Golfers Who Won the U.S. Open and British Open in Same Year
Six golfers account for those seven times the U.S. Open-Open Championship double has been achieved. That means one golfer did it twice. And that golfer is the very first one on our list:
Bobby Jones, 1926 and 1930
Bobby Jones is the only golfer on this list who achieved the Open Championship-U.S. Open double twice. He first did it in 1926, then again in his Grand Slam year of 1930.At the 1926 British Open, Jones became the first amateur winner since Harold Hilton in 1897. He won by two strokes over Al Watrous for his first win in the Open. Two weeks later, Jones won the 1926 U.S. Open by one over Joe Turnesa with a 2-putt birdie on the final hole.
In 1930, Jones won the British Amateur in May, then claimed his third Open Championship victory in June. In the Open, he won by two strokes over Leo Diegel and Macdonald Smith. In July, Jones won the U.S. Open for the fourth time, beating runner-up Smith by two. Jones hit into water on the next-to-last hole, but birdied the final hole to secure the win. He closed out his Grand Slam by winning the U.S. Amateur in September.
Gene Sarazen, 1932
Sarazen has the odd distiction of being the second golfer but first professional golfer to win both Opens in the same year. Bobby Jones was a unicorn.Sarazen first won the U.S. Open in 1922. In 1932, he won his second by scoring a then-tournament-record 66 in the final round. Sarazen won that 1932 U.S. Open just two weeks after winning the 1932 Open Championship, his only victory in that major. Sarazen went wire-to-wire in England for a five-stroke win, with Macdonald Smith again the runner-up.
Ben Hogan, 1953
In 1953, Hogan became the first golfer to win three of the professional majors in the same year. In fact, he won all three of the majors he played that year — he skipped the PGA Championship mostly because his post-accident legs couldn't handle the 36-hole days, but also because it took place too close on the calendar to the Open Championship.At the 1953 U.S. Open, Hogan led from start to finish and wound up with a 6-stroke win over runner-up Sam Snead. It was Hogan's record-tying fourth U.S. Open win.
The 1953 British Open was Hogan's first — and, it turned out, only — time playing that major. He tied the lead after the third round, then scored 68 in the final round to win by four. It was Hogan's ninth and last win in a major.
Lee Trevino, 1971
This list of U.S. Open-British Open single-season winners does not include Jack Nicklaus ... except to mention a couple majors he did not win. Including the 1971 U.S. Open, where Trevino beat Nicklaus in an 18-hole playoff, 68 to 71.A month later at the 1971 Open Championship, Trevino tied the lead in the second round, took the lead in the third round, and won by a stroke. One week earlier Trevino had won the Canadian Open. He remains the only golfer to win all three of the U.S., Canadian and British national championships in the same year.
Tom Watson, 1982
Like Trevino, Watson outduelled Nicklaus for one of his titles, at the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Nicklaus scored 69 in the final round to post 284. When Watson hit his approach to the 17th hole into very deep, greenside rough — a position that spelled disaster for those who'd been there previously — the television broadcasters began presuming Nicklaus the winner. But Watson instead pulled off an improbable chip-in for birdie. He then birdied the final hole, as well, to beat Nicklaus by two strokes. It was Watson's only win in a U.S. Open.But Watson won the British Open five times, and his win in 1982 was the fourth of those. He overcame a three-stroke deficit following the third round to win by one over Nick Price and Peter Oosterhuis.
Tiger Woods, 2000
The most-recent time the U.S.-British Open double has happened was in Woods' dominant 2000 season, the year he won the first three legs of the "Tiger Slam."At the 2000 U.S. Open, Woods won by a whopping 15 strokes, finishing at 12-under with the runner-up at 3-over. That is the largest margin of victory in U.S. Open history, but also one the largest winning margins in PGA Tour history. Woods had another huge margin of victory at the 2000 Open Championship — eight strokes. His 19-under final score was, at that time, the record for most strokes under par in a men's major.
Woods went on to win the 2000 PGA Championship and then the 2001 Masters, becoming the first golfer ever to hold all four professional major titles simultaneously.
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