The Greatest Game Ever Played

Every great journey begins with a dream. 

A 2005 biographical sports film, The Greatest Game Ever Played directed by Bill Paxton tells a true story of a young amateur golfer Francis DeSales Ouimet (May 8, 1893 - September 2, 1967) who has nothing but a seemingly impossible dream to challenge the world's greatest player, his idol Harry Vardon (9 May 1870 - 20 March 1937). The film was adapted from the novel - The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet and The Birth of Modern Golf by Mark Frost.

Francis Ouimet (Shia LaBeouf) was born in 1893 to a working-class family in Brookline, Massachusetts. His family purchased a house on Clyde Street across from the 17th hole of The Country Club when he was four years old. He grew up fascinated by golf after watching an exhibition by legendary British golf pro Harry Vardon (Stephen Dillane) as a seven years old boy. However, at that time golf was considered a pastime only for the wealthy and privileged and British and Scottish players dominated the professional game.

At the age of nine, Francis started caddying at The Country Club while making friends with other caddies. Using clubs from his brother and balls that he found around the course, Francis teaches himself the game and wins the Massachusetts Schoolboy Championship.

HARRY VARDON, FRANCIS OUIMET & TED RAY

One day, a gentleman asks Francis to play with him over The Country Club course, where caddies have almost no access of their own and he shoots a fine round of eighty-one despite a triple bogey. His talent, composure and good manners earn admirers and interest; with the help of the gentleman, Francis gets a chance to play in an upcoming tournament, the U.S. Amateur, the local qualifying for which is to be held at the very same Country Club course. However, his father insisted Francis to drop out and do "something useful" with his life.

FRANCIS OUIMET & EDDIE LOWERY

Francis fulfills his promise to his father and works at a sporting goods shop. One day, the president of the United States Golf Association enters the store and personally invites him to play in the upcoming 1913 U.S. Open Championship. Against all odds, twenty years old Francis with a ten years old Eddie Lowery (Josh Flitter) playing hookey from school to caddy for him, he manages to beat the British champions Harry Vardon and Ted Ray (Edward R. G. "Ted" Ray)(28 March 1877 – 26 August 1943), considered the world's best golfers in an 18 holes playoff, following their three-way tie after the regulation 72 holes and becomes the first amateur to ever win the U.S. Open.

The film ends reveals that the following year Harry Vardon won his sixth British Open Championship, a record which stands to this day. Although he died in 1937, he is still considered the greatest English player of all time. While Francis Ouimet became a prominent businessman who went on to win two American Amateur Championships and became the game's most admired ambassador who changed the perception of the entire sport; sweeping away the notion that golf was a stuffy game for the old and rich. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1974.

Eddie Lowery (Edward Edgar Lowery)(October 4, 1902 - May 4, 1984) became a multi-millionaire as an auto dealer in San Francisco. Francis and Eddie remained lifelong friends and when Francis died in 1967, Eddie was one of the pallbearers.

All men dream, but not equally.

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds,

wake in the day to find that it was vanity:

but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men,

for they may act on their dreams with open eyes,

to make them possible. 

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