THE OPEN | EQUIPMENT
Major
Moments Equipment editor Charlie Schroeder picks his favourite shots from Open Championship history and names the manufacturers that benefitted as a result of them.
Tom Watson
could hit his Adams Idea Pro 8-iron. He struck it beautifully. Too beautifully. It landed in the centre of the green and bounded over the back. It took Watson three shots to get down. He tied for first with Stewart Cink who later beat him in a four-hole play-off. “In retrospect,” Watson said, “I probably would have hit a 9-iron.” If only he had.
Golden Ram 7-iron Adams Idea Pro 8-iron 1977 / 2009
Photo credit: Getty Images (Nicklaus and Watson); AFP (Ballesteros)
At the 1977 Open at Turnberry, Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson played some of the greatest head-tohead golf the game has ever seen. Known today as the “Duel in the Sun,” the epic battle took place over the final two rounds as both men matched each other shot for shot for nearly 36 holes. Standing in the middle of the 18th fairway on the final day and holding a one-shot lead, Watson selected his Golden Ram 7-iron and struck the ball perfectly. It settled just a couple feet from the cup. To most observers it looked as though Watson was guaranteed victory. But Nicklaus wasn’t out of it yet. He hit his second shot from the right rough to 35 feet and, in keeping with his stellar play, drained the putt to put added pressure on the 27 year-old Kansan. But Watson wasn’t about to miss. He tapped in to win by one shot. Thirty-two years later, a 59 year-old Watson found himself once again in the middle of the 18th fairway. This time, however, he needed only a par to triumph. If he won he’d be the oldest man to ever win a major – by 11 years. The pin was cut in the very same position as it was in 1977. Technological advances meant that Watson 60
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Seve Ballesteros
Wilson Staff Tour Blade JR II Sand Wedge 1979
Roberto di Vicenzo helped the 22 year-old Severiano Ballesteros plot his strategy around Royal Lytham & St Annes back in 1979. The Argentinean suggested that the long-hitting Spaniard hit his drives as far as possible and not bother trying to keep the ball in the fairway. After all, he said, the rough close to the green had been mown short. Ballesteros listened. During his final round he managed to find the fairway just once. On the par-four 16th, Ballesteros found himself among some parked cars after another long, if not entirely accurate drive, left him just 100 yards from the green. Taking advantage of a free drop, Ballesteros selected his Wilson Staff Tour Blade JR II sand wedge and knocked the ball 18 feet from the pin. He sank the birdie putt and ended up defeating Ben Crenshaw and Jack Nicklaus by two shots. The so-called “Car Park Champion” became the first winner from continental Europe since Frenchman Arnaud Massy in 1907 and the youngest winner since Willie Auchterlonie in 1893. Later R&A official Colin Maclaine would say that Seve “chose not to use [the course] but preferred his own, which mainly consisted of hay fields, car parks, grandstands and dropping zones.”
Clockwise from top: Ballesteros was dubbed the “Cark Park Champion” after becoming the first player from continental Europe to lift the Claret Jug in 1979; Watson hoists the most prized trophy in golf after defeating Nicklaus in the “Duel in the Sun” at Turnberry in 1977; Nicklaus and Watson take time out during that monumental final round HKGOLFER.COM
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Todd Hamilton
Sonartec MD 17° Hybrid 2004
Todd Hamilton’s victory at the 2004 Open changed the way golfers looked at hybrids. With only one PGA Tour victory under his belt, the journeyman pro used his 17-degree Sonartec MD hybrid (bent to 14 degrees) in every way imaginable during his four rounds at Royal Troon. He chose to hit it off the tee instead of his 3-wood (“As a kind of a driving iron,” he’d later say) and around the green where he got up and down an astonishing 13 out of 14 times. At the time of Hamilton’s victory, utility clubs accounted for approximately seven per cent of woods sales. Six months later that figure had risen to over 15. Today it’s more than 30 per cent. Tour players started gravitating to the clubs too. Only 46 players used hybrids at the 2004 Open. Two years later that number reached 105. Hybrids were no longer just for hackers. Today the clubs Hamilton used in his victory are in the basement of his Westlake, Texas home. Perhaps he should bring them out of retirement. He lost his card in 2009 and currently plays on the Web.com Tour. He’s ranked 776 in the world. Clockwise from top: Hamilton, with Els looking on, after the American pipped the South African for the title at Royal Troon in 2004; Harrington is all smiles after hitting a magnificent fairway wood to set up eagle at the penultimate hole of the 2008 championship; Van de Velde moments before wading into the Barry Burn at Carnoustie in 1999; Woods’ long iron play at Royal Liverpool in 2006 was sublime
