David Strath

Thursday 18th July 2019 and the 148th Open Championship is underway at Royal Portrush. By mid-morning several players were jointly leading at 2 under par which got me musing “What are the chances of a playoff come Sunday evening?”.

Further to that fleeting thought, I went searching the records to find out when was the first occasion the Open Championship required a playoff to determine the winner. Did not take long to find as, in 1876, Bob Martin and David Strath tied for first place.

However, the playoff never materialised as David Strath refused to play and Bob Martin was declared the champion golfer of the year after walking the course on his own!!

I did an immediate double-take as this could not be true…but yes my eyes had not deceived me…so what follows is an abridged commentary of how the (unique) events unfolded at 1876 Open Championship played at St Andrews.

Back in 1876 the Open Championship was a 36 hole tournament and was scheduled to be played on Friday 29th September aligned to the Royal and Ancient Autumn meeting.

However, on Wednesday 27th September, Prince Leopold (the eighth child and youngest son of Queen Victoria) became captain of the Royal and Ancient, driving into office with a shot down the first.

This was the first visit to the town of St Andrews by a member of the royal family since Charles II in the 17th century. This visit resulted in many celebrations including a ball and illuminations causing the Open to be delayed until Saturday!! Unbelievably, on this day some of the Royal and Ancient members were also playing on the old course!! Thus a combination of other golfers, the Open Championship competitors and all of the watching spectators equated to nothing short of chaos!!

During the second round played on Saturday afternoon, David Strath pulled a shot on the 14th hole which hit a Mr Hutton who was playing on the 5th hole. Although Mr Hutton recovered quite quickly, Strath was noticeably upset and his game suffered accordingly.

Then on the penultimate hole, Strath’s approach shot hit someone standing near the hole (though due to a large number of spectators Strath was unaware of what had occurred). He 2-putted for a bogey, dropped a further 2 shots on the 18th which meant he finished in a tie with Bob Martin.

Requests were then made to the Championship Committee for David Strath to be disqualified for infringing the rule of playing his approach before the green had been cleared. Their (holding) decision was that the playoff should be played on Monday (as Sunday was the Sabbath) and they would announce their decision after the playoff!!

Strath rightly objected, requesting that the Committee make their decision before the playoff. His objection was dismissed and thus he refused to take part. That left Bob Martin to win the Open Championship via a walkover (on the old course)!!

Returning back to sanity…if there is a playoff to decide the Open Championship at Royal Portrush I can’t think of any circumstance where a player would refuse to play…but you never know!!