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Our new Royal St George’s Recap series looks back on the five most recent Open Championships to have been held at the venue for The 149th Open in 2021.
To begin, we head back to 1981 and The 110th Open, where Bill Rogers took home the Claret Jug.
In only his second appearance at The Open, Rogers dominated a star-studded field to claim an emphatic four-stroke victory.
A second-round 66 lifted Rogers into the 36-hole lead at 2-under par and he remained at the top of the leaderboard thereafter, ending the week as the only player to have broken par.
Rogers, a runner-up at the previous month’s U.S. Open, was five shots clear at the start of the final day but faced a stern test of his nerve when a double bogey at the par-5 seventh cut his advantage to a single stroke.
However, the Texan responded brilliantly with three birdies in his next five holes and his lead never came under threat thereafter. A 4-under total ensured he finished comfortably clear of a 23-year-old Bernhard Langer.
Strong winds made scoring tough on the Kent coast, particularly on the opening day when not a single player broke par.
Jack Nicklaus, who had remarkably finished inside the top six at the previous 15 Open Championships, suffered more than most as he carded a 13-over 83.
To his immense credit, Nicklaus improved on that score by 17 shots the following day, shooting 66 to make the cut.
To read more about The 110th Open in 1981, head to: https://www.theopen.com/latest/2020/11/royal-st-georges-recap-1981.
The R&A