Just as with the previous posts, I’ve relied on the knowledge of an able historian to help me navigate this difficult question. My guru on this journey was Laurie Rae, Senior Curator at the R&A. Mr. Rae gave generously of his time to help winnow 148 Opens down to the “best” 15. The wisdom is all his, the perceived errors in ranking all mine. Let’s begin!

15. 1954, Peter Thomson, Royal Birkdale

If there are two historical golfers who merit more attention than they get, they are Peter Thomson and Bobby Locke. Rae didn’t want to use the word “forgotten,” but I will. At least in America, Thomson and Locke don’t get the credit they deserve, possibly because neither took home an American major and possibly because they missed the early peak of televised golf. But for a period in the 1950s, they were dominant at the Open, winning eight of 10 claret jugs between 1949 and 1958. The ’54 Open saw Thomson claim the first of his five, and become the first Australian to capture the championship. He and Locke were among those who fought it out in the final round at Royal Birkdale, and though I couldn’t find footage of Thomson’s sand recovery on 16, I did find this delightful newsreel showing the action of the final holes:

14. 1937, Henry Cotton, Carnoustie

Cotton’s triumph in 1934 was critical because it broke a streak of eight straight American wins, but his victory in ’37 was even more important in that he defeated the entirety of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, all of whom had stuck around to play at Carnoustie after their 8-4 win in late June. Cotton’s brilliant final-round 71 came in torrential conditions, and he later said that it was one of the finest rounds of his career. With that result, he overcame a three-shot 54-hole deficit to defeat among others Byron Nelson. According to Rae, the Englishman’s win “maintained British interest in the championship itself.”

13. 1992, Nick Faldo, Muirfield

Photo by Getty Images

As Rae noted, Faldo was in the prime of his prime, going for his fifth major in six years. He had won the Irish Open, and at the start of this Open, he looked fundamentally unstoppable. He set a 36-hole record, beat his own 54-hole record and came into the final round leading by four shots. It looked like a coronation, but it was not—a miserable stretch from 11 to 14 saw him lose three shots, American John Cook catching him and taking the lead on 16. For Faldo, this “dominant” Open now became about resilience. Pulling himself together, he birdied two of the final four holes and squeaked out a one-shot win—a testament to perseverance and even acceptance in the face of what must have been massive disappointment, and the greatest of his three Opens.

12. 1927, Bobby Jones, Old Course at St. Andrews

Photo by Topical Press Agency

In 1921, a younger, more impetuous Bobby Jones became so angry at his play in the third round at St. Andrews that he tore up his scorecard and withdrew after 11 holes. He then insulted the Old Course, and the St. Andrews press fired back, writing “Master Bobby is just a boy, and an ordinary boy at that.” This, then, was a kind of comeback story, because in the interval, Jones had come to love both the course and the town. And as fate would have it, they loved him back. When he won by six shots, he was carried off the green by a jubilant crowd, and even asked that his trophy be kept in Scotland with the R&A. By 1958, Jones had become just the second American “Freeman of the City” in St. Andrews, an honor he shared with none other than Ben Franklin. At that ceremony, Jones said of the Old Course that, “the more you study it, the more you love it, and the more you love it, the more you study it.”

11. 1953, Ben Hogan, Carnoustie

What do you call it when the greatest golfer of his generation comes over for the first and only time in his life, had just a week to prepare for the links style, improved in every round and won by four strokes? You call it Ben Hogan being Ben Hogan. The win capped an incredible year in major championships that also saw him capture the Masters and U.S. Open. He remains the only golfer to ever win those three events in the same year.

10. 1984, Seve Ballesteros, Old Course at St. Andrews

I’ll be honest: I’m in this one for the little dance Seve did when he sunk his putt on the 72nd hole. But historically, it merits top-10 status for the incredible drama at the end. Tom Watson, heading into the final round tied for the lead, had one of his greatest chances to win what would have been his record-tying sixth Open. With two holes to play, Watson and Seve were tied. Seve had a putt to take the lead on 18, while Watson was struggling to make his par on the road hole. The drama can best be seen starting at the 44:30 mark here:

Seve’s putt instigated a two-shot swing, perhaps one of the most famous in major championship golf, and added his name to the list of legendary winners at the Home of Golf.

9. 1896, Harry Vardon, Muirfield

This was the first of Vardon’s record six Open Championship wins, and though Rae said that every one of them was noteworthy enough to merit inclusion on the list, this one stood out because of how Vardon out-duelled his great rival J.H. Taylor over a 36-hole playoff. While the tournament’s final round came on a Thursday, the playoff wasn’t played until Saturday, since both Vardon and Taylor had to play a different 36-hole tournament on the Friday. Taylor won that one, but Vardon beat him at Muirfield. Taylor would win again, though, and in fact there was a 21-year period where Vardon, Taylor and James Braid won 16 championships between them. “They were the superstars of the Open,” Rae said.

8. 1868, Tom Morris Jr., Prestwick

At the time, Tom Morris Jr. (if you’re wondering, yes, I was slightly disappointed that Rae didn’t call him “Young Tom Morris”) was the youngest player in Open Championship history at 17. Prestwick was a 12-hole course, and the three rounds of the championship were all held on a single day. Morris Jr. set a record when he shot 51 on his first round, which was then bested by his father, who shot a 50 in the second round to take a one-shot lead. In the final round, though, Morris Jr. struck back, carding a 49 to beat his dad by three shots and win his first Open (which came with a massive £6 prize). This was the first of four straight Opens victories for Young Tom. As Rae pointed out, his story is all the more poignant because of his untimely death—Morris Jr. died on Christmas Day 1875 at age 24 from a pulmonary haemorrhage. “There were often very few competitors at this time,” Rae said, “but the golf was no less impressive and the champions no less dominant than they are today.” Morris Jr. remains the youngest Open winner in history, and his father is still the oldest.

