The long and shorts of Forrest Fezler's 1983 U.S. Open

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — So many players have made golfing history at Oakmont Country Club during the nine U.S. Opens played there.

Johnny Miller. Sam Parks. Jack Nicklaus. Arnold Palmer. Ernie Els. Larry Nelson. Forrest Fezler and ...

Wait. Forrest who?

Fezler was a PGA Tour regular in the 1970s and early 1980s. He made a rebellious gesture in the last round of the 1983 U.S. Open, fitting in a city where the Pittsburgh Steelers’ game-day tradition includes blasting Styx’s “Renegade” on the scoreboard sound system.

Fezler was a renegade when he became the first player to wear shorts in the U.S. Open — or any pro tournament for that matter. That doesn’t sound like a big deal anymore now that tour players are allowed to wear shorts in practice rounds — even though still an odd, unsettling sight. But in 1983, daring to wear shorts in a major championship run by the stuffy, blue-coated U.S. Golf Association types? Absolute sacrilege to purists.

Here’s how it happened in a stealth-like cloak-and-dagger maneuver:

First, Fezler ducked into a portable toilet in the vicinity of the 18th tee during the Open’s final round. There, he donned a pair of shorts he’d stashed in his golf bag. Then he played the 18th hole, drew cheers from the gallery who noticed the shorts, and hustled off after signing his scorecard before any USGA bigwigs got wind of it. If Fezler hadn’t tipped off an Associated Press photographer, the whole drama might have gone undocumented. But several pictures captured Fezler’s effort and still live on the Internet.

Fezler passed away in 2018 after losing a battle with brain cancer, but he told me the real reason he wore the shorts, something he said he had never revealed before then, in a phone interview prior to the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont. His actions were in response to a specific incident with a USGA official at the 1981 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club and he was sworn to secrecy.

The episode happened during the 1981 Open’s second round. Fezler was paired with ex-NFL quarterback John Brodie, a good player who later competed on the PGA Tour Champions, and John Schroeder, a notoriously slow player. Brodie was en route to shooting a big number, something in the 80s, and the threesome was lagging behind the group ahead. 

At Merion’s famous 16th hole, Fezler hit an errant second shot toward the quarry-like waste area. A search ensued for his ball. The time limit to find a lost ball then was five minutes and USGA official P.J. Boatwright, legendary for being merciless and an iron-fisted rules stickler, stood above the hazard area and called out with a countdown as the players scoured the area: “Three minutes! ... Two minutes!” Boatwright bellowed as they looked.

If Fezler’s ball wasn’t found, he would have to replay the shot, slowing up the pace of play even more.

“Oh my gosh, I was sweating,” Fezler recalled. “I was in the top ten at the time.”

Before time ran out, Brodie gave up and walked toward the green. As he neared Boatwright, Brodie asked if the official had seen Fezler’s shot. Boatwright pointed to a ball less than 10 feet away, in plain sight. It was Fezler’s ball, which had actually cleared the quarry. Brodie waved up Fezler, who was relieved.

“We played out the 16th hole and Brodie didn’t say anything,” Fezler said. “It wasn’t until we hit our shots to the 18th green that John said, ‘Can you believe what Boatwright did at 16?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said Boatwright was standing 10 feet from my ball the whole time.”

That wasn’t the end of it. Boatwright met the threesome at the scoring tent when they finished and announced he was penalizing Schroeder and Fezler for slow play — Fezler for taking too long on his second putt at 17.

“I was like, ‘Where did that come from?,” Fezler said. “We finished our round in four hours, 18 minutes, which was one of the fastest Open rounds I played in the last five years. I asked him what he was trying to prove.”

Understandably upset, Schroeder and Fezler contested the penalties. They were sent upstairs in the clubhouse and went before a committee of USGA officials. Brodie came along, too, and told them “the guys were waiting on me all day” because he played so poorly.

When it was Fezler’s turn, he challenged Boatwright, asking how he could penalize the group for slow play when Boatwright stood silently next to Fezler’s golf ball during a lengthy search. Fezler said the faces of the committee members blanched upon learning of Boatwright’s action.

After a short deliberation, the USGA officials agreed there would be no penalty. They also “suggested” that nothing should said about the incident publicly. In other words, don’t tell the media.

“I think we weren’t penalized because the story about what happened at 16 would have been told,” Fezler said. “That wouldn’t have looked good.”

So Fezler, Schroeder and Brodie never told the story about the reversed ruling. Brodie and Schroeder missed the cut that year. Fezler tied for 37th and couldn’t let the matter go.

