1973 U.S. Amateur Championship

National tournaments held at Inverness Club through the years have helped write golf’s history books.  One such tournament was held in 1973 when the world’s top amateurs roamed the Club’s fairways and greens as Inverness hosted its only 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.

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 competitors, 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 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 complete 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 still 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 quarterfinals.