Cyril Walker (golfer)

Walker won the 1924 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills Country Club, while playing out of Englewood Golf Club in New Jersey. He beat defending champion Bobby Jones by three strokes.^[1][2][3][4] This was his only top ten finish in seven appearances at the U.S. Open. He was a small man, weighing only 118 pounds (54 kg).^[5]

Walker won five PGA events between 1917 and 1924.^[6] Walker's slow pace of play,^[7][8] combined with his sometimes-combative personality, eventually made him unpopular with fellow players and tournament sponsors. This hastened his exit from the then-nascent professional golfers' tournament circuit.

In 1928, he became the pro at the Saddle River Golf and Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey.^[9] While a club pro at Saddle River in 1933, he was arrested for destroying the signs of a neighboring course.^[9]

An alcohol addiction further hastened his downward spiral during the 1930s and he ultimately found himself in a near-destitute condition working as a caddie in Florida at the Miami Beach municipal course in 1940,^[10] and later as a dishwasher.^[11]

Walker died of pleural pneumonia in a Hackensack, New Jersey jail cell where he had gone for shelter.^{[11][12][13][14][15]}

• List of golfers with most PGA Tour wins