In 1920, Walter Hagen turned a pre-Open practice round into a cross-country trek across three classic English links. More than a century later, you’re invited to give it a try.
It is easy to focus on the many myths when considering the life of Walter Hagen, and no one could blame us for doing so. The quick wit and a directory of timeless punchlines; the effortless, charismatic persona that was probably worth a shot or three before a ball was struck; the distinctly American bravado that perfectly summed up the American 20th century. “The Haig” was a master of the physical game but also the mental one, shifting golf into the professional age while acting as if the emergent cinematic camera was always rolling.
Spanking balls from the roof of London’s Savoy Hotel. Rubbing shoulders with the Hollywood stars of his era, a cocktail in one hand and a hickory cleek in the other. Many of the images of Hagen in his pomp feature luxurious motor vehicles, from which his beaming smile is a constant. Another was confidence: As the great Charlie Price recounted in The Haig & I—a short essay that took the place of what ought to have been the defining biography—he was once caught offering batting advice to Babe Ruth in a nightclub.
Look beyond the many flamboyant headlines and it is hard to imagine what advice anyone could have offered to Hagen, whose record was every bit as magnificent as, in Price’s words, his “florid cravats” and “screaming argyles”: 11 major championships, third behind only Tiger and Jack in that career-defining statistic and two more than Hogan. Then factor in World War I, for Hagen was already off and running in majors before war broke out, and a total of nine editions of the PGA, U.S. Open, and Open Championships were not even played.
He also won the Western Open—regarded by many as the fourth major in the pre-Masters era—a total of five times. In the match-play era of the PGA, Hagen was more or less unstoppable, the ultimate gamesman. He didn’t lose a match between 1924 and 1927, and lost only one tie, the 1923 final, in six appearances from 1921 onward. It’s an outrageous resume, but Hagen’s whole life was outrageous.
Price never wrote the book, but a subsequent memoir, by Margaret Seaton Heck, included—among dozens of barely believable tales that were almost certainly true—a short passage that caught the attention of Richard Craven, who in 2011 was Club Captain at England’s Royal Cinque Ports. It seems that in preparation for the 1920 Open upon that spectacular Kent links, Hagen and his great friend and rival Jim Barnes decided at the 11th green to not turn for home but to carry on north playing toward Pegwell Bay.
Before long, they were over the fence to Royal St. George’s, where the infamous Maiden hole awaited them, and when they reached the next fence, behind the 13th green, the pair once again refused to turn back, hammering through Prince’s before the long journey back south. Fifty-four holes in a day, and though the intense links practice session did Hagen little good (he finished T-53, vowing to come back for the Claret Jug another time), the brief description of this typically cavalier adventure was enough to pique Craven’s interest. Before long, a small group of members of those three esteemed clubs were retracing the steps of Hagen and Barnes in what came to be known as the “Hagen Hoof,” a three-way interclub battle against the elements. “To play the three links as if they were one,” in Hagen’s own words, has become the most over-subscribed match on all three clubs’ calendars.
Sitting in Cinque Ports’s Aisher Room as the rain hammers the window, I like to imagine Past Captain Craven smiling down from some celestial bunker at the sight of almost 200 golfers walking gingerly off the 54th hole of their own epic journey. Each of them had stepped onto their allotted first hole in gentle sunlight at around 5:40 am; nearly all of them made it home after three rounds and something like 13 hours later, smiling from ear to ear as I like to imagine Hagen would have.
For some, it is their first taste of what might be golf’s purest stretch of real estate. Prince’s, with its fine turf, glorious views, and enough devilish bunkers to convince its only Open Champion (Gene Sarazen, 1932) to forge a tool for us all to help escape them, the sand wedge. Royal St. George’s, with its tall dunes and mown swales, and the ghosts of Harry Vardon and Henry Cotton shuffling around in the hollows, as the red cross of St. George flaps in the breeze. And Royal Cinque Ports, whose iconic last seven holes are for once not into a prevailing south-westerly. These three English classics make for wonderful golf, and have among them hosted 18 Opens, of which Hagen won two of his eventual four, a man of his word.
For some, it is their first taste of what might be golf’s purest stretch of real estate.
A further 18 Amateur Championships have graced these collective fairways, and a couple of Curtis Cups, and soon—at Prince’s in 2030—a third Walker Cup. And so to play all three at once is not only to pay homage to all the great competitors that have also punched balls through these winds but to hit the same shots and breathe the same salty air, in a way no other sport permits us to. No doubt many feet are sore by the end: The scorecard measures the “course” at almost 19,000 yards (that’s nearly 11 miles), and not even Hagen would have kept it straight all day long.
Despite the rain showers, despite the large field, despite the fatigue, all I sense over dinner is massive relief and pride, the latter well deserved. Of the original mission, Hagen said, “Scores? I’ve forgotten. We weren’t trying to break any records…we did it for fun,” and the validity of those last five words rings true in the laughter and camaraderie that drift across toward the seawall.
Note: The inaugural Hagen 54 took place on July 24, 2025, 105 years after The Haig’s original adventure. Bookings are now being taken for the next edition—on July 23, 2026—of what may become an annual ritual. For details: thehagen54.com/the-hagen-54-event