7. 1972, Lee Trevino, Muirfield

In terms of the greatest shots in Open history, Trevino’s chip on 17 on Sunday ranks near the top. He had bungled the par 5 up to that point, and had hole out for par while Tony Jacklin, tied for the lead, had a 15-footer for birdie. It looked very much like Jacklin would head to the final hole with at least a one-shot edge. “I really felt, on the 17th, like I’d broken him,” Jacklin would later say. But in one of the great feats of match-play-within-stroke-play golf, Trevino turned the tables. Watch it play out, including Jacklin’s subsequent putts, starting at the 3:45 mark:

For Jacklin, who had watched Trevino hole out twice the day before, the loss was unbearable. Later, he said, “I was never the same again after that. I didn’t ever get my head around it—it definitely knocked the stuffing out of me somehow.” Jacklin had already won the Open in 1969, luckily, and would go on to transform the European Ryder Cup team as its captain, but what shows the emotional swings of better than that moment, which gave Trevino his second straight claret jug?

6. 1961, Arnold Palmer, Royal Troon

Photo by Bob Thomas

The impact here was more wide-ranging than any drama on the course, in which Palmer beat Dai Rees by a shot. What really mattered was that Palmer was the first American champion since Hogan in 1953, and his win did more to increase the status of the Open in America than anything before. According to Rae, a figure as beloved as Palmer, who believed so much in the history and importance of the Open as the oldest of the majors—this was his second trip over, having finished runner-up in ’60—and who wanted to win it so badly, fundamentally changed how the tournament was viewed in the eyes of American professionals. Many had stopped making the trip due to travel concerns, the low prize money and various other reasons. Palmer’s victory completely changed the perception. You can see it in the results—the long American dry spell was over, and in the 60 Opens that started with his win, Americans have won more than half. In his unique way, Palmer made it matter again.

5. 1970, Jack Nicklaus, Old Course at St. Andrews

It seems like the great ones always manage to get a win at St. Andrews, and for Nicklaus, this was the first of two. Interestingly, Doug Sanders only needed a par on the 18th hole to pull out the victory, but he missed a three-foot putt after being distracted by something in his eye line. Despite Sanders’s disappointment, he battled hard in the 18-hole playoff. It came down to the 18th hole, when Nicklaus took off his yellow sweater and hit one of the most famous shots of his career—a drive that actually flew over the green, travelling about 360 yards in total.

He chipped close from there, made his birdie putt and beat Sanders by one. At the end of this video, you can see Nicklaus, thrilled beyond self-control when his winning putt caught the right and edge and fell, actually threw his putter in the air, which nearly managed to hit Sanders as it fell.

4. 2016, Henrik Stenson, Royal Troon

“Some of the finest links golf you’d ever seen,” Rae said, and really, what more needs adding to this incredible fight between Stenson and Mickelson? It ended with Mickelson cooling off, just slightly, but Stenson never did, tying Johnny Miller’s major record (for a winner) with a final-round 63, and set a cumulative Open record with his 72-hole score in relation to par of 20 under. In many ways, it was also the best possible result—Mickelson had already won his Open in 2013, and Stenson was a player who deserved a major, but was starting to look like he might never get one. To win the Open, as a European, felt appropriate, and secured Stenson’s legacy. Plus, there was that record-setting final putt:

3. 2000, Tiger Woods, Old Course at St. Andrews

It seems like every major has its quintessential Transcendent Tiger year, in which the GOAT demolishes the field in ways that defy belief. The Masters in 1997, the U.S. Open in 2000, and maybe, at a stretch, the 2006 PGA. For the Open Championship, it was back in the greatest year of his great career, 2000. This was the “Millennium Open,” at the most famous course in the world, and 239,000 spectators watched him post a then-Open record 19 under, beating his nearest opponent by eight strokes and securing the career Grand Slam at the age of 24, the youngest to achieve the feat. Rae reminded me of an incredible facet of his performance: In 72 holes of superb course management, he didn’t find a single bunker. Remarkable anywhere, but especially at St. Andrews. And it’s also worth remembering that coming on the heels of his crushing Pebble Beach win, it legitimately seemed like Tiger might never lose again. This was a kind of dominance we’d never seen before, and haven’t since.

hoto by JONATHAN UTZ

2. 2019, Shane Lowry, Royal Portrush

Call it recency bias, and in fact I implied as much to Rae when he ranked it second on his list. I made a small note to adjust the ranking later—the privileges of a writer/dictator—but the more I thought about his argument, the more sense it made. The Open, more than any other major, is about history, and the significance of holding the first Open in Northern Ireland since 1951 is about as historical as it gets. In the interlude, that country fell into decades of religious and political conflict, and the symbolism of the R&A returning to Royal Portrush was enormous. To pull off a safe event, embraced by the people, and for an Irish golfer to win … well, it didn’t matter that the final day lacked drama. “It made your heartbeat quicker to witness it,” Rae told me, and in the end, I agree with him—the historical importance is unmatched.

1. Tom Watson, 1977, Turnberry

Students of the game knew No. 1 without having to scroll down, or else would have been enraged to find anything else in the top spot. “The Duel in the Sun” between Watson and Jack Nicklaus was simply one of the greatest golf spectacles ever, and one that, to quote Rae, “will forever be spoken about.” It was about the great rivalry between the two men, it was about the sportsmanship on display, and, of course, it was about the golf. “It went beyond natural chronology,” Rae said. “It was legendary.”

Watson, 27, and Nicklaus, 37, matched each other score for score in the first three rounds at Turnberry, hosting the Open for the first time, pulling away together where by the end, they were 10 shots better than anyone else in the field. In the closing stretch, where Watson birdied four of the final six holes for the dramatic victory, but perhaps it’s best summarized by a quote from that final-round Saturday, when Watson turned to Nicklaus and said, “this is what it’s all about isn’t it?”

“You bet it is,” Nicklaus replied.

