Aged 18, O 'Neill was trained as a tail-gunner on the B-24, a four-engine bomber that flew sorties over Europe during the height of the action. After training in the States (where he visited every golf club he could), he was shipped off to Europe.
"You have to put these things into context," he says. "When you're that young you have no fear of death, it doesn't mean anything to you. They took me all over America, for my training, and then Europe. I was in the Pacific. I ended up in Japan after they signed the peace treaty.
But it was the time spent in England, as an American officer, which he remembers most fondly.
"Golf was a part of my military career, no question," says O'Neill. I got to play Royal Birkdale, which I really loved. It was a fascinating place and I was really into the history of the Open. They were really good times, and of course when Birkdale hosts the championship I always love watching it."
On his return to the States, O'Neill enrolled in a business degree at Northwestern University [which current World No 1 Luke Donald attended], near Chicago, where golf continued to play a large part of his life.
"I got down to about a three-handicap but really, I wasn't one of the better players there," he remembers. "It was a lot of fun and my room-mate was the golf captain. I somehow got onto the team," he chuckles.
