SPRINGFIELD, N.J. -- It was raining on the night of Aug. 5, 1948, when a diminutive, disheveled man shuffled into a Hackensack, New Jersey, police station. The man had nothing left, nowhere else to go. He asked the sergeant, Ralph Pinot, if he could sleep in a jail cell to have shelter for the night. The sergeant obliged.
The man's name was Cyril Walker. He was the 1924 U.S. Open champion. The next morning, he was found dead, slumped over on a chair in that jail cell.
The official cause of death was listed as pleural pneumonia. He was 55 years old.
Walker's remains are only 25 miles from Baltusrol Golf Club, site of this week's PGA Championship. Don't try looking for the gravesite. He was buried in a potter's field cemetery. There exists no headstone marking his name, no memorial of his greatest achievement.
The man he defeated in that U.S. Open, Bobby Jones, is routinely feted with flowers and golf balls, forming a shrine around his burial plot.
Walker's demise was contrastively unceremonious. His inglorious death closed the final chapter on a hard life, perhaps the most tragic of any major champion.
Born in Manchester, England, to parents William and Mary Jane, young Cyril began caddying at the age of 10. By his early 20s, he'd become a stout golfer himself, despite his small stature. Reports from the time list him at anywhere between 118 and 130 pounds. He emigrated to the United States, eventually finding a job as a golf professional at Shackamaxon Country Club in Scotch Plains, New Jersey., then at Englewood Golf Club in Englewood, New Jersey, a course which had hosted the 1909 U.S. Open. It was torn down a half-century later to build an approach ramp to the George Washington Bridge.
Walker found some moderate success as a player, winning the 1916 Indiana Open and 1921 Pennsylvania Open Championship. In the years 1921-23, he'd finished 13th, 40th and 23rd at the U.S. Open, but was never considered a serious contender for the title, even by his own standards.
He decided to enter the 1924 edition of the event at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, largely because he was on vacation nearby and wanted to make it more memorable.
"If an outsider wins here, it will be a big fellow with the physical strength to stand the strain," the slight Walker told a reporter before the tournament. "Stamina and lucky breaks on the greens are what's going to win."
Apparently, he owned enough of each.
Walker opened the tournament with three matching scores of 74 for a 54-hole total of 222 that left him tied with defending champion Jones entering the final round. On that last day, Walker shocked the crowd and his opponent -- and maybe himself, too -- by posting a 75 that bested Jones by three and gave him the title.
For his victory, Walker earned $150,000 in fees and endorsements. The fortune would turn out to be a blessing and a curse.
Walker started playing more tournaments, growing increasingly unpopular with fellow players due to his slow play. How slow was he? Competitors in groups behind him were often issued a deck of cards by tournament officials, so they could play games of solitaire while waiting on him.
He was known to examine even the smallest pebbles anywhere around his ball. He would check the wind, then check it a few more times for good measure. He would take up to a dozen practice swings before every shot.
The greatest example of Walker's disregard for pace of play, though, came in the second round of the 1930 Los Angeles Open. According to multiple reports, marshals had tried to speed him along, to no avail. When a tournament official threatened disqualification on the sixth hole, Walker snarled, "You won't disqualify me. I'm Cyril Walker, a former U.S. Open champion. I've come 5,000 miles to play in your diddy-bump tournament, and I'll play as slow as I damned well please."
Three holes and more than an hour later, the same official informed Walker that he'd been disqualified for slow play. "The hell I am!" he responded, and continued to try and play. Two police officers were summoned to ask him to leave. When he balked, they physically removed him from the course, dumping him at the clubhouse doors.
In subsequent tournaments, Walker often played as a single, in the final tee time of the day.
It might not have been an excuse, but if there was a reason for his orneriness, it's that his U.S. Open fortune had already dried up.
One poor real estate investment led to another. He quickly squandered most of the money, then lost the rest of it in the stock market crash of 1929.
Walker made headlines again in 1933. Working as a pro at Saddle River Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey, he was arrested for pulling down signs erected by a neighboring club and was released on $500 bail. One year later, he posted scores of 88-85-81-80 to finish in last place in the 61-man field at what would become the first-ever Masters Tournament.
Bankrupt, retired, battling an alcohol addiction and estranged from his wife and son, Walker drifted from the professional golf scene just as abruptly as he'd once entered it. For years, his whereabouts weren't just unknown by the public; they were hardly even contemplated.
In 1940, acting on a tip that the former U.S. Open champion was working as a caddie at a Miami Beach, Florida, municipal course, a reporter was dispatched to the scene. He found Walker, who corroborated the story.
He was living at a Salvation Army home, where lodging cost 25 cents each day. He was wearing a torn turtleneck maroon sweater, even on the hottest days, because that was the only shirt he owned. His prized possession was a wristwatch purchased for $1.50 -- vital to the punctuality of his caddying duties.
Walker told the reporter that he hadn't played golf in four years and doubted he could still break 80.
The news had been confirmed. His downward spiral had pulled him from the greatest heights of the golf world to a life of poverty.
At some point over the next eight years, he moved from Miami Beach caddie to part-time dishwasher in Hackensack, working at Madeline's Restaurant on Main Street, and living for a time at the YMCA next door.
There isn't much more information that exists about his final years.
We only know how the final chapter of this tragic life ended.
Cyril Walker, U.S. Open champion, a man who had once beaten the great Bobby Jones, died homeless and penniless, slumped over on a chair in that jail cell he'd requested for shelter.