Craig Wood was the first golfer to win the Masters and U.S. Open in the same year, doing so in 1941. He won the Masters in April at Augusta National, then captured the U.S. Open two months later at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas.
Wood’s Masters victory was notable for another reason: he led wire-to-wire, opening with a 66 and finishing at 280, eight under par. He defeated Byron Nelson by three strokes. At the U.S. Open, Wood again won by three strokes, finishing at 284 and beating Denny Shute.
The achievement is sometimes confused with winning all four major championships in one calendar year. Wood won only the first two majors of the 1941 season; the modern Grand Slam was not completed until later players pursued all four. Ben Hogan later matched Wood’s Masters-U.S. Open sequence in 1951 and 1953, while Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth also achieved the feat in later years.