Peter Thomson became synonymous with Royal Birkdale. He won the first and last of his five titles there, and at the age of 41 tied for 9th behind Lee Trevino in 1971 in one of his last bids to match Harry Vardon's record of six Open wins. y a left-hander in the Open.

He first played in the Open in Faulkner's year of 1951 at Royal Portrush, finished second to Locke at Royal Lytham the following year, and then shared second place with the luckless Dai Rees, Tony Cerda from Argentina and the American amateur Frank Stranahan in Hogan's never-to-be-forgotten triumph at Carnoustie in 1953.

The following year, Royal Birkdale hosted the Open for the first time, the War having prevented them from first doing so in 1940. Here then came the young Thomson, facing perhaps a none-too- strong US challenge in those days, and regrettably minus Hogan defending his title.

Nevertheless, the field included Jimmy Demaret, Jim Turnesa, the evergreen Gene Sarazen, and the ever-present Stranahan complete with barbells and weights that were his essential body- building travelling companions of those early days.

Surprise early leaders in the Open are obligatory, and 1954 produced the unknown Bill Spence - "Tom" to many. He came up from Dartford in Kent, and his members had clubbed together to send him on the trip. He did them proud by leading the first two rounds with 141, handing over at 54 holes to Thomson, Syd Scott, and Rees.

It was Scott who set the final target of 284. Rees, who was destined never to achieve his dream of an Open title, needed four to head Scott, went through the green and up the famous Birkdale bank at the back, chipped back wide and took five. Thomson, out in 35, could afford to take five at the 18th to win, and did - although Locke provided a heart-stopping moment,
striding down the 18th fairway with that recognisable tread, needing three to tie. He missed from 12 yards for it. Thus Thomson was the Open Champion for the first time. He was to sweep them aside again in 1955 and 1956 for a memorable hat-trick.

In 1961 came Arnold Palmer, and with him undoubtedly the renaissance of the Championship as a truly international event - which is not to detract from Thomson's dominance of his contemporaries. Few will argue that the stature of the modern Open had its roots in the charisma and media exposure, two decades and more ego, of the trio they called the Big Three - Palmer, Player and Nicklaus.

Player had won at Muirfield in 1959, and Palmer, who had failed by a shot to catch Thomson's compatriot Kel Nagle at St. Andrews in the Centenary Open of 1960, now pitched his camp at Southport.

It was an Open plagued by appalling weather which not only caused devastation to tents and marquees, but stretched quite a few administrative tempers as well. A fierce mixture of gales and storms led to the cancellation of Friday's last two rounds
and an unprecedented announcement by the R & A. The Championship, they said, must end on Saturday whether four rounds had been completed or not. Despite the weather, the golf was still memorable. Dai Rees jointly led the first round with
Harold Henning and Nagle on 68, and he was still with Henning at 142 on a second day when he had the better of the weather and Palmer fired a 73 in the worst of it, with a seven (including a penalty shot) when his ball moved in a bunker. Palmer's play in the gale in the second round was considered among his finest. This plaque was erected to commemorate an awesome second shot at the 16th.

The third round on Friday morning, following a night of fierce gales, was cancelled and on Saturday morning Rees opened with a disastrous seven in a yet magnificent round of 71. The inexorable Palmer was round in 69, and in the afternoon was three shots to the good with nine to play. Rees covered the last nine holes in 31. He birdied the 15th and 16th, and got down in three at the very last hole where seven years previously he had taken five and had lost to Thomson by a shot. Now he had lost again - to Palmer by a shot - and he was never again to get so close

Following the 1961 Open, extensive alterations and additions were made to the clubhouse, and "spectator walkways" were carved out on the course by re-siting tees and re-fashioning holes. It was the perfect setting for Thomson's historic fifth victory of 1965.

In what was the last of the three-day Championships, the 35-year-old Australian overcame the strongest of international fields which included the defending champion Tony Lema, Palmer, Player, Nicklaus, de Vicenzo, plus fellow-countrymen Nagle and Devlin, who was to return the next year and win the Carling World title.

It was a triumph for the shot-maker over the power game. Thomson - and there was none better at it - steered his way round the 72 holes, "playing the course", scorning an opening 74 against Lema's 68 to win eventually by two shots from Huggett and O'Connor. Two behind Lema and Devlin (140) at halfway, he went one in front with a round to go, despite a 5-5-5 start to his third round of 72.

There was probably never such a log-jam as there was on that Friday afternoon when they lined up for the last round. There was Thomson on 214, Lema and Devlin on 215, Palmer, O'Connor and de Vicenzo on 216, Nagle and Huggett on 217. All in all, 13 players had the chance to win.

Thomson won it with his second shot to the 510 yards 17th which hit the flag at a time when he was just a stroke ahead. Afterwards, with the best in the world defeated and a fifth Open title in the record books, Peter described it as "my greatest win"

Royal Birkdale first saw Lee Trevino when he played in the Alcan Golfer of the Year Championship in 1968; he returned in 1971, having won the US open for the second time, and had followed it with the Canadian Open. The question was whether he could complete a hat-trick of titles in the space of four weeks with victory at Birkdale. He told us, "It will be a miracle, but I believe in miracles." - and a miracle he performed.

The 1971 Open will forever belong to Trevino and to Mr. Lu, whilst taking nothing from the tenacity of Tony Jacklin in finishing third, nor from the splendid effort of Craig DeFoy, who surprised everyone with his fourth place.

Lu Liang-Huan from Taiwan was already an established figure in Asian golf, had played in the British Open back in 1964, and was not entirely a newcomer to the golf scene. But the crowds that flocked to the course, and millions who watched on television, took him to their hearts as he acknowledged the applause for birdies and eagles with the polite raising of a hat, which they thought was part of his Taiwanese wardrobe but which in fact he had bought that week from Bobby Halsall's shop!

It all happened on the last day. Trevino had jointly led with Jacklin for two rounds, then went a shot in front of Tony and Mr. Lu with a round to go. With five 3s from the 3rd to the 7th , and out in 31, Lee was coasting home until Birkdale exacted its revenge at the 17th. There he drove into the sandhills, took two more to get back on to the fairway, and down went an ugly seven. Lu's five cut the deficit to one shot.

At the 18th Mr. Lu pulled his drive into the crowd, felling and concussing the onlooking Mrs. Lillian Tipping from Littleborough in Lancashire. She was rushed to hospital, where she was examined but not detained. It did not end there. Three years later at Royal Lytham, Mr. Lu personally met up with her for the first time, and a few years after that Mrs. Tipping and her husband were flown out to Taiwan for a holiday at Lu's own hotel!

Trevino duly won by a shot to join immortals such as Jones, Sarazen and Hogan who had won the US and British Opens in the same year. He was to retain his title at Muirfield 12 months later

In 1976, the passage of five years brought another two-man battle, this time settled only by a great last round of 66. In heatwave conditions, which saw fire break out on the course, Johnny Miller won by the widest Birkdale margin of six shots from Nicklaus and a young Spaniard by the name of Severiano Ballesteros, just 19.

Seve was joint leader at Round 1, clear leader by two shots at Round 2, and still two ahead after the third round, in which US Open champion Jerry Pate shot a mind-blowing 87!

Youth understandably faltered at the last hurdle. Ballesteros could not sustain the challenge in the telling final run-in. Miller went out in 33, birdied the 12th, eagled the 13th , and finished with a flourish with two more birdies.

Ballesteros could only manage a 74, but this was just the start of an illustrious Open career. Interestingly Peter Dawson holed in one at the 4th, the first by a left-hander in the Open.

In 1983, Craig Stadler set the pace on the opening day with a 64, the lowest first round on record. But it was Tom Watson, oozing the grace and confidence of a four-time champion and seldom out of the lead, who triumphed. He played the final, majestic hole in text book style. Splitting the fairway with his tee shot, he then threaded his two iron second between the sentinel bunkers from 213 yards to leave himself two putts from 18 feet for his fifth Championship. In the process he set a Royal Birkdale aggregate record of 275, nine under par.

This total was the lowest winning total apart from his own in 1977 and 1980. He beat Hale Irwin and Andy Bean by one stroke. Irwin, going to tap in a 2-inch putt on the 14th green in the third round, missed the ball, a lapse that cost him what may have been the vital stroke

The 1991 Open was hotly contested but it belonged in the end to the Australians and in particular to Ian Baker-Finch, who at long last won golf's most treasured trophy, and to Mike Harwood who was runner-up after giving his compatriot a good run for his money. It was an unpredictable Open, for Europe's top golfers - Faldo, Woosnam, Olazabal and Ballesteros - started amongst the favourites but finished disappointingly low in the final placings. It was also a difficult Open and the course itself, with par set at an all-time low of 70, made the headlines in its own right, with its windy conditions on the first two days, its infamous opening hole and its testing greens.

The first round leader was Seve Ballesteros. He fired a 66 to take a one shot lead over Chip Beck, Martin Gates and Santiago Luna. His round was compiled in a strong westerly wind. He opened his birdie account with a 35-footer on the fifth and closed it with a 40-footer on the last.

To give some idea of the strength of the wind - Ballesteros powered a drive 375 yards down the 17th fairway, hit a 9-iron to five feet and sank the putt for an eagle. He played the eighteenth (472 yards), with a 4-iron off the tee, followed by a 7-iron.

The tough conditions continued on Friday - Mark Calcavecchia dropped six shots in the first six holes, despite an eagle 2 at the 3rd. Tied for the lead by the end of the day, one shot ahead of Seve and O'Meara, were Gary Hallberg, Andy Oldcorn and Mike Harwood.

Conditions eased on Saturday allowing Baker-Finch to shoot a course record 64. O'Meara joined Baker-Finch on 4-under with a fine 67.

With Ian Baker-Finch and Mark O'Meara leading from Eamonn Darcy and Mike Harwood as the 120th Open Championship went into it's final day, the cynics were saying this was the Open nobody wanted to win - or rather, the Open a nobody would win.

But Baker-Finch, the 30-year-old Australian wanted to win all right, to the extent of devouring the front nine in 29 shots with five birdies in the first seven holes. He came home in 37 for an eight under par total of 272 to win by two shots over his
compatriot, Harwood, and by three from the Americans, Fred Couples and Mark O'Meara. Two shots was the nearest anyone got to Baker-Finch after he birdied the 3rd, although when Couples sank four straight birdies from the 10th, it did seem that the Australian's control of events might be threatened.

In winning Baker-Finch continued the tradition of European failure in Opens at Birkdale and became the second Aussie to win the Championship over the Southport links. Had he saved par at the last he would have been the first man to break 130 for the last 36 holes of a major. As it is his 64-66 finish matched Tom Watson's winning effort at Turnberry in 1977.

Other notable achievements included Jodie Mudd's course record 63 in the fourth round. He had eight birdies in what he called "maybe the greatest round of golf I ever played". If Mudd was pleased, Jim Payne, the Lincolnshire amateur was thrilled. He had a level-par 70 on Sunday, in the company of Jack Nicklaus, to deny Phil Mickleson the Silver Medal for being low amateur. Another point of interest is the generosity shown by Mark Calcavecchia - on the last hole of the second round the American hit his second shot to the green and promptly pulled out all the irons from his bag and handed then to Jim Paton a greenkeeper from West Kilbride. Jim, who was raking the bunkers, had earlier mentioned that he had recently had his clubs stolen.

Richard Boxall was undoubtedly the unluckiest man at Birkdale in '91 - whilst hitting an excellent drive from the 9th tee he fractured his left leg and had to be stretchered from the course.

Only eventual champion Mark O’Meara and his play-off challenger Brian Watts were able to match par over four rounds of a demanding Royal Birkdale course in a typical Open week of gales, torrential rain and brilliant sunshine.

It took the third play-off in 10 years to establish O’Meara as a double major winner of the season, setting the ancient Claret Jug next to the US Masters trophy he won in April.

Watts, who had failed to make the cut in three of his previous five Open appearances, had a two-shot advantage over O’Meara, Jim Furyk and Jesper Parnevik at the start of the final round. But he arrived at the 72nd hole needing a par four to tie O’Meara’s level par total of 280 after a round of 68 which included six birdies, three of them at Birkdale’s tough par three holes, and four dropped shots.

Watts drove into the right rough and his second shot hung on the downsloping sand at the back of a greenside bunker. He was forced to play the recovery with one foot in the sand and one on the bank and produced a miraculous shot that stopped within inches of the hole.

O’Meara went ahead at the first hole of the play-off, the par-five 15th, holing from seven feet for a birdie while Watts missed from half that distance. He still held that one stroke advantage at the 18th, hitting a well controlled second shot just through the green directly behind the pin. For the second time in an hour Watts was bunkered, came out strongly and failed to hole the putt. O’Meara had three putts for the championship and needed only two.

That final hole had been the scene of high drama throughout the last afternoon. Scotland’s Raymond Russell, who had started the day six shots behind the leader, needed a par four for a 66 to set a target score of 282, two over par, but he drove deeply into the left rough from the 18th tee and could only blast the ball out to
the fairway. From there he produced his shot of the week within three feet of the hole for the joint best round of the day. His score was matched by Tiger Woods, who was joint leader after a first round 65, but trailed by five shots at the start of the last day. Two tremendous blows gave him a birdie at the 544-yard 15th, he chipped into the hole for another birdie from behind the 17th green and finished off with a 35-foot putt for another across the home green for third place.

