Here are 22 media memories to close out 2022 – on December 22, no less. There is a book called Forgive Us Our Press Passes (a history of the Association of Golf Writers) published in 2005, a collection of stories about golf writing by golf writers… which gave me the idea for this end-of-year blog.
It won’t be immediately obvious what’s what here (in part depending on how good your eye-sight is!) so I’ll explain. They are in chronological order from the top. Here goes…
1976: The first Open I attended as a reporter, the one where Seve Ballesteros became famous and Johnny Miller became the champion at Royal Birkdale
1979: Seve’s first win in the Open at Royal Lytham, which made him even more famous
1981: My first Ryder Cup, at which the Seve-less European team was thrashed by the might of America at Walton Heath
1984: The Monte Carlo Open… a great week, especially if you were Ian Mosey, who won it
1984: The only Amateur Championship final I attended. What a one to choose. At Formby that summer, José Maria Olazábal beat Colin Montgomerie by 5&4. I stopped off on my way back to London after a week of playing golf in Scotland. Bliss!
1984: The Million Dollar Challenge at Sun City in the December. Another win for Seve in the year of that one at St Andrews
1985: Sandy Lyle wins the Open at Royal St George’s
1986: Jack Nicklaus wins the Masters at the age of 46
1987: Europe’s first Ryder Cup win in the United States, inspired by Seve (again!) and at the golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus (again!)
1988: The Australian Bicentennial Golf Classic over the extraordinarily classic composite course at Royal Melbourne, won by Rodger Davis
1989: The German Open at the Frankfurter Golf Club, won by Craig Parry (and no, that was not my passport pic!)
1991: Ian Woosnam wins the Masters, the fourth Brit in a row after Lyle and Nick Faldo (twice)
1993: Bernhard Langer wins his second Masters
1995: The last US Open I attended, won by Corey Pavin at Shinnecock Hills
1996: Nick Faldo wins his third green jacket…
1997: … whereas one year later Tiger would be claiming his first
1999: José Maria Olazábal wins his second Masters
2000: The Millennium Open at St Andrews was won by Tiger Woods…
2001: … who completed the ‘Tiger Slam’ at Augusta National the following spring
2012: Europe’s last Ryder Cup victory in the US, inspired by memories of the late Ballesteros and captained to an incredible comeback at Medinah by his old pal, Olazábal
June 2022: The inaugural LIV Golf tournament at the Centurion Club, St Albans
July 2022: The 150th Open Championship over the Old Course at St Andrews
You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com plus you can read more by him on golf at robertgreengolf.com
