This week’s BMW PGA Championship has a long and illustrious history in various guises, stretching all the way back to 1955, some 17 years before the European Tour itself came into existence.
The list of winners reads like a Who’s Who of the game and included in that number is one of Wales’s most famous golfing sons – Brian Huggett MBE – who took the old PGA Close Championship at Thorndon Park in Essex in 1967.
The man from Porthcawl has an impressive number of golfing achievements to his name, not least 34 professional wins across the regular and Senior Tour including the 1988 Senior British Open crown at Royal Portrush.
He also played in six Ryder Cups and captained the last Great Britain and Ireland team to contest the match against the United States, at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1977, two years before golfers from Continental Europe became involved for the first time.
But the diminutive Welshman, who is now only a few weeks shy of his 84th birthday, might well hold a rather more unusual record in the world of golf?
Almost 50 years to this day, Huggett was once again at Royal Lytham to compete in the 1970 Dunlop Masters tournament, only to be greeted by the type of conditions that links golf can provide – howling wind and rain making scoring incredibly testing.
He did remarkably well to post opening rounds of 80 and 78 for a 16 over par total of 158, his quest to get round aided by the fact he was – as described by Raymond Jacobs of The Glasgow Herald newspaper, one of the foremost golf writers of his era – “chunky and thus solidly anchored to withstand the severe battering by the elements.”
It was a two round score that would have seen most players comfortably miss the cut in normal circumstances, but with the majority of scoring high, the Welshman survived for the weekend before setting his sights on moving up the leaderboard.
He did just that in spectacular fashion with closing rounds of 70 and 65 (albeit in easier conditions) to storm to victory over Australian David Graham, who carded all four of his rounds in the 70s.
Now, all that remains to be asked, is Brian’s halfway total of 16 over par 158 the highest score recorded in a professional golf tournament in the modern era by a player who then went on to win the event?
Certainly, nothing approaching that is in the record books of the European Tour since its formation in 1972 although another Ryder Cup Captain, Scotland’s Bernard Gallacher, matched Huggett’s opening 80 in the 1971 Martini International at Royal Norwich Golf Club, before following it with a 67 on his way to victory.
On the PGA Tour, American Mike Sullivan won the 1989 Houston Open after carding opening rounds of 76-71 for a three over par halfway total of 147, and there have been a number of similar scores by winners at the halfway stage in Major Championships over the years. But none approaching 16 over par!
“I’ve always been a battler on the golf course and I never, ever gave up,” said Brian. “I think that win in the 1970 Dunlop Masters proved that point.
“I’ve accomplished a lot in the game over the years of which I’m very proud, but I’ve always wondered if that halfway score I carded at Royal Lytham all those years ago was the highest ever recorded by an eventual winner? If it’s not, I’ll tell you what, I’ll take my hat off to the person who beat it!”
What do you think? Does battling Brian actually have another record to his name?
