LIFE OF WORLD
EXCLUSIVE
Ahush fell over the crowd at the prestigious course as an unheard of golfer, by the name of Maurice Flitcroft, stepped up confidently to the tee.
Many were intrigued by his unconventional apparel – beige slacks, tattered plastic golf shoes and a floppy blue fisherman’s hat – as well as how he crawled around the grass on all fours to find the optimal spot for his tee.
Was the mystery sportsman, about to take his first shot in his quest to win the 1976 British Open, a pro back from a long spell in Europe? Or an as-yetunknown American competing for the first time in golf ’s grandest tournament?
But it wasn’t long before their expectations were shattered.
After a dramatic swing he sent the ball just 40 yards from the first tee at Merseyside’s Formby Golf Club. He shanked his second shot into the rough and his third into a fairway bunker.
Shocked competitor Jim Howard recalls: “The club came up vertical, and came down vertical. It was though he was trying to murder someone.”
In fact, Maurice Flitcroft, a 46-year-old chain-smoking shipyard worker from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, had never played a full round of golf in his life.
He had also never even watched the game before coming across it as he flicked through the channels on his new colour TV.
The club came up and down vertical. It was as though he was trying to murder someone
Convinced he could win the Open, he sent off for a cheap set of mail-order golf clubs, took out instruction books from his library and practised on his local beach – before getting a place in a two-day Open qualifying tournament by telling organisers he was professional.
Maurice did make history – by setting the worst score in the tournament’s history, shooting 121 for the 18 holes – 49 over the 72 par for the course.
The following week, he attended the 1976 championship as a spectator and got a photo with a 19-year-old Seve Ballesteros, who would go on to win the Open in 1979, 1984 and 1988.
But Maurice was undeterred by his terrible round – or the kids who threw stones at him as he practised on the beach – and he entered the Open and other competitions again and again.
Open organisers tried to ban the no-hoper from every course in the UK. But Maurice, who became known as the
JIM HOWARD A FELLOW COMPETITOR ON MAURICE’S FIRST SHOT AT THE OPEN
world’s worst golfer, simply used disguises and pseudonyms such as Gerald Hoppy, James Beau Jolly, Arnold Palmtree, Count Manfred von Hofmannstal and Gene Pacecki. The games would often end with him being recognised by officials and chased off the course.
Maurice, who died in 2007, would later write in his unpublished memoirs of his first tournament: “Little did I dream that such a simple act of taking up a game would have a profound effect on my life.
“I would become famous, headline news, hailed as a hero on one hand, held up to ridicule in another.”
He is now the subject of The Phantom of the Open, a comedy film starring Sir Mark Rylance, Sally Hawkins and Rhys Ifans, which premiered this week at the London Film Festival. According to his