Wednesday, 4th July 2012
G’day Golfers,
Hope you’ve had a good week. This is the 22nd Golf Traders Newsletter, enjoy the read…..
Golf News
Congratulations to Tiger Woods for winning the At & T National Championship. Woods saved his tournament from the trees on the 12th hole, where he hooked his second shot around a tree that was close enough to his swing path for him to warn the gallery that his 9-iron might snap. It didn't, but the result was spectacular as the ball improbably found the putting surface.
With the victory at the AT&T National, Woods also moved past Jack Nicklaus in career wins on the TOUR with his 74th but as most know, it’s all about the majors.
The British Open starts soon on the 15th July. Tiger will be looking to add to his already packed trophy cabinet of 14 majors. The Open will be staged at Royal Lytham & St Annes. For more information on the tournament,
Click on this link
The British Open Lead Up….The History of The Open Championship. Part 1…
The Open Championship was first played on 17 October 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. The inaugural tournament was restricted to professionals and attracted a field of eight Scottish golfers,[1] who played three rounds of Prestwick's twelve-hole course in a single day. Willie Park, Sr. won with a score of 174, beating the favourite Old Tom Morris, by two strokes. The following year the tournament was opened to amateurs; eight of them joined ten professionals in the field.
The early winners were all Scottish professionals, who in those days worked as greenkeepers, clubmakers, and caddies to supplement their modest winnings from championships and challenge matches. The Open has always been dominated by professionals, with only six victories by amateurs, all of which occurred between 1890 and 1930. The last of these was Bobby Jones's third Open and part of his celebrated Grand Slam. Jones was one of six Americans who won The Open between the First and Second World Wars, the first of whom had been Walter Hagen in 1922. These Americans and the French winner of the 1907 Open, Arnaud Massy, were the only winners from outside Scotland and England up to 1939.
The first post-World War II winner was the American Sam Snead, in 1946. In 1947, Northern Ireland's Fred Daly was victorious. While there have been many English and Scottish champions, Daly was the only winner from Ireland until the 2007 victory by Pádraig Harrington. There has never been a Welsh champion. In the early postwar years The Open was dominated by golfers from the Commonwealth, with South African Bobby Locke and Australian Peter Thomson winning the Claret Jug in nine of the 11 championships from 1948 and 1958 between them. During this period, The Open often had a schedule conflict with the match-play PGA Championship, which meant that Ben Hogan, the best American golfer at this time, competed in The Open just once, in 1953 at Carnoustie, a tournament he won.
Another South African, Gary Player was Champion in 1959. This was at the beginning of the "Big Three" era in professional golf, the three players in question being Player, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Palmer first competed in 1960, when he came second to the little-known Australian Kel Nagle, but he won the two following years. While he was far from being the first American to become Open Champion, he was the first that many Americans saw win the tournament on television, and his charismatic success is often credited with persuading leading American golfers to make The Open an integral part of their schedule, rather than an optional extra. The improvement of trans-Atlantic travel also increased American participation.
Nicklaus' victories came in 1966, 1970 and 1978. This tally of three wins is not very remarkable, and indeed he won all of the other three majors more often, but it greatly understates how prominent he was at the tournament throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He finished in the top five 16 times, which is tied most in Open history with John Henry Taylor and easily the most in the postwar era. This included seven second places, which is the record. Nicklaus holds the records for most rounds under par (61) and most aggregates under par (14). At Turnberry in 1977 he was involved in one of the most celebrated contests in golf history, when his duel with Tom Watson went to the final shot before Watson emerged as the champion for the second time with a record score of 268 (12 under par).
We will continue with Open history next week…………….
'Golf, the game played by all walks of life'.
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This Week's Top Buys at Golf Traders
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Callaway Razr Hawk Draw 11.5º Driver Aldila Rip 60 Regular Graphite + Cover. Only $135
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Bridgestone J40 Forged Irons 4-PW Project X Flighted 5.5 Stiff Flex Steel. Only $545
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Odyssey White Hot XG Marxman Blade Putter 34. Only $115
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Have a good week,
David Fearns (PGA)
Golf Traders
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Used Golf Clubs Specialist. We buy, swap and sell used golf clubs
