Bobby Cole (golfer) he claimed both the team and the individual wins in the World Cup. Cole is a two-time winner of the South African Open, 1974 and 1980. In 1986, he won the South African PGA Championship. On the U.S. PGA Tour, Cole won the 1977 Buick Open. He has had eight top-10 finishes in the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, and the British Open, and he finished tied for third in the 1975 Open Championship, one stroke back of Tom Watson and Jack Newton, who played off for the win. During the 1975 Open, Cole shot back-to-back rounds of 66, setting
The Open Championship early postwar years The Open was dominated by golfers from the Commonwealth, with South African Bobby Locke and Australian Peter Thomson winning the Claret Jug in eight of the 11 championships from 1948 and 1958 between them. During this period, The Open often had a schedule conflict with the match-play PGA Championship, which meant that Ben Hogan, the best American golfer at this time, competed in The Open just once, in 1953 at Carnoustie, a tournament he won. Another South African, Gary Player was Champion in 1959. This was at the beginning of the "Big Three" era in professional golf,