The post The 15 best Open Championships, ranked appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Peter Thomson joined the Golf Digest staff as a contributing editor in 1986. At the time, I wrote in the editor’s letter: “Thomson is best known to America as a player, but internationally he is recognised as an architect, writer, administrator and statesman. He once ran for Parliament in his native Australia and was narrowly defeated. He is credited with founding the Far Eastern tournament circuit, ranging from India to Japan. He is unique in the sport, a reader of hardcover books, kind of an outdoor intellectual.”

After winning a tour event, it would be common to see him accept the trophy, then go into the press tent and roll a piece of paper into a typewriter carriage, and rap out a report on the final round as the golf correspondent to far-flung newspapers. He was the rarest of athletes who didn’t just talk his stories into a tape recorder to be cleaned up by a ghostwriter; like Bobby Jones, Thomson laboured over his own syntax. Trying to entice the five-time British Open champion to write a column for Golf Digest, I invited him to our offices in Connecticut, and we went to lunch down the road on this beautiful fall day at a typical New England restaurant called the Red Barn. In a private, wood-panelled room, we had an animated discussion about a wide range of potential topics.

What clinched it for me was one sentence. I asked his opinion of Jack Nicklaus’ design work. Jack was the No. 1 architect at the time with Pete Dye 1a, and their influence reshaped modern architecture worldwide. “Nicklaus courses,” Thomson said, parsing his words, “are like Jack himself—grim and humourless, with sharp edges.” Even if you didn’t agree with his assessment, you had to recognise the mind of a columnist who would stir and shake our readers.

Following is the first column he wrote for Golf Digest, in February 1987. It refers to a statement made by Jack Renner, who played the PGA Tour from 1977-’88. Known for exceptionally straight driving, Renner had his most historic moment come in the scorer’s tent leading the 1983 Sony Open in Hawaii by a shot over Isao Aoki, who proceeded to hole out his 120-yard wedge on the last hole for an eagle to win. Renner’s good humour at the time demonstrated a sense of perspective for the game that endeared him to Thomson. Jack, now 63, lives in San Diego. Peter continued to travel the world, design courses and offer incisive commentary until his death at age 88 in 2018— Jerry Tarde

You don’t have to be a weatherman to notice a change in the climate. Just read Jack Renner’s quote about the U.S. Open course at Shinnecock Hills last year.

“I’ll tell you what’s great about Shinnecock,” he said. “No railroad ties and no greens in the middle of lakes. There are choices here, options. The modern golf course removes strategy and options from the game of golf. It’s a defensive game. You just try to keep away from trouble. Here there are three or four ways to play most holes.”

Peter Thomson, 82, five-time British Open champion
(Photo by J.D. Cuban)

Does this mean what I think it does? Have railroad ties and greens in lakes had their day? Passed out of fashion like Bermuda shorts and fins on Cadillacs? Are the cold, grey skies of depressing winter giving way to warmer days of celebration and good fun? I, for one, hope so.

The truth is, the TPC at Sawgrass and courses of that ilk are hell to play. Such courses were designed and built for the amusement of spectators, not for the pleasure of playing. They were born in commercialism as part of Commissioner Deane Beman’s bold plan to make the PGA Tour self-sufficient by the staging of tour events in its own stadiums. Built into these arenas are the features that make for colourful television—the horror stretches of water and wilderness, railroad ties and savage sawgrass, areas within it might be hoped a front-runner will come to grief to the sniggers of the multitudes watching from the high mounds. The mixture of these patterns makes for the photogenic aspect that magazines and calendars lap up, the reflection of green grass and trees in calm, blue water. (Out West you can even have snowcapped mountains mirrored in the hazards.) It sells a load of real estate but has little to do with golf and, more often than not, gets in the way.

What we are seeing in these courses are not practical innovations, but distortions of dimensions—not works of art but caricatures.

The whole sorry business stems on the one hand from the silly attempt to keep winning scores up at around par for four rounds, about 288. Winning scores in the early 1900s were near the 300 mark, but they steadily declined with the advancement in clubs and balls and the tremendous improvement in course maintenance.

To Thomson, TPC Sawgrass represented golf courses built for TV viewers instead of golfers. A contrast would be Royal Melbourne (above) in his native Australia. (Photo by Carlos Amoedo).

Winners of major championships, in this day and age, should crack the 270 mark, but for some nonsensical reason the game’s authorities decided that scores should hold at the par mark. To counter low scores came the mucking about with the course, distorting its length and width, and the conversion of nonhazard areas into “penalty zones.” The result of this misguided policy is the present-day competition for the most outrageous and bizarre.

On the other hand is the modern axiom that a golf course will sell real estate, and that the more notorious the course, the higher the surrounding land prices. The trick for the developer, as devised through his architect, is to build something that is photogenically stunning, however impractical, extravagant or absurd. Never mind the golfer, that most gullible of all citizens. “Just get us into the colour magazines” seems to be the working theory.

The effect of this kind of marketing is to lead the game of golf down the garden path. By pounding out the message endlessly that golf is a gambit of tortures, and that it is somehow plebeian to play an entire round of golf with one ball, commercialism is doing a great harm to a noble sport.

These trends have been raging now for two decades or more. The consumer has had precious little say in the matter. The free market has not been in effect, he has been caught up in a mad competition of propaganda.

Yet there is a ray of hope. There are signs of a change of season as a few brave professionals like Jack Renner are beginning to speak their minds. But the little man should be heard from, too. Not the land speculator or investor, but the golfer who loves the game.

As for me, when I first took to journalism, my kind but stern mentor laid down the principle that if grandmother couldn’t understand what I was writing about, it was a lousy piece of composition. If my grandma can’t play it, it has to be a lousy course.

The post PETER THOMSON: Looking for golf courses my grandmother would love appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Gray
After a two-stage Q-School and David Langley’s emotional victory in the opening event of the season at Ayla Golf Club in Aqaba, the MENA Tour’s Journey to Jordan has arrived at its newest venue.

