Maxwell, David Ford never quit on each other at U.S. Amateur

Refusing to admit defeat, they fought like blood brothers long after the sun gave up and went to bed.

Quit? No way. On a hot summer night in Georgia three years ago, surrender was not a viable option, because it would mean taking the walk of shame alongside an identical twin who had battled to be first since the day both these fierce competitors greeted this world from the womb.

So David and Maxwell Ford dueled with putters, their home golf course in Atlanta empty except for them and the moon.

“It was like 9:20 p.m., almost pitch black, and we stayed out there and kept putting. Nobody wanted to be the first to leave,” David said Thursday, recalling a putting contest with the intensity of a sword fight.

But all these years after a winner was grudgingly declared, is it finally safe to let the sibling-rivalry truth be known?

“I don’t know if David would tell you this, but I was way down in that putting contest, And when we compete, whoever’s losing is not happy. I’m the one that didn’t want to leave. I figured if I stayed out there long enough, I had to win one time,” Maxwell confessed, as we stood outside the clubhouse at Cherry Hills Country Club.

The 123rd U.S. Amateur Championship is being contested this week on the same hallowed grounds where Arnold Palmer led the charge of his raucous army by overcoming a seven-stroke deficit to win the 1960 U.S. Open. And you can bet Phil Mickelson was delighted when he took home the U.S. Am trophy from Colorado in 1990.

If I’m reading my golf history correctly, tradition suggests that once every generation, a generational talent leaves his imprint on Cherry Hills. But this week, the U.S. Am threatened to become a family barbecue.

The weather? Scorching. And the Ford brothers? Sizzling. Against a field featuring more than 300 of the best young players in the sport, David and Maxwell awoke Thursday needing two match play victories apiece to hold their own private putting contest at this prestigious tournament.

“When the bracket came out, my family sat down and figured out we could play in the quarterfinals,” Maxwell said.

For 21 years, it’s been almost impossible to separate David and Maxwell, much less tell them apart on the putting green in the moonlight. Helpful hint: Maxwell is right-handed; while David is a lefty. They are the two males in a set of triplets; rambunctious boys who grew up playing roller hockey and basketball as teammates until they simultaneously fell hard for their father’s love of golf as teenagers.