Yes, Brooks Koepka says, the name has come up over the last 12 months: Willie Anderson.And Koepka this week surely will hear itmore frequently, especially if he is in the running to win a third consecutive U.S. Open.Anderson is the only manto accomplish thatfeat.Curtis Strange? He probably heard Andersons name a time or three in 1990, after Strange had done what Koepka did, winning back-to-back U.S. Opens in 1988 and 89.So who was Anderson?Hes a World Golf Hall of Famer, inducted in 1975, who of him begins this way:Willie Andersons place in U.S. Open history belongs on the same pantheon as Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus. He was the first to win four U.S Fred McGriff Jersey . Open Championships and the only golfer in history to win three in succe sion. The sad part of Freddie Freeman Jersey Andersons biography is that he died at the age of 31. Since his death in 1910, only five golfers including Hogan (1950, 1951) and Curtis Strange (1988, 1989) have won two consecutive U.S. Opens, and only Hogan has come close to winning four out of five years, as Anderson did in 1901, 1903, 1904 and 1905.Theres a lot to unpack there, not the least of which is that Koepka has now matched Hogan and Strange with consecutive U.S. Open wins, in 2017 at Erin Hills and 2018 at Shinnecock Hills.Whats the bottom line on Anderson?He was a really good player, Baltusrol Golf Club historian Stuart Wolffe said ().A Scottish immigrant, Anderson also carried himself in a way Koepka might recognize, as a player with effortle s power and a rhythmical putting stroke.Ah, but even more Koepka-esque: Anderson had an unflappable demeanor.You couldnt tell whether he was winning or losing by looking at him, said Fred McLeod, the 1908 U.S. Open champion.To think of nothing but golf while engaged in playing golf, Anderson said, is the secret to succe s.His singular approach worked.Anderson, who died in 1910, was one of the top players of his time, Eddie Mathews Jersey winning four Western Opens perceived as a major in the early 1900s to go along with his four U.S. Opens.He won the 1901 U.S. Open at Myopia Hunt Club, near Boston, in the first 18-hole playoff in the events young history. After fifth-place finish in 1902, he won the 1903 U.S. Open played at Baltusrol in Springfield, N.J., again in a playoff.No playoff was nece sary in 1904, when Anderson finished five shots clear of the competition at Glen View in Chicago. He completed his three-peat the next year, again at Myopia Hunt Club, rallying from a five-shot deficit in the final round for a two-stroke victory in 1905.The U.S. Open, perceived at the time of something shy of the U.S. Amateur, was noteworthy.It was an open tournament to amateurs and pros and featured a lot of really good players, Wolffe, the Baltusrol historian said. Anderson was one of the best.Clearly.How good was Willie Anderson? wrote Robert Sommers in the USGA Golf Journal (via the World Golf Hall of Fame). Those who played against him and watched the great players of later Kevin Gausman Jersey years said he was as good as anyone who ever played.So as Koepka tees it up this week at Pebble Beach, trying to become the second man to win three straight U.S. Opens now you know who Willie Anderson was.What you, nor anyone else knows, is what exactly caused Andersons death, four years after his last U.S. Open triumph in his early 30s.Some reports say he had epilepsy, which might have contributed. Maybe it was a brain tumor, others speculated, or hardening of the arteries. Some whispered that he drank himself to death.Whatever the reason, his early death left fellow competitors to muse about what mightve been.Alex Smith, a Warren Spahn Jersey fellow Scotsman who finished second to Anderson in two U.S. Opens, believed that most likely, had he lived longer, Willie wouldve set a record for (U.S.) Open championships that would never be beaten. Related Articles