With its majestic views over the Great Pyramids of Giza, we wish the 120-strong field for the $75,000 NEWGIZA Open the best of luck concentrating on their golf at Egypt’s latest course. Nearly 15 years in the making since its conception in 2005, the layout is the final project of Thomson Perrett & Lobb, the firm founded by the late, five-time Open champion Peter Thomson.

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Here the stunning 6th hole gives a hint of the dramatic changes in elevation that will confront the regional circuit’s best players from Feb. 11-13. They won’t have trouble with the rough – there isn’t any – but principal designer Tim Lobb has plenty of challenge up his sleeve in the form of water hazards, expansive sandy waste areas and huge, undulating greens.

Count then on a pure ball-striker being crowned champion in Cairo.

The post NEWGIZA is a new, aesthetically pleasing test for MENA Tour’s best appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Tim Lobb on his latest design near the great pyramids of Giza, the business and life lessons passed down by the late, great Peter Thomson and how modern golf equipment is making his work more challenging than ever before.

By Kent Gray
When you’re a part of a design firm founded by five-time Open champion Peter Thomson, it’s inevitable that your contribution to modern course architecture might take a while to be truly appreciated by the general golfing public.

Tim Lobb’s stocks are certainly on the rise after the unveiling of NEWGIZA on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, earlier this year. Poignantly the final project of Thomson, (Ross) Perrett & Lobb, the 18-hole layout in the shadow of the Giza pyramids, one of the Seven Great Wonders of the World, opened to widespread acclaim.

But the expertise of the Melbourne born and raised, Surrey-based architect has long been known by the biggest names in the course design and renovation game; they don’t anoint you vice-president of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects, as the 49-year-old recently was, by mistake.

Lobb’s reputation has been hard-earned, firstly with European Golf Design and then though 12 memorable years and countless projects with Thomson, Perrett & Lobb, a company wound up in 2016, roughly two years before golf lost Thomson when the Hall of Famer died in June 2018, aged 88.

Finalising the same hole during the construction phase of the new course. Photograph by Kevin Murray Photography

Chief of LOBB + PARTNERS since 2016, Lobb says the reaction to the opening of NEWGIZA has been “incredibly flattering and comes as a huge boost”. Not that he has time to rest on those laurels; construction has just started on another Egyptian course on the shores of the Red Sea at Soma Bay in Hurgada while the historically-focused renovations of courses such as Tandridge, Burhill and Huntercombe, layouts originally designed by some of the greatest architects that ever lived, are privileged projects for Lobb.

Regnum Ankara Golf and Country Club, a new 18-holer in Turkey, is set to open next year while Lobb’s contribution to golf in the Middle East is a waiting game; masterplans for new 18, 36 and 54 hole developments in Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE – including Dubai Golf City – are on hold but only the strike of a pen from adding to his legacy.

Lobb took time out from his busy schedule to talk to Kent Gray about his changing design philosophy, lessons learned and the challenges anew for the game, and by default course designers, ahead.

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How were you introduced to the game?
My father introduced me to golf as he is a keen golfer. I first played on a public course in Melbourne called East Malvern Golf Club aged 10 and later became a member at Riversdale Golf Club as a teenager. I spent many hours playing and practising there.

You play off single figures. what level did you play the game to?
The best I ever got to was a three handicap. I dreamt of playing professionally but thankfully realised pretty early that I was nowhere near good enough.

Barring your own creations, what’s the best course you’ve played?
Probably the best courses I have played are Cypress Point Club, Chicago Golf Club, Royal Melbourne (West) and Kingston Heath Golf Club. I just cannot give my all-time best but it’s maybe the first mentioned.

And the best destination for golf in the world?
I would say either the Melbourne sandbelt or the London heathlands. Both destinations have amazing golf courses very closely located together and a stone throws away from two of the best cities in the world.

What led you down the path to course architecture?
I first became interested when I was about 16 when my home club (Riversdale Golf Club) was being renovated by Peter Thomson. I took a great interest in the process and activated my dream of becoming a golf course architect.

Your career included a stint with European Golf Design. What influence did this have on your future design philosophy?
Jeremy Slessor, Managing Director of European Golf Design, offered me a position in 1998, which I was very thankful for and thrilled me immensely. The high level of detail and the exposure to large scale international golf developments was fantastic. Working with master-planners in a multi-discipline consultancy team was just what I had hoped to do and got my brain thinking big.

Is there a single course architect, past or present, who has inspired you?
For the past architects, it would be Harry Colt as I have been exposed to a lot of his very naturalistic work in the UK. Of the modern architects, it would have to be Pete Dye as he really set the tone for innovative design ideas.

You were with Ross Perrett and Peter Thomson as Thomson, Perrett & Lobb up until 2016. that must have been an amazing 12 years?
Working with Peter and Ross really was a fantastic time and we created some courses that we are proud of. NEWGIZA was the first contract we signed as TPL in 2005. The project took some time to be fully realised but the result was worth the wait. Peter, Ross and I always tried to be at The Open Championship together every year. We had two Opens at St Andrews which was very special as we would always visit Peter, Mary and the Thomson family for morning tea at their house just a few minutes walk from the 18th green. Over a morning cup of coffee, we discussed the days golf ahead and just enjoyed each others company, always with some wonderful stories from Peter.

Ross Perrett, Peter Thomson and Tim Lobb at Thomson’s house in St. Andrews during an Open Championship meet up.

What’s the best advice Thomson gave you?
Quite simply Peter always said ‘be yourself Tim’, which is pretty simply advice but so fundamental in business and in life.

What was he like as a designer, business partner and friend?
Peter always had a non-fussy approach to golf course design with a clear strategic message to the shots being executed. He was always very supportive of our business and was so proud to be part of a company that was pioneering golf into new territories around the world as well as working in established golfing regions. Peter, Mary and all the Thomson family were very welcoming and our families always had a wonderful time, whether it be in the UK or in Melbourne, Australia. A lot of treasured memories.

