U.S. Open Cards Up For Auction

Originally Posted by Sports Collectors Daily on June 28th, 2009.

The hand-printed sheets used to calculate scores for players in last weekend's U.S. Open Golf Championship were sold Friday as part of an online fundraising auction.

Each player's name and score is written in colored marker by a calligrapher stationed near the Bethpage Black clubhouse. The round-by-round scorecards are placed on a leaderboard for tournament attendees and staff to view. They're common at tournaments all over the world, but the U.S. Open's status as one of the four major events made them collectible enough that two of the scorecard strips sold for over $1000.

The scoring line for Lucas Glover, who won the tournament, brought $2510. Tiger Woods' line sold for $1125, while the scores for Phil Mickelson sold for $550. Many of the cards for fairly well-known players sold for $150 or less, making them a reasonably priced piece of sports memorabilia. Others didn't sell at all.

Proceeds from the auction benefitted the Metropolitan Golf Association Foundation and the Long Island Caddie Scholarship Fund.

Mark Passey was the man who penned all those numbers--thousands of them over four rounds, and his work is definitely an art: