The Open at Troon
The Open Championship will be returning to Royal Troon in 2016 and Ayrshire can't wait!
The British Open Championship has been played at Royal Troon on eight previous occasions starting in 1923 when Troon replaced Prestwick on the rota for the first time and that event was won by Englishman Arthur Havers who pipped defending champion Walter Hagen by holing for birdie from a bunker at the last to win. You can even watch the 1925 Open Championship on video!
He was followed by other golfing greats Bobby Locke, Arnold Palmer, Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson, Mark Calcavecchia, Justin Leonard and Todd Hamilton.
The Royal Troon website has more information on each of its Opens as well as a history of other events hosted by the club through the years and the official Open Championship website is a magnificent archive of the histroy of the great event with complete details including all the statistics, images, and wonderful archive video of the events. To find more about Troon's Open's simply click on any of the following years to find out all you want to know about Opens at (Royal) Troon
Opens played at Troon: 1923,1950, 1962, 1973, 1982, 1989, 1997, 2004
Historically though perhaps the most important Open played at Troon was the one which is recognised as reigniting international interest in the Open itself. It was 1962 and a young man called Arnold Palmer was about leave his mark.
1962 - Palmer Charges at Troon
By Malcolm Campbell
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The revival of The Open Championship in Britain can be laid at the feet of one player, Arnold Palmer. It was Palmer who led a long trail of top American players back into the world’s oldest championship, bringing with them a new breath of life to an ailing patient.
Palmer only just failed to win on his first visit to St Andrews in 1960, putted into second place by the unflappable Australian, Kel Nagle. At Birkdale the following year he triumphed but Arnold Palmer’s greatest victory in The Open Championship came in 1962 at a hard and fast Royal Troon on the Ayrshire coast.
The dry conditions which produced the occasional bizarre bounce on the fairways were hardly conductive to Palmer’s all-out aggressive approach to the game of golf. Careful planning and subtle execution were not in the Palmer lexicon. Hit it hard, find it and hit it hard again was more the Palmer way. If there was a challenge to be taken on. No matter how apparently futile or foolhardy, the great man would take it on. Most times he succeeded and that made him the most exciting player in the game.
He opened at Troon with a fairly conservative round of 71, one behind Peter Thomson, but got into gear the following day with a 69 that was only equalled by Peter Alliss. He then spread-eagled the field with a 67.
Arnie simply gave everyone a lesson in how to play a fast running course that none of the other leading contenders could cope with. Gary Player couldn’t handle it at all and missed the cut. Jack Nicklaus finished 29 strokes behind at the finish and the only danger to Arnie on the final day was himself. He needed something to shoot for and was encouraged by his wife to make sure he made it two Open victories in a row, because not many had done that before.
The incentive worked well enough and Palmer outclassed the field with a 69 in the last round for an aggregate of 276. His winning margin over Kel Nagel of six strokes was a fitting revenge for his defeat by the Australian two year previously, and it is marked on how much he outclassed the field that Phil Rodgers and Brian Huggett, tied for third place, were 13 strokes behind the winner.
Arnie’s total mastery of the long and difficult 11th hole alongside the railway line will always be remembered from that Open. Nicklaus once got into double figures there, but in six rounds, including two qualifying rounds, Arnold Palmer was six under par.
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