The virtual British Open: Nineteen who could pull an upset

They’re not among the virtual British Open favorites, but don’t count these champions out too quickly

A field as  deep and diverse as this week’s Virtual British Open can produce plenty of surprises. In two previous analyses, we’ve introduced 23 former champions in the 76-player field who rank as favorites in this week’s competition. But they are hardly the only ones with a plausible chance.

Beyond those 23, another 19 enter the tournament with profiles ranking them within the upper half of Open champions all time. While not quite on a level with the top 23, any of these 19 has the potential to get hot this week and make a run for the Claret Jug.

As noted in an introductory piece to this simulated tournament, there are two qualifications to entry. The first is that a player must have won at least one British Open since the tournament was created in 1860. The second qualification is that they must have competed in enough Opens during their careers – a minimum of seven – to furnish a sufficient data base for a performance chart.

Each player is measured based on the standard deviation of his British Open performances during his peak period of 10 consecutive seasons. For these 19 “longshot” candidates, the standard deviation of their average performance during their 10-year peak period ranges from a low of -1.21-0.68 to a best of 1.14.

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As a group, these 19 claimed 33 Open titles as long ago as 1861 and as recently as 2017.

What follows is a one-paragraph introduction for each of those 19 players. It includes their British Open Championship season(s), their 10-season peak in parenthesis, and the average of the standard deviation of their British Open performance during that peak.

Willie Park Jr., 1887, 1889 (1883-1892), -1.14 virtual rating. Son of the winner of the inaugural championship, Willie Jr. became a great player in his own right. His two victories were both nail-biters: Park beat Bob Martin by a stroke in 1887, and in 1889 outlasted Andrew Kirkaldy in a 36-hole playoff. Park later moved to the United States where he became a famed golf course architect designing, among other great layouts, Olympia Fields.

Alf Padgham, 1936 (1930-1939), -1.14 virtual rating. Between 1934 and 1938, Padgham finished third, second, first, seventh and fourth at the Open. He shot 71 to come from behind in the final round in 1936, holing a 12-foot birdie putt on the final green to take a one-stroke victory over Jimmy Adams with Henry Cotton one additional stroke behind.

Willie Fernie, 1883 (1882-1891), -1.11 virtual rating. A native of St. Andrews, Fernie was part of the group of second-generation stars who came to prominence in the wake of the passing of Young Tom Morris. Second in 1882, he beat Bob Ferguson in a playoff in 1883, and was runner-up three more times: in 1884, 1890 and 1891.

Seve Ballesteros, 1979, 1984, 1988 (1979-1988), -1.09 virtual rating. Ballesteros was probably the dominant British Open player of the 1980s. As a 22-year-old, he broke through at Lytham and St. Anne’s in 1979, coming from two strokes off the pace in the final round. He did the same thing in 1984 and 1988, closing with 65 in 1988 to beat Nick Price by two strokes.

Young Tom Morris, 1868, 1869, 1870, 1872 (1866-1874), -1.09 virtual rating. A legendary figure in Scottish golf, Young Tom was only 17 when he beat a field that included his famous father to win the 1868 championship. He repeated by 11 strokes in 1869 and by 12 in 1870, by then acknowledged as the game’s master. There was no event in 1871, but when the tournament resumed in 1872 Morris won for a fourth straight year, this time by three over his friend, Davie Strath. His remarkable career was cut short by an early death on Christmas in 1875 at the age of 24.

Jack White, 1904 (1895-1905), -1.07 virtual rating. A Scot, White was one of the few legitimate rivals to the Triumverate around the turn of the century. He finished second in 1899, fourth in 1900 and third in 1903, then in 1904 he defeated Taylor and Braid by one shot.

Arnaud Massy, 1907 (1905-1914), -1.06 virtual rating. The first Continental European to win the Open,  Massy was a Frenchman. Long competitive with the game’s best, in 1907 he put four rounds together and defeated Taylor by two strokes.

Lee Trevino, 1971, 1972 (1971-1980), -1.05 virtual rating. Like Tom Watson, who would soon follow him, Trevino reveled in the Open’s atmosphere, and for that reason was adopted by the tournament galleries as a favorite. Leading or tied at the end of each round, he won at Birkdale in 1971 by a single shot. One year later at Muirfield, Trevino shot a third round 66 to move in front and held off a charging Jack Nicklaus on Sunday to prevail by one stroke.

Jordan Spieth, 2017 (2013-2019), -1.01 virtual rating. Spieth’s Open record is mixed. His seven starts include four finishes outside the top 30, undermining his overall rating. But his 2017 victory at Birkdale was a classic. Three ahead entering the final round, he bogeyed three of the first four holes, made a phenomenal bogey at the 13th to remain within one stroke of the lead, then played the next four holes in five-under par to win by three.

Gary Player, 1959, 1968, 1974 (1959-1968), -0.99 virtual rating. Player was only 23 when he came to the world’s attention by winning the 1959 British Open. In a sense this was the last of the ”old” Opens, the field comprised almost entirely of members of the British  Empire. Player beat Fred  Bullock and Flory Von Donck by two strokes.

