U.S. Amateur Championship

In 1973, the world’s top amateurs roamed the Club’s fairways and greens, as Inverness hosted its first U.S. Amateur Championship. This event was so historic because after an eight-year interlude, during which the United States Golf Association broke with tradition and held its Amateur championship as a stroke-play event, the tournament at Inverness returned to match play. It was the format that crowned Bobby Jones, Francis Ouimet, Chick Evans, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and so many other greats through the years.

The 1973 Amateur also featured, for the first time in a number of years, all twenty members of the combined American and British Walker Cup teams, which had faced off a week earlier at The Country Club, in Brookline, Massachusetts.

As the brackets developed, a dream pairing for the finals seemed likely. Two American defenders, Bill Campbell and Marvin (Vinny) Giles III had advanced to the semifinals. Two youngsters, neither of whom had competed in the Walker Cup, neither of whom had U.S. Amateur pedigrees, and neither of whom was considered a formidable match play competitor, stood in the way of that dream pairing. They were a study in contrasts: law-student David Strawn was 6’2”, 170 pounds and Craig Stadler was 5’10”, 205 pounds, and with mutton-chop sideburns. In the years to come, Stadler would lose the sideburns, but not the girth becoming a popular golfer on the PGA Tour, acquiring the colorful nickname “Walrus.” Stadler’s Saturday began with a quarterfinal pairing against the reigning British Amateur champion, Dick Siderowf. The 20-year-old from La Jolla, California ended Siderowf’s hopes of becoming just the fifth golfer ever to capture both the British and American amateur titles, in the same year. Giles, Campbell and Strawn also survived morning matches to compete in the semifinal field; however, Stadler ambushed Giles, 3 and 1, while Strawn humbled the 50-year-old Campbell, 6 and 5, after taking a seven-up lead at the turn. Stadler’s hunger for victory was evident the next day as he took a 4-up lead after nine holes and scored a 6 and 5 win over Strawn in the 36-hole championship match. The winner admitted that one of his early goals was to qualify for the Masters; in those days, invitations to play at Augusta National were issued to the eight U.S. Amateur quarterfinalists.