Getting away with wearing the shorts in 1983 was surprisingly easy, although Fezler was nervous about doing it. He had already decided to get off the PGA Tour in 1983 after struggling with his swing and tendons in his wrist. Fezler had been the 1973 Rookie of the Year, won the Southern Open in 1974 and gave Hale Irwin a battle at the 1974 U.S. Open that became known as “The Massacre at Winged Foot.” Boatwright, the USGA executive director by then, oversaw its brutal setup.

Fezler knew Oakmont would be his last Open and wanted to make a statement about Merion. Fezler had hinted to an AP photographer that he was going to wear shorts and the photographer asked him after Saturday’s round why he didn’t do it. “The tournament isn’t over yet,” Fezler told him. “I’ll put‘em in the bag tomorrow and let you know. I’ve got to make sure I won’t get fined or penalized first.”

Sunday, the photographer caught up with Fezler coming off the ninth green. Fezler admitted he hadn’t checked on the rules. So the photographer found Bill Campbell, the USGA president, and asked Campbell if Fezler would be fined for wearing shorts.

“This is the U.S. Open, we’re glad Forrest didn’t wear them but we couldn’t have done anything to him if he had,” Campbell said.

The photographer raced back to Fezler with the news. So after Fezler played the 17th, he dashed downhill about 100 yards to the nearest portable toilet, he said.

“I’m nervous, anyway, and the porta-john is about 2,000 degrees inside,” he recalled with a laugh. “I’m sweating like crazy. I rush back up the hill to the 18th tee. I’m shaking, I’m nervous, I can’t breathe, I can hardly see my ball. I practically whiffed the tee shot. It went so far right, I had to hit a provisional. The second one didn’t even reach the ladies’ tee.”

The rough was so thick, Fezler couldn’t find the second ball. “I’m thinking, ‘What am I going to do? Go back and hit a third one? This is a nightmare.’”

Luckily, Fezler found the original drive in thick rough in a ditch. He had to kneel to play the shot and shanked it. Incredibly, the ball hit a tree and caromed dead left and back into the fairway.

“I thought, ‘Thank you, God,’” Fezler said.

From there, it was a routine 8-iron shot and two putts for a bogey. It was followed by a big reception.

“There might have been only a few hundred people by the tee,” Fezler said, “but there were a few thousand along the fairway and up by the green, and they were all yelling, ‘Go, Fuzz!’ I never had such a big gallery in my life. It was unbelievable.”

After holing out, Fezler was concerned when a USGA official walked over to him. The official shook his hand and Fezler remembered he said, “Forrest, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. But they’re on the way. Sign your card and get the hell out of here.”

Fezler did just that, hurrying to the locker room to change back into slacks. He left before any USGA officials confronted him.

His shorts became big news the next day when the wires carried photos of him coming out of the toilet. They got national attention because Sunday’s round wasn’t completed due to storms halting play. There was no winner yet — it was going to be Larry Nelson edging Tom Watson on Monday — so Fezler was the story of the day for breaking The Shorts Barrier.

“I still hear it two or three times a week from somebody,” Fezler told me by phone in 2016 from his home in Tallahassee, Florida. He was 65 then. “They say, ‘Oh, you’re the guy who wore shorts.’”

Fezler got into golf course design and construction after his playing career. He had a good run with Mike Strantz, a talented designer who tragically died in 2005 at 50, and was so busy that Fezler went seven years in which he didn’t play golf at all. A slowdown in course construction in the late 2000s gave him some free time and rekindled his playing interest.

“I didn’t miss golf until I first put a club in my hand again a few years ago and realized, ‘Damn, I really love this game,’” Fezler said. “I like practicing and hitting shots. I don’t need to play in competition. It is an addiction, though. You stay away for seven or eight years and the minute you put the club in your hand, you’re hooked again.”

He tried to qualify for the 2016 U.S. Senior Open but shot 77 and didn’t make it. If he had, he said he would’ve planned some kind of suitable encore to his most famous Open golf moment.

Boatwright wouldn’t have been around to see it if he had. He passed away in 1991 at 63. “People told me Boatwright was never the same after he was overruled at Merion,” Fezler said. “They said he was bitter and was never himself again. It was unfortunate.”

Fezler wasn’t lucky, either. 

The cancer claimed him in December 2018 at age 69. Did he already know he was ill when we talked before the 2016 Open? Maybe so, maybe that’s why he wanted to tell his whole story, but he didn’t say a word about being ill. He did joke about his Open moment:

“Maybe my tombstone should say, ‘I’m wearing shorts.’”

Spoken like a true renegade. One who will forever be part of Oakmont’s lore.

Home page photo: Forrest Fezler.
Photo: PGA Tour archive