Tiger Woods
AFP
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Padraig Harrington Wilson Staff 5-wood (18°)
Nike Forged 4-iron
2008
2006
Typically golf commentators predict winners late on Sunday, after someone has broken away from the field and established an insurmountable lead. But not at the 2006 Open. After Tiger Woods eagled Royal Liverpool’s 14th hole on Friday to go 11-under par, former US Amateur champion Bobby Clampett uttered what everyone else was thinking, “I think the Claret Jug just fell off the table.” After just 32 holes it seemed like nobody would catch Tiger. Indeed they couldn’t. Two days later Woods hoisted the famous trophy for the third time. The eagle, holed from 209 yards and struck with a Nike Forged 4-iron, may have been the shot of the tournament, but what most people remember about that year was an emotional Woods tapping in for par on the 72nd hole and breaking down into his caddie Steve Williams’ arms. Woods’ father, Earl, had died two and a half months earlier. While the photos of an emotional Woods may be etched in our memories, it’s his play from that week that deserves the most ink. En route to victory he hit 86 per cent of the fairways and made 19 birdies and three eagles. The win took place in the middle of one of 62
Woods’ most dominant stretches. Prior to the 2006 Open, he finished in the top four in five of his last six majors, winning two. After his victory at Liverpool, he’d go on to either win or come in second in seven of his next eight majors.
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“Beware the injured golfer,” numerous commentators like to say. In other words, when a player’s expectations are low, he often plays his best. The saying was never more true than at a blustery Royal Birkdale in 2008. Defending champ Padraig Harrington showed up with a wrist so sore that he nearly withdrew
from the tournament. In fact, on Wednesday he managed to hit just three shots. Still, despite the injury, he soldiered on and, after three rounds, found himself just two shots behind the most unlikely of leaders, 53-year-old Greg Norman. On Sunday, the Shark held a one-shot lead heading into the back nine, but his hopes sank after he bogeyed three of the next four holes. Meanwhile Harrington, who bogeyed holes seven through nine turned it around on the back, birdieing 13 and 15. Playing with confidence and wanting to go even lower, the Irishman stood 272 yards out on the par five 17th hole. He chose his Wilson Staff 18° 5-wood and struck the ball perfectly. It landed about fifty yards short, took an enormous bounce and rolled to within four feet of the cup. His eagle three secured his victory, making him the first European since James Braid in 1906 to win the Open in consecutive years. Harrington captured the US PGA Championship the next month, his third major victory in five starts. Since then the Irishman hasn’t had much luck. With only one victory (the 2010 Iskandar Johor Open) since the 2008 Open, he’s slipped to 73rd in the world.
SNAKE BITE: THE CARNOUSTIE COLLAPSE Sometimes collapses are more memorable than triumphs. Adam Scott’s four bogey finish last year (his perfect swing and Titleist 710 MB irons couldn’t help him find the green), Doug Sanders’ botched 30-incher (pushed badly with a flange putter) at the 1970 Open and, of course, Ian Woosnam’s two-stroke penalty for carrying an extra club (an oversized Mizuno driver that he tossed into the bushes) in 2001. But nothing lingers longer in the memory than HK Golfer’s Playing Editor Jean Van de Velde’s final-hole capitulation in 1999 at Carnoustie. Needing a double bogey to win, Jean used his King Cobra II irons and a Cleveland 588 wedge to rather lose his way on the 18th. After an errant, but safe drive he blasted an iron shot into the grandstands. The ball ricocheted into long rough and from there Jean gouged his next shot into the water. After removing his shoes and wading into the burn where he contemplated a watery escape, he regained his composure, dropped the ball and hit into a greenside bunker. He ended up making a triple bogey (after holing a nerve-wracking seven-footer with his Never Compromise putter) but ended up losing out to Paul Lawrie in a play-off.
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