We know a fair amount about Peter Thomson but less about Ross Perrett. tell us what he brought to the table and how he has helped your career?
Ross and I first met in 2002 and prior to the forming of TPL. Ross is a fully qualified landscape architect, building architect and super talented artist. Ross has an incredible skill of interpreting personalities and welcoming their ideas and thoughts, to allow for full originality and expression. Ross and I worked very closely together for all our years together which instilled the importance of creativity within the full design process.

If you are a lover of golf and ancient history, it doesn’t get much better than newgiza does it?
NEWGIZA has been an incredibly rewarding project to work on as a designer but more so as part of the construction implementation team. Throughout the design process, we worked very hard to retain and incorporate the pre-existing limestone quarry heritage of the site in the design. The vertical quarry excavations are seen regularly throughout the golfing journey. We tried to design a course that looked very dramatic yet played very friendly for the golfers. In our view we want all the golfers to be able to get off the tee with ease so as to enjoy the fine approaches into the large and undulating greens we created.

The elevation changes at NEWGIZA, including on the 6th hole, are dramatic. Photograph by Kevin Murray Photography

As a designer, you must have been fascinated by the Giza pyramids?
We visited the pyramids on many occasions as they are the most amazing structures viewed up close. We were adamant that the pyramids should be part of the golfing experience and worked hard with sightlines, angles and elevations to ensure visibility of these grand structures from the golf course. In the end, we found the sweet spot from the 4th hole, which is a par 3 playing steep into the quarry base with the pyramids as their backdrop.

What can visiting golfers expect from the golf experience at NEWGIZA?
We are very pleased with the end course at NEWGIZA because we were involved from day one, literally the first stroke of the pen on paper with the client to start the masterplan. The course fits very well within the overall development and I think we achieved our goal of creating a truly Egyptian golfing experience. With the quarry site conditions, our semi-desert landscape strategy and connection with the pyramids we hope that visiting golfers will remember NEWGIZA long after they leave.

You’ve just started construction on a second course in Egypt at Soma Bay in Hurghada. What sort of layout will we eventually see there?
We are starting construction of a second course at Soma Bay in Hurgada, to sit next to the existing Gary Player layout. We plan to build a ‘resort’ style 18-hole course which will certainly promote family/ holiday golf. We plan very few bunkers – less than 10 – on the course and want to incorporate interesting ground contours with native grasses cutting into play to form the playing strategy. The Red Sea will be visible from every hole and the course will range from 4600 yards to 6600 yards and be a par 71.

It must be satisfying to be working in relatively undeveloped regions for the royal and ancient game?
Throughout my career, we have been fortunate to create golf courses in regions where golf had not existed. This pioneering work has its challenges for sure but with education and passion of the local community, great results can be achieved.

Is there a country you’d really like to leave your design imprint in?
We have been looking at some potential projects in Mauritius and that certainly is one beautiful spot. There are some exciting plans for golf in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which we would love to help evolve.

You’ve been quoted saying building a links course from scratch is on your bucket list? Is links golf your favourite form of the game?
I love all golf courses that sit softly in their own landscapes. Playing links courses can provide the most raw and sustainable golf course experiences.

The best links course you’ve played?
Tough question… I’ll go with Royal County Down.

When will we see a LOBB + PARTNERS Design in the UAE?
We would love to fully open a LOBB + PARTNERS golf course soon in the UAE. We’d also be very pleased to work with clients who like our style.

The trio onsite at Golf City near the new Trump Dubai; 12 holes are in play but the project is on hold.

Adam Scott recently bemoaned courses that are getting longer and longer, saying they don’t faze the game’s top players. conversely, many courses have been designed for owners with ambitions to host pro events so are too tricky for the majority of weekend warriors. how do you strike a balance?
When a client says to us that they want to host a major professional tournament on their course, we sit them down first and say ‘are you sure?’

The gap between professional and amateur golf has never been so great. To strike the happy balance we ensure a variety of teeing locations which have different distances but maybe, more importantly, a diversity of play angles. Greens should be quite large to accommodate regular pin positions as well as the tight ‘Sunday’ pins.

How do you deal with criticism of your work?
Some people like coffee in the morning and other tea – everybody is different and their opinions of the subjective golf course design can be varied. We always appreciate feedback and criticism is part and parcel of our business as what we are designing have no pre-set solutions or formulas. Thankfully we don’t receive regular criticism but a thick skin sometimes is needed.

It’s hard picking favourites but if we really pressed your for your most memorable new design, what would it be?
Gosh, that is a tough one because all the projects are memorable for different reasons. Most certainly NEWGIZA is right up there because of the complexity of the design and difficulty of the build. Carya in Turkey came out really well because we laid it out in a mature pine forest. Similarly, Linna Golf in Finland, which I did with EGD was with wonderful clients set in a mature and hill pine forest – a joy to work on.

And the renovation project?
We are working on many Top 100 golf courses in the UK and pleased to be part of a movement which is looking to restore the valuable landscapes within these beautiful heathland courses of Surrey and Berkshire. Our clients include St Georges Hill G.C., Woking G.C., West Hill G.C., Worplesdon G.C., Huntercombe G.C. and The Berkshire GC. We are working hard to leave a sustainable landscape and golf course strategy for future golfers.

The renovated 1st at famed St. George’s Hill.

Where do you see golf course architecture going in the foreseeable future, especially with no end in sight for the advance of ball and club technology?
The future surely must be driven by sustainability, whether it be environmental, economic or to maintain sustainable participation levels. As golf course architects we have a strong role in shaping the future with innovative, creative and interesting golf facilities for experienced golfers as well as total novices. The ball is going way too far and having a negative impact on tournament play but I don’t think it is having a major effect to the regular golfer.

If you were the boss of global golf for a day, what would your first directive be?
Speed up the game of golf. It is S-L-O-W-L-Y killing the game.

