Peter Oosterhuis
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Peter Oosterhuis was the best European golfer of the mid 1970s, winning the European Tour’s Order of Merit in the Tour’s first three seasons from 1972 to 1974. He had also topped the Sunshine Tour’s Money List in 1970 and 1971.
He made his Ryder Cup debut in 1971 and has one of the best records of a European player, with 14 wins and 3 halves from his 28 matches. He won six singles matches, a victory tally which has still not been bettered by anyone from either side. He played eight singles matches in the Ryder Cup, and beat Arnold Palmer twice.
He led the 1973 Masters after 54 holes by three strokes, but a final round 74 left him two shots off the winner and tied in third place. It was the best Masters result by a Brit until Sandy Lyle won the Green Jacket in 1988.
He was runner up in The Open Championships of 1974, when he finished four shots behind Gary Player, and of 1982, when he and Nick Price finished a shot behind Tom Watson.
Oosterhuis had joined the PGA Tour in 1975, but never had much success on the other side of the Atlantic, with one solitary PGA Tour win, the Canadian Open of 1981.
His name would crop up in the ‘best golfer not to to have won a Major’ discussions, but he son Bob has said that his father had told him “while winning a Major would have been great, he was proud of his record and he didn’t feel a sense of loss.”
Peter Oosterhuis’ father was a Dutchman who has escaped to Britain during the war, hence why this almost stereotypical English gentleman had a foreign name. His father married an Englishwoman and worked as a commodity broker in London, dealing mainly in coffee, and the family lived in Dulwich. His mother played golf and Peter became a member of Dulwich and Sydenham as a child.
Peter Oosterhuis was renowned for his modesty and politeness. “Peter was unarguably our finest gentleman golfer,” said Ken Schofield, former executive director of the European Tour. “Today’s equivalent would be Justin Rose.”
After retiring from tournament play, Oosterhuis worked at golf clubs, mainly in the US, before becoming a popular golf commentator, working in both the UK and US, but mainly the latter, where he lived.
Fellow commentator Renton Laidlaw, reflected once that “I could not have…
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