WHAT possesses a man to give up on a shot at the Claret Jug? To walk away when faced with a play-off against an opponent he knows he has the beating of.
Davie Strath – one of the best golfers of his generation – did just that at the 1876 Open. Within two and a half years Strath was dead from tuberculosis. The tragedy of his circumstances has added an air of mystery to his decision but that decision would also dictate how history would later recall him, which is to say, barely at all.