He returned annually through the 1980s, but did not finish among the top five again until 1966. In 1968 he trailed by two entering the final round and managed only a 73, but that was good enough to beat Jack Nicklaus and Bob Charles by two.

Six years later, Player dominated the event, starting with a 69-68 first 36 holes. Never seriously challenged, he finished four strokes ahead of Peter Oosterhuis.

Reg Whitcombe, 1938 (1930-1939), -0.99 virtual rating. A veteran of World War I, Whitcombe took up golf following the war and competed annually at The Open after 1925 with little initial success. He finished second behind Henry Cotton in 1937, and one year later battled windy conditions at Royal St. George’s more successfully than any of the other players. Two strokes down entering the final 36 holes on a blustery course, Whitcombe shot 75-78, scores that were good enough to Jimmy Adams by two strokes and Cotton by three.

Henrik Stenson, 2016 (2008-2017), -0.98 virtual rating. Stenson’s 2016 victory at Troon was made memorable by his duel with Phil Mickelson. His eight-under Sunday 63 gave him a three-shot margin over Mickelson, with the third place finisher, J.B. Holmes, a distant 14 strokes off his pace.

Harold Hilton, 1892, 1897 (1892-1901), -0.93 virtual rating. Hilton is the highest-ranked amateur in the Virtual Open field. A native of Hoylake, Hilton opened badly and trailed by seven strokes at the halfway point of the event, being played for the first time at 72 holes. But he rallied during the morning round of the 36-hole final, shooting 72 at the new Muirfield links and making up all but two shots of his deficit. His afternoon 74 finished the job.

Five years later at his home course, Hilton became the first player other than Taylor or Vardon to win since 1893. He finished early, then waited to see whether James Braid – who needed a birdie at the final hole – could catch him. Braid’s miss of a 20-foot putt gave Hilton the title.

Kel Nagle, 1960 (1960-1969), -0.88 virtual rating. The nations of Australia and South Africa jointly dominated the Open during the 1950s, Peter Thomson, Bobby Locke or Gary Player  winning all of them between 1954 and 1959. Nagle made it seven straight for those two countries in 1960, staving off Arnold Palmer’s charge and thwarting the Masters and U.S. Open champion’s hopes of completing a modern Grand Slam.

At St. Andrews, Palmer rallied on the back nine of the final round to erase all but one stroke of a four-shot gap. But Nagle posted pars on the final two holes to secure the victory.

Old Tom Morris, 1861, 1862, 1864, 1867 (1860-1869), -0.86 virtual rating. It was a major upset when Old Tom lost the inaugural British Open to Willie Park in 1860, but he quickly made up for it. Tom beat Willie by four strokes in 1861, beat him by 13 strokes in 1862, and won for a third time in 1864. As groundskeeper at the host Prestwick course, Morris may have had some measure of advantage, but his principal advantage was skill. In 1867, Morris won for a fourth time, beating Park by two strokes and defeating his son by five. Old Tom had won for the last time, but Young Tom would not lose again until 1873.

Hugh Kirkaldy, 1891 (1886-1895), -0.79 virtual rating. A member of a long-time golfing family, Hugh beat his better known brother, Andrew, by two strokes to win the title at St. Andrews. He did so with matching rounds of 83 to Andrew’s matching 84s. This was the last Open contested at 36 holes in a single day; the event was extended to 72 holes over two days prior to the 1892 event.

Bob Martin, 1876, 1885 (1873-1882), -0.76 virtual rating. Martin’s 1876 victory came amid possibly the most controversial finish in Open history. He and Davie Strath both finished the 36 holes with identical scores of 176, but tournament officials threatened Strath with disqualification for hitting into a group ahead of him. While they conducted an inquiry, they ordered the playoff to begin, but Strath refused, insisting that his status be settled first. Instead Martin played the course by himself and was crowned champion.

Martin’s second win came at his home St. Andrews course in 1885, this time beating Archie Simpson by one stroke.

David Brown, 1886 (1888-1897), -0.72 virtual rating. A native of Musselburgh, Brown won as a dark horse on his home course. Rounds of 79 and 78 gave him a two stroke victory over Willie Campbell, who led Brown by a stroke through 8 holes but managed only an 81 in the final round. Years later Brown would join the emigration of second-tier British players to the United States, finishing second at the 1903 U.S. Open.

Fred Daly, 1947 (1946-1955), -0.68 virtual rating. The first Irishman to win the championship, Daly prevailed at Liverpool in 1947. Carrying a four-stroke lead into the third round, he shot a weak 78 and found himself deadlocked with Henry Cotton, Arthur Lees and Norman Von Nida entering the afternoon session.

He needed to hole a 35-foot birdie putt at the final hole to take the lead, and barely trickled it over the cup’s leading edge. American amateur Frank Stranahan came to the final hole needing to sink a 9-iron second shot, and barely missed, the ball stopping a foot from the hole.