Peter Thomson hardly conforms to type. He is a professional golfer with wide cultural interests outside golf. He is an Australian who prefers discussing politics or listening to classical music rather than drinking beer or surfing. He is a sportsman who has made a successful transition from competitor to writer. Even so, his record stamps him as the most successful Australian golfer ever, and Greg Norman has quite a way to go to usurp him.

Thomson came to Britain in the early 1950s with his enviably simple, orthodox and rhythmical swing, and he made his debut in the Open in 1951. Over the next seven years, he won four championships and was second three times, twice to Bobby Locke, his great rival of the day, and once to Ben Hogan, the greatest golfer of the day. Thomson completed a hat-trick of victories at Hoylake in 1956. Although winning three Opens in succession had been achieved by three men in the 19th century (Young Tom Morris, Tamie Anderson and Bob Ferguson), only Thomson has done it since. But it was not until Arnold Palmer, with whom Thomson had a respectful but rather frosty rivalry, helped to rejuvenate the Open in the early 1960s that the United States was again represented in force, and so it was not until Thomson won it for the fifth time, at Royal Birkdale in 1965, that he was accorded due credit by his American peers. But when Thomson got the better of the American Tony Lema, the defending champion, in the last round at Southport that year, even the harshest sceptics had to concede that Thomson had proved he was the master of anyone when it came to controlling the small British ball over a demanding links. Those sceptics, of course, had not troubled Thomson unduly. He has always been concerned with more cerebral matters than receiving grudging praise. Nevertheless, it is always satisfying to silence the doubters and, belatedly, Thomson did that on the flourishing US Senior tour in the 1980s. He won 11 tournaments, 10 of them in 1985, when he amassed nearly $400,000 in official prize money alone. Lately, he has been increasingly involved in course architecture, and he is presently working on the design of a new course at St Andrews. And no one can say he doesn't understand links golf.

Thomson - Supreme links golfer and five time Open winner.

Thomson's strangle hold on the Open Championship title in the 50s was only threatened by Bobby Locke.