In a perfect world, would you prefer to design a course harmonising with the natural surrounds or work with a blank canvas like many of the desert courses here in the UAE where shifting sand isn’t such a big deal?
A site with a natural flair for a potential golf course is, of course, a joy to work with, though creating golf features with machinery and creativity is also enjoyable. To make flat ground interesting and unforgettable as a golf course is quite a challenge and a source of achievement as well.

How has your design philosophy changed from when you started in the profession?
I first started in the golf design world in 1995 with Australian Ted Parslow. In the early days, we didn’t think so much about the number of bunkers or maintenance impacts of our designs. Certainly, now I would say that we are designing far less bunkers than we used to and thinking about other golf features like run-off zones around greens and interesting ground contours to deflect or gather golf shots. Of course, sustainability has also become more of a driving force in the design process now.

What would your elevator pitch be to a prospective client looking to build a course, say in the UAE?
We love to work with passionate owners to deliver outcomes which explore all design scenarios and innovate the game of golf even further.

Golfers are pretty fanatic characters. are you always thinking about course design?
When I play golf I try and switch off from design and enjoy the game. At home, I try not to think about golf design.

What do you do for fun after hours?
I enjoy running and going to the gym, though I really do need to lose some weight. As a family, we enjoy travelling and regularly go to Asia and Australia to see our families and friends. Cooking and enjoying a glass or two are also passions and best enjoyed with friends.

What’s the best experience – golf-related or otherwise – that has been a direct result of your work?
Watching professional golfers play a tournament on one of your courses is pretty interesting to watch and sometimes puzzling on how they approach the course – very rarely going for a risky shot. Anonymously sitting in a locker room or clubhouse of a course you’ve designed listening to people talk about the course is also really interesting and always a learning curve.

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Had anyone, I asked myself, won more of these things, over a wider geographic region, than Rory?

As it turned out, that was an incredibly naive question. Rory has done just fine for himself, with six titles on four continents, but he doesn’t even come close to the all-time greats.

McIlroy’s six national open wins start with the U.S. Open in 2011 (top left) and end with last month’s Canadian Open victory (bottom right). Getty Images (6)

I know that because one weekend day I spent about seven hours compiling a spreadsheet of national open champions throughout golf history. It was as painstaking an exercise as you might guess, and I was doomed the minute I started. The sheer scope of the project occurred to me about an hour into the work, at which point I whispered, “I wish I knew how to quit you,” to the spreadsheet. But the questions nagged: Had anyone won on all six continents? (As far as I can tell, there is no Antarctica Open.) Had anyone won more than 10 different national opens?

I couldn’t stop. The results piled up, country by country, and before I reveal them, I want to set the parameters. What constitutes a “national open”? In my book, the criteria were:

1. It must be named after the entire country, not a city or a region. If it changes names at some point, like the “Polish Open” becoming the “Warsaw Open,” it’s no longer a national open (but remains in that category for the years before the change).

2. It must be a professional event, but not a seniors-only event.

3. It must be an accepted country or an autonomous region—of the latter, the only three I found were the Hong Kong Open, the Scottish Open and the now-defunct Madeira Islands Open.

Before the grand reveal—which we’ve also timed to correspond with the three-tournament stretch beginning this week of the Irish Open, Scottish Open and Open Championship—I want to stress that this list is almost certainly not complete. I found 63 national tournaments spanning six continents, from the Ivory Coast to Mexico to Bangladesh to New Zealand to Belgium. Undoubtedly, there are some I’m missing that are not so “easily” discoverable. In addition, to keep myself sane as I was compiling, I did not list every single winner of every single national open—I picked only the ones who were multiple winners or who had won other opens, meaning that even though there are 172 golfers represented on my spreadsheet, the likes of Mya Aye, the one-time winner of the Indonesian Open in 1976, is not on there. The leader board is mostly accurate in terms of the all-time leaders because I checked and re-checked their records, but even then, some Asian golfers might be short-changed because of incomplete records.

The point is, it’s a comprehensive list without being perfect. Enjoy it with a small-ish grain of salt. Now then, without further ado, the great master list of national open champions can be found here, with the top 10 listed below.

As you see, it’s broken down by player, total wins, distinct open tournaments won, and then wins by continent. For those who don’t want to pore over every cell, here are my favourite findings:

1. Roberto De Vicenzo is the undisputed king. The World Golf Hall of Famer from Argentina (top photo) won 41 separate national opens in 14 countries, both records. He made his mark in North America (Panama Open and Mexican Open) and captured five different European opens (British, German, French, Spanish and Dutch). It was, not surprisingly, in South America where he really racked things up, winning all seven contemporaneous national opens at least once, including nine Argentine Opens. The only South American-based Open he failed to win was the Ecuador Open because that one started in 2014. (Fun fact: Nate Lashley, this week’s big surprise winner at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, took home the Ecuador title in 2016.)

Roberto De Vicenzo

2. Or is Gary Player the undisputed king? He has “only” 28 national open wins to De Vicenzo’s 41, but he has won on five separate continents—the only man to do so. One of the very exciting parts of the research process was discovering the Brazil and Chile Opens late in the game, both of which Player won to give him his South American titles. If only he’d won a single Asian national open, he would have all six. (For the record, Player has won in Asia in non-national open events.)

3. Seve Ballesteros has the most victories in Europe. The revered Spaniard had 22 overall wins in eight national opens, and there are two golfers who tie him among Europeans for the most individual opens played with eight each: Colin Montgomerie and Bernhard Langer. Interestingly, neither one of the latter two won a British Open. Seve could have established total domination with nine discrete wins on the continent, but he lost the 1983 Italian Open in a playoff to—wait for it—Langer.

Ballesteros en route to winning the 1979 Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St Anne’s. (Leo Mason/Popperfoto)

4. Peter Thomson rules Oceania. He’s got three Aussie Opens and a whopping nine New Zealand Opens. Add the eight wins in Europe (including his five British Open titles) and seven in Asia, and he ranks third in all-time Open wins.

