Bobby Locke

South African golfer who won The Open Championship four times between 1949 and 1957, deploying a revolutionary hooked putting stroke that made him the most accurate putter of his era.

Four Open Championship titles across eight years — Royal St George's in 1949, Troon in 1950, Royal Lytham in 1952, and St Andrews in 1957 — established Bobby Locke as the dominant figure in international golf during the era when Americans effectively barred him from competing in the United States. A prodigious talent, he won the South African Open as a 17-year-old amateur in 1935, the first of nine South African Open titles across his career, and turned professional in 1938. Locke travelled to the United States after World War II and dominated the PGA Tour in 1947 and 1948, winning tournaments including the Canadian Open, but his repeated commitment breaches led the PGA of America to ban him from the Tour in 1949 — a decision widely seen as motivated by rival players' resentment of his success. Effectively unwelcome in America thereafter, Locke redirected his career toward Europe, where in 1949 he won the first of four Open Championship titles at Royal St George's, going on to win again in 1950, 1952, and 1957, the last coming as he snapped Peter Thomson's run of three consecutive Open titles. Often dressed in distinctive plus-fours, white buckskin shoes, and a white cap, Locke played at a notoriously unhurried pace but was universally regarded as one of the finest putters the game has ever produced, credited with popularising the phrase 'you drive for show, you putt for dough.' His career and health were permanently affected by a serious car accident in 1960, when his vehicle was struck by a train at a level crossing, and though he survived, he was never the same golfer again. Locke won 74 professional tournaments in total and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1977, dying in Johannesburg in 1987 at age 69.

Slow, deliberate player renowned above all for an extraordinary putting touch

Widely considered, alongside Gary Player, one of South Africa's two greatest golfers and one of the finest putters the sport has ever seen

• 4x Open Champion (1949, 1950, 1952, 1957)
• 9x South African Open champion
• 15x PGA Tour winner
• 3x Harry Vardon Trophy winner (1946, 1950, 1954)
• World Golf Hall of Fame (1977)