Interviewing was more casual back then than it is now. Before the playoff, I approached Mahaffey while he was having breakfast and asked how he was feeling. He replied, “Not so good. I have an allergy to grass.” I didn’t think he was kidding.
Anyway, Graham’s winner’s check was $40,000. U.S. Open winners didn’t hit the $1 million mark until 2002. Last year’s winner, Bryson DeChambeau, got $4.3 million. Graham was 11 strokes behind Watson at the halfway point, and that led to him making the biggest comeback by a champion.
Though golf’s bigger names didn’t match up to Graham and Maha ey that week, there were no regrets about the drama the tournament provided and Medinah proved a worthy challenge to the world’s best players, though later some would say it played too easy. The Chicago golf crowd was just happy to have a U.S. Open on home soil, and that soil at Medinah would get tested again and again – but on much altered courses.
Medinah members called for renovations of the No. 3 layout for the 1990 U.S. Open (where Irwin would become the oldest U.S. Open champion) and then again for the 1999 and 2006 PGA Championships, where Tiger Woods would prevail. An even bigger re-do was just completed in preparation for the 2026 Presidents Cup.
After being in contention at Medinah, Mahaffey would go on finish T-10 in the 1975 British Open the following month. He won 10 events on Tour, including the 1978 PGA Championship. Later in life, he worked as an announcer for Golf Channel covering the PGA Tour Champions.
The low amateur was 22-year-old Jerry Pate, who would win the U.S. Open in Atlanta the following year, his first tournament victory as a professional.
Chicago’s own Lance Ten Broeck, then 19 and headed for the University of Texas, was the only other amateur to survive the 36-hole cut. Pate was six strokes behind Graham and Mahaffey and six ahead of Ten Broeck.
Gary Groh, who won the Hawaiian Open on the PGA Tour before having a long run as the head professional at Bob ’O Link, matched Pate’s 293 for the 72 holes.
Irwin won the Western Open at Butler National the following year and captured his third U.S. Open at Medinah in 1990 in an epic playoff. Irwin and Mike Donald battled through 18 holes before Irwin won on the first extra hole – in e ect the first sudden death playoff in U.S. Open history.
Graham, now 87, won his last PGA Tour event in 1979. He made 450 cuts in 623 starts on the PGA Tour and played on three Ryder Cup teams. After turning 50 he played on the PGA Tour Champions through 2001 but never won on the 50-and-over circuit in 239 starts.
Len Ziehm has covered the Chicago golf scene for nearly 60 years, 41 at the Chicago Sun-Times and 16 at the Daily Herald, where he continues to be the golf columnist. He is a member of the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame.