Jack Fleck opened his Sunday papers and read all the dispatches from Augusta that assured him that Tiger Woods was going to win another Masters Tournament.

Jack Fleck played in 10 Masters and finished 11th in 1962. Sports Illustrated ranked him 12th-best among athletes in Iowa history, behind stars like pitcher Bob Feller. (File)

Fleck knew better than to believe everything he reads. After all, 52 years ago he was playing the 71st hole at The Olympic Club when the NBC telecast signed off the air by declaring that Ben Hogan had won an unprecedented fifth U.S. Open.

"You just don't know," said Fleck, the Iowa club pro who stunned the world on June 19, 1955, with a victory over Hogan in an 18-hole playoff.

"They called that the greatest upset in sports history," Fleck said. "I think it was. Because I had never won anything except stuff in Iowa and a few Midwestern things."

The first golfer from Iowa to win a major championship could certainly relate to what the second did Sunday at the Masters Tournament.

Zach Johnson wasn't anybody's favorite pick on a leaderboard that included Woods and Retief Goosen among a fistful of others. Yet there he was slipping on a size 40 regular green jacket.

"That's the way it goes," said Fleck, now 85, who from his current home in Arkansas admired Johnson's poise. "He kept playing strong. That's a big secret. He didn't start playing safe, and when you make the putts, that makes you stronger still."

Who is this guy who held off the pack on the most nerve-wracking stage in golf?

"I'm Zach Johnson and I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa," he said as if he were a contestant on What's My Line? instead of the newest Masters champion. "That's about it. I'm a normal guy."

In one of the most abnormal Masters in history, the most normal guy in the field won. He shot 69 to Woods' 72 - the same score coincidentally that Fleck beat Hogan by in that 1955 playoff.

Johnson doesn't know Fleck personally, but he certainly knows his stature back in Iowa.

"I know he is the name in Iowa as far as golf goes," Johnson said. "And obviously beating Mr. Ben Hogan is a feat. ... That's pretty special, putting my name up next to his."

Johnson's field-of-dreams moment certainly left him a little dazed. He flirted with the Par-3 Contest jinx Wednesday, missing a chip-in on the last hole that could have won him the most dreaded crystal at Augusta National.

"I was kind of thinking, I have a better chance of winning the Par-3 than I do the tournament," he said of his giving the chip a legitimate run.

But while some might call what Johnson did this week at Augusta a major upset, let the record show that he's farther along the track than Fleck ever was.

Fleck turned professional the day after he graduated from high school in 1939, but it was another 16 years before he decided to give playing the tour a two-year effort. He dreamed of competing before Hogan and Sam Snead retired.

"It was rewarding, no doubt about it, but it threw me into a tizzy and everything as I went to try making some money," Fleck said of the exhibitions and endorsements he chased to capitalize on his upset victory. "That interfered with my play for a couple of years until I slowed down a little bit and got to playing better."

Fleck - who played in 10 Masters Tournaments and finished 11th in 1962 - won only twice more in his career.

Johnson also came out of school (Drake University) and turned pro. With the financial support of some friends from Elm Crest Country Club in Cedar Rapids, he started out on the mini-tours. He won on the Prairie Golf Tour before stepping up to dominate the Hooters Tour in 2001. Instead of getting a green jacket, he got paychecks handed out by Hooters girls.

"I thought those were the best days of my life right there, chicken wings and everything," he said. "But that's how I got better."

By 2003, he was the Nationwide Tour Player of the Year. As a PGA Tour rookie in 2004, he won more than $2 million. That season he won the BellSouth Classic in Atlanta the week before the Masters and had to wait a year before getting to Augusta.

"Somewhere along the way he really hit another gear," said Vaughn Taylor, a close friend and Johnson's playing partner in Sunday's final round. "He wore us out on the Hooters Tour and wore us out on the Nationwide Tour the next year. He's a solid player and he's one of the nation's best."

Among the parallels to Johnson's stunning victory Sunday, Fleck played the first two rounds of his major triumph with an Augusta golfer and close friend named Walker Inman Jr. Fleck said Inman could have won that U.S. Open if he'd parred the last six holes.

Johnson was first introduced to the Masters in 2001, when Taylor scored them some tickets.

"My mouth was agape," Johnson said. "I was in Augusta."

Now Johnson is a part of Augusta lore forever, just as Fleck is a part of U.S. Open history.

When Sports Illustrated ranked the 50th greatest athletes in Iowa history a few years ago Fleck was ranked 12th, behind the likes of Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller and inaugural Heisman Trophy winner Jay Berwanger. He was the only golfer on the list.

Now Zach Johnson might have dropped Fleck another peg.

"That's fine," Fleck said. "He's more recent, and that's what you go by is what's on the latest front pages."

Now Jack and Zach are the biggest things ever produced by a state that, as Johnson said, "isn't exactly a golf breeding ground."

And Johnson echoes a sentiment Fleck has felt for 52 years.

"I'm as normal as they come and I love to play a game for a living," he said. "I appreciate it and I feel honored to play golf."

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.