But one of the finest moments of the week belonged to 17-year- old Walker Cup player Justin Rose. An opening round of 72 was steady but unspectacular and gave no hint of what was to come. A second round of 66 shot him into the lead with Watts and did well in the gales of Saturday to complete the course in 75 on a day when the average score rose to 77.49. He stood on the final tee needing a four for a level par round of 70 and the highest finish by an amateur in modern times. But he tugged his drive well left and could only advance the ball further down the left rough some 45 yards short of the green.

Then, having made the decision to turn professional at the conclusion of the Open, he played his final and most fantastic shot as an amateur. He pitched the ball high over the intervening bunker, dropping it perfectly on line for the pin and was swamped in a crescendo of cheers as it rolled slowly into the hole.

The 137th Open, at Royal Birkdale, will be remembered for its wild weather, its pure drama — and for a champion who almost didn’t play in the tournament. Padraig Harrington, defending the trophy, admitted on the eve of the first round that had it not been The Open, he would not have played.

When he pulled out of practice on Wednesday to have intensive treatment to his right wrist the odds on Harrington retaining the crown went rocketing upwards. But tonight the trophy is heading back to Ireland and at the end of a roller-coaster day he was a runaway champion by four strokes.

And in the end it was not any of the overnight leaders who challenged him hardest, but his European Tour colleague Ian Poulter who emerged from the pack with a superb round of 69 — but even that was four strokes adrift of Harrington. Another European, Henrik Stenson, shared third place with the week’s most talked-about name, Greg Norman.

Even by links standards, a wind that was never less than 20mph, and at times gusted up to 50 meant a constant roller-coaster with many good scores every day being wrecked by double-bogeys or worse. It all began in the most horrendous conditions with not only wind by torrential rain wrecking things for those who went out on the first morning. The afternoon starters had things slightly better, but by the end of the day only three players had broken par, and then by only one stroke.

Popular American Rocco Mediate, who gave Tiger Woods a run for his money in the US Open, shared the lead with Northern Irish hope Graeme McDowell — fresh from his victory at the Scottish Open — and the seasoned Australian Robert Allenby.

Tucked in behind, on par 70 for the day, were American Bart Bryant, with Australian star of the present Adam Scott, and a certain Australian star of the past named Norman. The Great White Shark, who many considered had long been consigned to the deep of semi-retirement, was ostensibly at Royal Birkdale to hone his game for next week’s Senior Open at Troon — but he clearly left the script at home.
Newly-wed Greg, with his bride Chris Evert along for fairway inspiration, was still right in the thick of it on Day 2, when he took the lead halfway through and lost it only late in the afternoon to a determined round of 67 by another veteran, South Korean KJ Choi. Tucked in behind them by then was the upcoming Colombian Camilo Villegas — who, by the time the TV commentators had got their tongues around how to pronounce his name (it’s “Vee-jay-gas”) had strung together a finishing blast of five successive birdies.

It was so tight that only five strokes covered the first 21 players, but already the wind had blown away the hopes of many fancied contenders. The cut came at the end of the plus-nines, and out went six former Open champions — Paul Lawrie, Mark O’Meara, Tom Watson and Mark Calcavecchia, plus the injured John Daly, who completed two rounds of 80 and 89 — and Sandy Lyle, who called it quits after 10 miserable holes of the first round in driving rain. Other big names, such as Sergio Garcia, Ernie Els, Lee Westwood, Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson had already effectively fallen by the wayside, but the Saturday morning papers were full off Shark talk — and Norman did not let anyone down.

While many waited for what they thought would be an inevitable fade-out by the 53-year-old, he not only defied the years and the cynics, but actually improved his position. With more heavy wind, particularly in the morning, conditions remained far from ideal. None of the remaining 83 players broke par, and 72s were enough to plant Norman and defending champion Padraig Harrington at the top of the leaderboard.

Norman led by two, with KJ Choi’s 75 sliding him down to joint second with Harrington, while a surprise English name came into the reckoning in fourth, Simon Wakefield, whose round of 70 was one of only four at that level on the day. Another 70 man, Ben Curtis, achieved his in the worst of the conditions.

And so to the climax. One by one the challengers fell away — Choi and Wakefield so dramatically that they each took 79 to finish way down. Norman maybe went too boldly at his task, bogeys at one, two and three immediately setting him back, and more lost shots at 10, 13 and 18 compounding his drift back down.

The tournament will also be remembered for the showing of the amateurs. On the course where Justin Rose made his name as a 17-year-old, Chris Wood earned a share of fifth place with rounds of 75, 70, 73 and 72, while Tom Sherreard finished his first Open, eagle-birdie to finish +14 way ahead of many leading pro players.

Ironically, that included Justin Rose, whose “homecoming” was far from happy, with rounds of 74, 73, 82 and 73 leaving him tied for 70th place.