The 1963 Open Championship was the 92nd Open Championship, held from 10–13 July at the Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club in Lytham St Annes, England. Bob Charles won his only major championship in a 36-hole playoff, eight strokes ahead of runner-up Phil Rodgers. Charles was the first left-hander to win a major title. Jack Nicklaus came in third, one stroke out of the playoff. A heavy favorite among the local bettors, Arnold Palmer came up short in his bid for a third straight Open and finished in a tie for 26th.
This was the last 36-hole playoff at The Open, the format was changed to 18 holes the following year and first used in 1970.
The PGA Championship was played the next week in Dallas, Texas, one of five times in the 1960s that these two majors were played in consecutive weeks in July.
Famous quotes containing the word open:
“There is all the difference in the world between the criminal’s avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedient’s taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)