With the U.S. Open at Olympic Club this week, there has been plenty of talk about one of the greatest upsets in sports history, not just golf: Jack Fleck, a little-known club pro, beating the great Ben Hogan in an 18-hole playoff to win the 1956 U.S. Open at Olympic.

You can get the complete story from Neil Sagebiel’s new book, The Longest Shot. Bill Scheft from the New York Times gave the book a terrific review. He writes:

“The Longest Shot” is the first book from Neil Sagebiel, the founder and editor of Armchair Golf Blog, and he makes a strong bid to create shelf space for himself alongside 21st-century golf literati like John Feinstein, Mark Frost and Don Van Natta Jr. Sagebiel takes his time, working leisurely as golf demands, but does a thorough job. And his narrative pace during the last hour of that final round, as he bounces back and forth between Hogan in the locker room and Fleck on the course, may have a rhythm more suited to a tennis rally, but here it aces.

In an interview at Geoffshackelford.com, Sagebiel talks about connecting with Fleck, who is 90. From the post:

GS: Tell us a bit about how you approached researching the book and how much access you had to Fleck?
NS: Jack did not have a good history with writers and the press, so I had to gain his trust. I’m a freelancer, not a traditional sportswriter or golf journalist. I told him I had no agenda. I just wanted to tell the story. We talked a lot on the phone and I’d see him two or three times a year at Champions Tour events where the legends played. I hung out with him. I caddied sometimes, ate in the player dining rooms. I also got to be around the other old-timers, hear their stories, pick their brains. Early on I went to the USGA in New Jersey to do extensive research. Later I traveled to the Olympic Club on a family visit to California and spent four days with Jack at his home and home golf course in Fort Smith.