5. Hsieh Yung-yo, whom I had never heard of before, won 16 times in Asia. The 84-year-old from Taiwan had wins in Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Lu Chien-Soon, 59, pulled off the impressive feat of winning six individual opens in Asia, and each tournament just once. Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee also won six, but it’s Taiwan’s Lu Hsi-Chuen who is the only player, by my records, to have won seven national opens in Asia: Taiwan, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.

6. Mohammed Said Doche might be my favourite entry of all. He won just one national open, the Egyptian Open, but he won it a marvellous 24 times. Nobody comes close in total victories in Africa—Gary Player is next at 14. Other big one-time-only winners are Amr Abu El Ala (12, also at the Egyptian Open), Larry Montes (12, at the Philippine Open) and Peter Toogood, who won eight Tasmanian Opens.

7. And what about current players? Aside from guys on the PGA Tour Champions, the reigning champ is Jaidee, with 11 national opens in eight countries. After that, you have to head down the list to Miguel Angel Jimenez, Ian Poulter and McIlroy, all with six individual titles. Rory, interestingly enough, has managed to win on four continents—one of only six people, including Player, Bobby Locke, Vijay Singh, Greg Norman and Tom Watson, to do so. At age 30, there’s plenty of time for McIlroy to capture one more each in South America and Africa to become golf’s first six-continent national open winner.

I’ll close with a message to Rory, the man who prompted this whole thing: I know you’re targeting that career Grand Slam every year at Augusta, but if you really want to go global with your ambitions, the Venezuelan and Kenyan Opens await.

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If you like your golf with dramatic views, check out the very last Thomson Perrett & Lobb design which has just opened on the outskirts of Cairo

By Kent Gray
Even the royal and ancient game sometimes have to bow to seniority. Or in the case of Egypt’s newest course, tip its cap to the splendour of the Great Pyramids of Giza. Just 6km from the ring road surrounding the Egyptian capital Cairo, the golf course at NEWGIZA is the centrepiece of a 680-hectare development that includes upscale housing, a sports arena, hotels, schools and majestic views across the Pyramids 8km away. Nearly 15 years in the making since its conception in 2005, it is the final project of Thomson Perrett & Lobb, the firm founded by the late, five-times Open champion Peter Thomson. The championship-length course is characterised by often dramatic changes in elevation, water hazards and huge undulating greens. There is no rough with landscaped sandy waste areas lining the fairways. The only way to lose a ball is in lakes although the huge greens provide a constant challenge with significant movement on every surface. You’ll struggle to concentrate on your green reading with all that history in the distance mind you, most notably from what is sure to become NEWGIZA’s signature hole, the par-3 4th, pictured above.

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By Jerry Tarde
Peter Thomson, 88, died this week and took common sense with him. He was one of my early counselors in the game, always reliable for straight advice steeped in erudition and experience. My opening line with him was always the same cliché: “Between the two of us, Peter, we’ve won five British Opens.”

He joined the Golf Digest staff as a contributing editor in 1986. At the time, I wrote in the editor’s letter: “Thomson is best known to America as a player, but internationally he is recognised as an architect, writer, administrator and statesman. He once ran for Parliament in his native Australia and was narrowly defeated. He is credited with founding the Far Eastern tournament circuit, ranging from India to Japan. He is unique in the sport, a reader of hardcover books, kind of an outdoor intellectual.” After winning a tour event, it would be common to see him accept the trophy, then go into the press tent and roll a piece of paper into a typewriter carriage, and proceed to rap out a report on the final round as the golf correspondent to far-flung newspapers.

American golfers got a dose of his playing talent when he returned to competitive golf with the Senior PGA Tour and promptly won 11 tournaments. I remember him doing a clinic for our editorial staff once when someone asked the unfortunate question, “How far do you hit your 7-iron?” Peter silently replied by dropping three balls next to each other on the practice ground: one in a good lie, the second he stepped on, and a third on a tuft of rough. Making identical swings, he hit the 7-iron what looked to be 140, 150 and 160 yards. “Next question,” he said.

Over lunch at our offices in Connecticut, I once asked him about Jack Nicklaus’ design work. “Nicklaus courses are like Jack himself—grim and humorless, with sharp edges,” he said.

In his first column for Golf Digest (February 1987), he wrote: “When I first took to journalism, my kind but stern mentor laid down the principle that if my grandmother couldn’t understand what I was writing about, it was a lousy piece of composition. I’ve come to carry this along into golf architecture. If my grandma can’t play it, it has to be a lousy course.”

Peter told wonderful first-hand stories like the time USGA Executive Secretary Joseph C. Dey Jr. approached on the first tee at Oakmont in the 1953 U.S. Open: “Joe came up to our threesome and stood before the legendary Ben Hogan with a clear enough message: ‘Ben, your group was too slow yesterday. We would like you to speed it up today,’ followed by the unfailing courtesy for which Joe was world renowned, ‘if you don’t mind.’“ ‘If you are thinking of giving me a two-stroke penalty, then give it to me now so I know where I stand,’ Hogan said.

“‘There’s no need for that,’ Joe said. ‘We just want you to play faster.’ And looking at Sam Urzetta and me, he added, ‘That goes for each of you.’ ” (It was the year Hogan won his fourth U.S. Open.)

We have many memories of the great man always dressed in blue blazer and gray slacks with an R&A necktie. I was walking to the course with Executive Editor Mike O’Malley one morning during the 1996 Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes when we heard his familiar voice from behind, slowed down to enjoy his company, and Mike asked him what his favorite Open venue was. A long pause, several steps, and finally: “This one, Lytham,” said Peter, who won his five from 1954-’65 at Birkdale, St. Andrews, Hoylake, Lytham and Birkdale.

