(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

Ask any professional golfer the tournament they would most like to win…and the overwhelming majority answer…The Open Championship. Also known as the British Open or simply The Open by golf fans worldwide, the winners over its 152-year history are golf legends.

Tiger Woods, Steve Ballesteros, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson…golf royalty...recognized even by those who have never swung a golf club. Of course, there are obscure names, as well. Fewer fans recall Arnold Palmtree…Gene Paychecki…Gerard Hoppy…James Beau Jolley…and Count Manfred von Hoffmenstal. However, each had their day in the sun…or since it’s Britain…moments in the sun.

Those last five names are aliases…made up monikers by one Maurice Flitcroft…his real name. Maurice was - by anyone’s reckoning - the worst golfer to ever play in The Open. Indeed, he holds the record for the highest score ever recorded in Open history…121, 49 over par at Southport’s Royal Birkdale in 1976.

It is a record that will likely stand for all time…especially if the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in Scotland - a place synonymous with the history and origin of the sport - has anything to say about it. And, by the way, the R & A has everything to say about it.

Maurice Flitcroft’s flight of fancy took off in 1974, after he watched the Piccadilly World Match Play Championship on his new colour telly in hometown Barrow, a port town in the Westmoreland and Furness District of Cumbria, England.

A month later, he purchased what he could afford…a half set - every other club of a complete set - and began hitting balls on the beach and in a local park. He practiced bunker shots in a track-and-field long jump pit at a nearby school….and putted on the shag carpet in his living room before burying tin cans in his back garden.

Like millions of golfers worldwide who have not posted - and never will - a score below 90 on any 18-hole golf course, Maurice decided in May of 1976…that he would play in the British Open at Royal Birkdale on July 7.

There was nothing in Maurice’s pedigree that signalled golfer…professional or otherwise. He was a crane operator for Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering. Before that, he sold shoe polish, did some stunt diving in a travelling water circus of sorts, and served a stint in the Merchant Marines.

Maybe dreams come big so that we can grow into them. Maurice reasoned that it doesn’t cost any more to dream big…so he did. He was serious about the game…that is, he never intended his shenanigans as an insult or travesty.

He watched Jack Nicklaus…his new hero…and simply wanted to play like Jack. He wanted to know the thrill of fans applauding a birdie on a tough par five.

The problem - though not insurmountable as it turned out - was that Maurice had never played 18 holes on any golf course…much less the site of that year’s Open. The Open - living up to its name - allows anyone to play who applies…and is qualified.

Amateurs must have a valid handicap…a number that represents a golfer’s ability based on previous scores….and complete a one-page application. Professionals apply, as well, but are generally approved…especially nearly 50 years ago. Both play in qualifying rounds…with the best scores advancing.

Maurice, with the help of his wife, Jean, tried to complete that year’s application as an amateur…but their lack of golf savvy proved too much of a hurdle. After listing his handicap…a slight limp, some arthritis…his wife noted that the application allowed professional golfers to simply mark that they were, indeed, “professional.” No explanation of handicap needed.

Maurice and Jean simply crossed out his previous mention of handicaps…and checked that he was a professional golfer. No professional was ever disallowed an attempt to qualify for The Open. In June, a few weeks before the Open, Maurice received a letter from the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews…his application was approved…he was going to play in the Open. He told his employer he was ill and couldn’t work to get time off.

Mind you, Maurice was in his mid-forties, 5-foot, 8-inches tall and weighed about 140 pounds fully clothed. It didn’t help matters that he looked amazingly like wild-eyed comedian Marty Feldman…and was a chain smoker.

His new golf shoes - purchased especially for The Open - were made of plastic. With his red pork-pie hat, khaki chinos and garish gold and green sweater-vest, Maurice didn’t exactly blend in with his fellow competitors.

Perhaps other golfers, R & A officials and spectators first questioned Maurice’s veracity as a golf professional when they observed him on all fours at the first hole…placing his tee in the ground, then balancing his golf ball atop it.

It likely didn’t get better when his drive on the 460-yard first hole flew higher than it travelled…about 40 yards. He shanked his second shot another 40 yards…and would not pass the drives of his fellow competitors - real golf professionals - until his fourth shot. Somehow, he made a triple-bogey, seven, on the first hole.

By the third hole - following another triple-bogey and a quadruple-bogey - a trail of R & A officials followed pleading with him to withdraw. For better or worse, the rules back then did not allow officials to force Maurice to quit…and he did not.

What followed was 18 holes of golf that could not have been more absurd had Peter Sellers’ “Pink Panther” character, Inspector Jacques Clousseau, played the round…complete with trench coat and Trilby hat.

Maybe it was Maurice’s looks or his attire or his swing - which resembled someone bludgeoning a victim - or his obvious consternation after nearly every shot…or perhaps a combination of these that made Maurice a sympathetic figure…relatable to millions who tried and failed to play golf very well.

He offered this deadpan assessment at the end of his round: “I thought I putted pretty well…apart from the five putts on the 11th. Actually, I’d like to take the opportunity to praise the course for the quality of their putting surfaces, as in texture and pace they resemble my living room carpet, which I practise on every night.”

Maurice did not make the cut…but he found a measure of fame. Daily newspapers carried a banner headline….“Golfer Cards 49-over-par, 121 at The Open.” A photograph of him near second-round co-leader Seve Ballesteros ran in newspapers, as well. Maurice might have found fame…but his boss at Vickers saw the story and photo…and fired him.

Maurice was persistent if nothing else…playing cat and mouse with R & A officials for 14 years. He entered The Open as Gene Paychecki in 1978 and 1981, adopting the name from a journalist who wrote in 1976 that he “was a long way from a pay cheque.”

He played nine holes as Swiss pro Gerald Hoppy in 1983…wearing a fake moustache and dyed hair. He played three holes in 1990 as Frenchman James Beau Jolley. He loved the game…and like most golfers improved only slightly over the years.

In 1987, Blythefield Country Club in Grand Rapids, MI, celebrated Maurice’s accomplishments by hosting its Tenth Annual Maurice Flitcroft Stag…a two-day, four-ball scramble. British Airways - the “Official Airline of the Maurice G. Flitcroft Tournament” - flew Maurice, his wife, Jean, and the three kids to Michigan from England for free. The Crown Plaza Hotel put them up for free for four nights.

Maurice died in 2007. But, you know, he left us with an invaluable life lesson…“It doesn’t cost any more to dream big.”

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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