(7) Tony Jacklin
Despite a relative dearth of tournament wins, Tony Jacklin won very high quality events, including two majors, and was undoubtedly the best British player of his era. In addition, he established himself as the most successful Ryder Cup captain of all time. Born in 1944 in working-class Scunthorpe, Anthony Jacklin originally trained as an apprentice steel worker before his passion for golf won through. Having won a junior event at 13, he gave up the steelworks to turn pro in 1962 aged 17. By 1964 he had won his first event and in 1968 he broke through on a global level, winning the Greater Jacksonville Open to become the first Briton to win on the PGA tour. The following year he became the first Englishman to win the Open Championship since 1951. In 1970, he won the US Open at a very tough Hazeltine by a staggering seven shots and was on top of the golfing world. He had top five finishes in the next three Open Championships, but in 1972 he could only watch in disbelief as Lee Trevino made the most of a ridiculously hot wedge to hole five chip shots –including one on the seventy- first hole – to snatch the title from his grasp. The episode destroyed Jacklin mentally. He never recovered. In 2002 he admitted, “What Trevino did not only ruined me for that day, it ruined me forever.” However, his heroics had inspired a new generation of young Europeans and it was fitting that Jacklin himself would lead the Ryder Cup renaissance and captain those players to a series of wins against the previously unbeatable Americans.