The last time I saw him was at the R&A Members Dinner in 2015 at the Old Course. After the entrée and before dessert, it was announced that Tom Watson was about to play up the 18th fairway in the gloaming of his last competitive round at the Open Championship. We all respectfully filed out to stand on the first tee and watch Old Tom finish. Peter was standing nearby. I said to myself, Among the three of us, we’ve won 10 British Opens.

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By John Strege
Peter Thomson was a complex man—an accomplished player, course architect, writer and elder statesman—who preferred a simple approach to playing golf. Not so simple as hit it, find it and hit it again, but close.

“There are some people who can’t spend time on a practice fairway without being videoed,” Thomson once told the Australian newspaper The Age, “but when they get to the application stage, they can’t get out of their head how they look. Your attention can only focus on one thing, not several things. And that is actually ball hitting bat. Never mind how you do it.

“Making golf a science and insisting that people study it, they get the feeling ‘this is difficult.’ Whereas really, they should consider it easy because it is. It’s just whacking a ball, for goodness sakes.”

Thomson, 88, died on Tuesday, but his legacy will outlast this generation and generations to come. An Australian, Thomson was named the first Immortal of the Association by the PGA of Australia, of which he was the chairman for 32 years.

Related: Peter Thomson: Remembering the outdoor intellectual

He won 84 tournaments as a professional, including five Open Championships, the last of them in 1965. “I have no hesitation in calling the 1965 Open by far the greatest of my successes,” he said in an interview with Golf Club Atlas. “I have achieved a great ambition by winning with the American big three [Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tony Lema] in the field.”

Thomas, who was involved in the design of more than 100 courses around the world, was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1988.

Related: Style Inspiration: Peter Thomson’s timeless look

“Peter Thomson was the thinking man’s golfer,” the WGHOF notes in the first paragraph of its website bio of him. “His clean, brisk game was based on cold logic and a gift for reducing things to their simplest essentials. His style was free of the extraneous, so that the path he would take to victory seemed a remarkably straight line.”

He taught himself the game, and it was never about the mechanics of the swing, only the numbers on the scorecard.

“When I first went to play in the United States in the ’50s, I was a young man, only 21 or 22, and I was playing with the gods of the game,” he said. Hogan, Snead, Boros and so many good players. I thought, ‘I’m not as good as these guys, but I can shoot the same score.’ I always felt that playing golf seriously is about scoring. It’s not about hitting it further or even closer. It’s about getting around in 68. That’s all I did, really.”

He concluded that four 68s would stand him in good stead on any leaderboard in the world.

“Always his own man, Thomson is puzzled by the modern obsession with swing coaches,” Mark Reason wrote in London’s Telegraph.

“To get to the top you have to be totally self-reliant,” Thomson told Reason. “If you need to ring someone up on the phone and say, ‘I can’t hit my wedges,’ you won’t solve the problem.

“It’s absurd that the world’s greatest golfer is taking lessons. A pro should puzzle it out for himself. The young players need to find another system.”

Thomson was not above offering a barbed opinion, be it of a golfer or a golf course. Of Tiger Woods, he said, “I wish he’d smile more. He injures his image by being morose and petulant. There is also very little consideration for the fellow he is playing with. He could show more humility.”

Of the Road Hole, the 17th on the Old Course at St. Andrews, he said, “As a planner and builder of holes worldwide I have no hesitation in admitting that if one built such a hole today, he would be sued for incompetence.”

He left little room for ambiguity, notably when he boiled down the complexities of the game to simple truths. When he was asked for putting advice once, he said simply, “aim at the hole and hit it.”

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Golf Australia reported Thomson had been suffering from Parkinson’s for more than four years and lost his “brave battle” with the disease at 9am (Australian time) on Wednesday. He was at home in Melbourne surrounded by family.

Born on 23 August 1929, Thomson was two months short of his 89th birthday. He won the Open five times between 1954 and 1965, a record equalled in the 20th and 21st Centuries only by American Tom Watson. He won the New Zealand Open a record nine times.

On the American senior circuit he won nine times in 1985, setting a record that may never be broken. As well as legendary deeds on the course, Golf Australia paid tribute to Thomson as an “an outstanding contributor to the game”, having served as president of the Australian PGA for 32 years, designing and building courses in Australia and around the world, helping establish the Asian Tour and working behind the scenes for the Odyssey House drug rehabilitation organisation where he was chairman for five years. He also wrote for newspapers and magazines for more than 60 years and was patron of the Australian Golf Writers Association.

In 1979 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his service to golf and in 2001 became an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for his contributions as a player and administrator and for community service.

Thomson  is survived by his wife Mary, son Andrew and daughters Deirdre Baker, Pan Prendergast and Fiona Stanway, their spouses, 11 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

More to follow…

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Peter Thomson
Simple, well-fitting clothes and attention to detail are hallmarks of men with great style. Peter Thomson could walk onto any course in any decade in the past 65 years and would not raise an eyebrow. His aesthetic is timeless and easily attainable. With a solid setup of staples, you too will be able to jump in the DeLorean and peg it up at any time and place.

No matter what your clothes look like, they should fit your frame. Thomson’s trousers are slim, not tight, and they break appropriately just atop his shoes. The leg opening is wide enough to cover part of his shoelaces, but it’s certainly not going to engulf his entire foot. Bell-bottoms weren’t popular at the time of this photo and they’re not now, either (R.I.P. Danny Noonan).

Trousers don’t always have to be darker than your top, but it’s a good classic guideline. Thomson’s trousers are balanced with a lighter colored turtleneck and sweater. Layering is the best way to keep warm during the fall. Bulky, baggy tops will not only make you look bigger they’ll restrict your movement. A base layer and a sweater will keep you swinging free and easy all day.

This fall, review your wardrobe. Whether you’re talking about work or weekend wear, all men should have a tidy wardrobe of well-fitting basics. Strong staples are the cornerstone of the well-dressed man’s closet and the foundation upon which to grow your personal style.

First published November 6, 2013

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