The Open Championship has been contested 147 times, but just once outside of Scotland and England. That lone occasion was at Royal Portrush, site of this year’s championship, in 1951.
Max Faulkner – described by The Open website as “a flamboyant character, who dressed in brightly coloured clothes in an era when golfing attire was usually more sombre” – prevailed that year. Twice a runner-up in the Irish Open at Portrush, the Englishman shot 71-70-70 to build a six-stroke lead through 54 holes.
As The Open website states, Faulkner may or may not have been confident about his chances of claiming the claret jug, with the final 36 holes contested in one day:
The myth about the evening before the final two rounds was that Faulkner was signing autographs and adding: “Open Champion 1951”.
A more accurate telling of the tale suggests that after a 70 in the third round that put him six strokes ahead, he signed an autograph for a young boy, whose father asked that the words “Open Champion” be added because, “you are going to win, aren’t you?”
Faulkner did as requested but then thought: “My God, I’d better not lose now.” Alternatively, the whole thing might just have been the creation of his ghostwriter on a London newspaper, a young Ian Wooldridge.
Faulkner closed in 74 to finish the championship at 3 under par, two shots clear of Argentine Antonio Cerda. It was one of 19 professional titles for which Faulkner is credited, and his lone major championship. He also finished in the top 10 at The Open on four other occasions.
Faulkner was the last Englishman to win The Open until Tony Jacklin in 1969. Faulker died in 2005 and was remembered in this fashion by a Guardian obituary:
Faulkner was irrepressible at dinners. It was sometimes hard to keep him off the table, demonstrating some golfing point he wanted the audience to understand, and if possible to laugh at. One photo, taken at a Ryder Cup dinner, shows him standing on the top table, telling a tale which has everyone in fits, bar the stone-faced Ben Hogan, the deeply conservative American captain. It is no coincidence that Faulkner’s great friend in life was Norman Wisdom - he revered comedians and loved to make people laugh.
He played in five Ryder Cups against the Americans, and it was, perhaps, typical of the man that the series for which he is best remembered is one in which he did not play. The 1957 edition was held at Lindrick, near Sheffield, and Faulkner, not playing well, volunteered to the captain, [Dai] Rees, to be left out of the final singles. He then ran round the course, like a man possessed, encouraging his team-mates to such good effect that they won a historic victory.