Who is the greatest Open champion?
 | THE CONTENDERS |
Tom Watson has beaten off five other Open legends to win your nomination for the greatest ever Open champion. All week we asked you to vote on your favourite winner, and we can now reveal the five-time Open champion polled 37% with three-time champion Nick Faldo in second on 26%.
Seve Ballesteros and Jack Nicklaus - voted your Masters master back in April - shared 14%, while Gary Player and another five-time winner Peter Thomson were well back.
America's Watson ruled the Open roost in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His easy manner and affinity with the British crowds made him a popular champion.
Gary Player
By Jamie Lillywhite
| GARY PLAYER - LEGEND Born: 1 Nov, 1935, South Africa Turned pro: 1953 Career wins: 161 Open wins: 1959, 1968, 1974 Other Open achievements: Only player in modern era to win in three different decades |
Those who like to whimsically ruminate on how today's space-age technology might have affected legends of old must surely have Gary Player in their minds.
The diminutive South African has won over 160 professional tournaments and is the only man this century to win the Open in three different decades.
He was never blessed with the power of a Nicklaus or Palmer, and fought for every inch with his drives - titanium drivers and the modern balls may have propelled him to even greater heights.
But what Player lacked in size and power, he more than made up for with course management and imagination on and around the greens.
It was on the Muirfield links in 1959 that Player won the first of his nine major titles, and the first of three Open Championships.
He had been fourth at Hoylake three years previously and seventh in 1958, a year in which he also finished second behind Tommy Bolt in the US Open.
At Muirfield, he opened with a 75 and was six shots off the lead at the halfway stage, before a stirring fightback that was to become something of a trademark.
The final day encompassed both the third and fourth rounds, and although dry and often sunny, was played in a strong westerly wind.
Player reduced the deficit to four strokes after the morning's third round, and turned in 33 in the afternoon.
He birdied the uphill 13th after a tee shot to within three yards of the hole.
Another birdie came at the final short hole, the 16th, when he pitched to four feet.
 Player won his third Open at the age of 38 in 1978 |
There was drama at the 18th as Player finished with a double bogey six after driving into a fairway bunker and three-putting from the edge of the green.
He faced an agonising two-hour wait for others to finish and chose to spend it away from the course.
In the end Fred Bullock and Flory van Donck finished two shots adrift, and the 23-year-old Player became the youngest Open champion, a record that stood until Seve Ballesteros won in 1979.
Peter Thompson and Bobby Locke failed to finish in the top-20, while Peter Alliss finished in a share of 16th. Player had eclipsed them all. His prize? �1,000.
He next won the title nine years later at Carnoustie, which at 7,252 yards was then the longest Championship course.
In the intervening years he finished in the top eight three times and was third at Hoylake.
But it was in Scotland again that he held the Claret Jug aloft, finishing one-over to win by two from Bob Charles and Jack Nicklaus.
A 54-hole cut was introduced for the first time, with 45 players competing on the final day. The top-10 and ties comprised seven major winners.
There was a gap of six years to his final Open success, aged 38, at Royal Lytham. He was the only man to post sub-70 scores over the first and second rounds and although a 75 cut his substantial lead, a calm final 70 ensured a four-shot victory.
A tie for 19th in 1979 was the closest he came again to the title, but by then his legendary status was already well established.
MMIX
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