[Shane Wright]

Another former World #1 wins the Open at Lytham.

Architecture has to have some reason for this.

Congrats Ernie!


What do you think?

[Sam Morrow]

I read that it's not a links.

[David Kelly]

Still have to go with St. Andrews by a wide margin.

The two greatest professional golfers ever, Wood and Nicklaus, each won there twice and then you have Faldo, Ballesteros, Thomson, Locke, Snead, Jones, Braid and JH Taylor. Even more obscure St. Andrews winners like Jock Hutchinson, Denny Shute and John Daly individually had as many or more major championships as Lehman and Duval combined.

[Simon Holt]

Muirfield, all day long.

Ernie Els, Nick Faldo (twice), Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Henry Cotton, Alf Perry, Walter Hagen, Harry Vardon and Harold Hilton.

Then Watson won a Senior Open there too.  Garcia won his Amateur there in '98.

[Matthew Rose]

TOC is probably #1, but Lytham's is pretty good. Anyone in the top five could have won this and it wouldn't have done anything to change that. Lytham does seem to produce good leaderboards.

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Lythan belongs in the discusion

[Tom_Doak]

Which is the weakest roster -- Royal Troon or Royal St. George's ?

[Chris_Hufnagel]

Garcia won his Amateur there in '98.

Does that help or hurt Muirfield's case?

[Shane Wright]

Muirfield and TOC certainly have an incredible list of winners, but I believe every single Open Championship winner at Lytham was a World #1 at one time or another.  That is just crazy. 

[Dan King]

I think it is a weird theory -- the value of links courses is judged by how players who gain ranking points mostly playing Americanized golf do on the course.

Shouldn't there be a better way?

Cheers,
Dan King

For each has his peculiar understandin', his peculiar theory, his peculiar view o' the world, his peculiar swing, God knows. Get them here on the links, and all their parts fall oot.
 --Peter McNaughton (Golf in the Kingdom)

[Adrian_Stiff]

Counting the multi champ winners:

St Andrews; Woods, Daly, Faldo, Ballesteros, Nicklaus, Locke, Thompson, Snead, Shute, Jones, Hutchinson, Braid, Taylor, Bob Martin, Bob Ferguson, Jamie Anderson.
Lytham; Els, Ballesteros; Players, Jacklin, Thompson, Locke, Jones
Muirfield; Els, Faldo, Norman, Watson, Trevino, Nicklaus, Player, Cotton, Hagen, Braid, Vardon, Taylor,

[Simon Holt]

Well, if you look at the list of people who have won it in the last 15 years not many have really kicked on and achieved big things.  He hasn't won a Major but he is certainly very well regarded golfer.  Lets remember he is the same age as Adam Scott and gets far more grief for not winning a Major than Adam....until now maybe. 

Rory is a more gifted golfer but he is now suffering from the same 'distraction' as Scott and Garcia once did.


Muirfield and TOC certainly have an incredible list of winners, but I believe every single Open Championship winner at Lytham was a World #1 at one time or another.  That is just crazy. 

The World Rankings only came into existence in the 80s so counts for the last few winners at Lytham.  That theory also applies to Muirfield in that case.  To be fair, they all have a pretty awesome list of winners.  Maybe the question should be which Major has the best list of winners?

[Mark_F]

I think it has to be the Open although the cream nearly always rises to the top at the Masters.

It rises to the top of a very scant pint though, Brian. 

[Niall Hay]

Which is the weakest roster -- Royal Troon or Royal St. George's ?

Would argue that Royal Troon has a solid winners list. Arthur Havers, Bobby Locke (4 Opens), Arnold Palmer (2 Opens), Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson (5 Opens), Mark Calcavecchia, Justin Leonard and Todd Hamilton. 2 of the best Open players ever won there (Locke and Watson). Arnold helped reintroduce The Open Championship to the US with the advent of TV. Watson is the best modern day Open player ever. Royal Troon has also been very American friendly for winners. Is that due to the straightforward nature of the course?

Agreed on TOC as # 1.

[Phil McDade]

Which is the weakest roster -- Royal Troon or Royal St. George's ?

Would argue that Royal Troon has a solid winners list. Arthur Havers, Bobby Locke (4 Opens), Arnold Palmer (2 Opens), Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson (5 Opens), Mark Calcavecchia, Justin Leonard and Todd Hamilton. 2 of the best Open players ever won there (Locke and Watson). Arnold helped reintroduce The Open Championship to the US with the advent of TV. Watson is the best modern day Open player ever. Royal Troon has also been very American friendly for winners. Is that due to the straightforward nature of the course?

Agreed on TOC as # 1.

Todd Hamilton may be the flukiest winner of a major in the last 25 years.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Phil, that crown must go to Paul Lawrie for the recent Open championship years anyway. He duffed his 4 iron approach to the 72nd hole and bounced over the Barry Burn, he upped n downed it from a bunker to make 4 then Jean Van der Valle took 7 at the last to miss winning.

[Niall Hay]

Which is the weakest roster -- Royal Troon or Royal St. George's ?

Would argue that Royal Troon has a solid winners list. Arthur Havers, Bobby Locke (4 Opens), Arnold Palmer (2 Opens), Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson (5 Opens), Mark Calcavecchia, Justin Leonard and Todd Hamilton. 2 of the best Open players ever won there (Locke and Watson). Arnold helped reintroduce The Open Championship to the US with the advent of TV. Watson is the best modern day Open player ever. Royal Troon has also been very American friendly for winners. Is that due to the straightforward nature of the course?

Agreed on TOC as # 1.

Todd Hamilton may be the flukiest winner of a major in the last 25 years.

Ernie could easily have 3 Open wins....

[Doug Siebert]

It certainly isn't the US Open or the PGA. I think it has to be the Open although the cream nearly always rises to the top at the Masters.

It's interesting that when Zach Johnson won the Masters in 2007 a lot of people on this site and elsewhere took it as an indictment against the changes to the course reducing the quality of the winners.  While Zach hasn't won a major since, he's been in contention a lot, has slowly moved up in the world rankings, and now obviously isn't be the low quality winner some had claimed.

In retrospect, a lot of this was probably because Tiger had and then lost the lead due to poor play, and people couldn't accept that he was already showing the first signs of losing his dominance.

[Phil McDade]

Phil, that crown must go to Paul Lawrie for the recent Open championship years anyway. He duffed his 4 iron approach to the 72nd hole and bounced over the Barry Burn, he upped n downed it from a bunker to make 4 then Jean Van der Valle took 7 at the last to miss winning.

Adrian:

My reference to Hamilton was more toward his career record compared to other major winners. Lawrie shot 67 the last day on a brutal course, and won the playoff. He's had a decent career -- not a great one, but 7 wins on the Euro Tour and a Ryder Cup appearance (where he played very well). Hamilton had about six months of really good golfing to his credit -- a Tour win in Florida and the Open at Troon. Maybe the least distinguished career record of any major winner.

[Jason Thurman]

Shaun Micheel.

[Joey Chase]

What about 2003's Ben Curtis?  As Mr. Doak points out, Sandwich may have the weakest lineup of them all.  Funny enough, it is my favorite of the Open courses I've played.

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