947 and to champion Alpheus Winter Jr. in 1948; and, by the winner's own ready admission, he was an opening match victim of a career round by Pat Mazzarella, the losing finalist, in 1949. Julius was the Amateur's medalist in 1948 and again in 1949. In the Open at Indian Hill he finished at 1-over 289, four behind professional Frank Strazza, and in 1948 at Race Brook he made 6-under 278 for second all alone behind Frank Staszowski's 277.

But despite these disappointments at home, Julius was making some noteworthy moves on the national competitive scene, bearing out what many then believed was his inevitable destination. He led the national qualifying for the 1948 U.S. Amateur with tour-like numbers of 69-66-135, and went on to acquit himself commendably in the championship itself, losing to international-class player Charlie Coe in the 5th round. Then, in November that year, still an amateur, of course, he made a weak 3-over 39 on his final nine in the competitively respected North and South Open PGA Tour stop to finish in a tie for second with Sam Snead, two back of Toney Penna's 3-under 285. This standout performance against the world's best caught the attention of Joe Dey, then secretary of the USGA, and the following spring Julius was being seriously considered for America 's Walker Cup team that would play the British team at Winged Foot August 19-20. Though he wasn't selected, it was this high-level interest and the competitive deeds that had attracted it that confirmed Julius's growing self-conviction about making in on the big tour.

 The clincher for him, however, was a 65 he made at Mid Pines in October to relieve Hogan and Snead of several twenties each. His record in the U.S. Open stands with the best, with the records of Jones, Hogan and Nicklaus. He twice won our national Open, acknowledged by most players to be the most difficult to win of golf's four major championships. And as late as 1973, a 53-year-old Boros was leading the Open at Oakmont with nine holes to play. Battling sudden heavy rain, fierce wind, and Oakmont's brutal length, he slipped to fourth place, a stroke behind Palmer, Nicklaus and Trevino, who were his junior by nine, 20 and 21 years.

His play in the Insurance City-Greater Hartford Open at Wethersfield brought him two seconds and eleven top-ten finishes. In 1979, at 59, he made the 36-hole cut but declined to play. For almost 30 years he returned to Wethersfield to compete as more than just a sentimental favorite, and for more than that time, playing in the ever-capricious public eye perhaps the most temperamentally demanding of games, Julius Boros consistently was a credit to his chosen profession and his home state.

Julius Boros was inducted into the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame in 2003.