• Rewind to 2003

Curtis cooks up surprise to claim Claret Jug

Ben Curtis was a shock Open winner © Getty Images

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ESPN will be providing live commentary during all four days of The Open Championship from Royal St George's - along with all the news, views and opinion from the course when the tournament gets underway on Thursday.

2011 Open Championship Preview

The 140th Open Championship gets underway at Royal St George's this week, as South African Louis Oosthuizen looks to defend the title he won so handsomely at St Andrews last year. Oosthuizen was something of a surprise winner as he romped to victory at the home of golf - but still nothing like as much of a shock as the identity of the champion last time the Open was played in Kent...

People tend to perceive that, since his breakthrough at the Masters in 1997, the major championships since have routinely been dominated by Tiger Woods.

Between 1997 and 2008 Woods won 14 majors, so in many ways such a perception is understandable. In the very midst of that run, however, it's easy to forget that golf went through a run of six consecutive first time winners in the game's biggest events of all.

Some of those players had been forced to wait for their moment longer than many had anticipated - Phil Mickelson, for example. But for another, Ben Curtis, his triumph could not have been more unexpected.

After all, the 26-year-old arrived at Royal St George's in 2003 having never even played in a major championship. His trip to the Open was only the result of a tied-13th finish at the previous week's Western Open, a result he had needed more to boost his hopes of retaining his PGA Tour playing privileges than anything else.

The trip to Sandwich was thus last minute. His accommodation was cramped and lacking in many amenities, while his caddie was a local loper by the name of Andy Sutton.

Sutton, based in nearby Maidstone, had only even been put in touch with Curtis after a speculative call to a sports agency.

"I really wanted to get some work for The Open because it was at Sandwich and I live up the road in Maidstone, so I fancied working and being able to sleep in my own bed," Sutton recalled. "I picked up the phone and called IMG. I said 'Can you get me on a bag?'

"They said they had a guy coming over from America called Ben Curtis. I'd never heard of him."

Curtis had never played links golf before, so he was fortunate that Sutton was an expert in such conditions and had a wealth of accumulated knowledge about the idiosyncratic Royal St George's layout. Not that Curtis was seriously thinking about winning the event.

"I had great form coming in. I was playing well in some events leading up to it," Curtis said this week. "I mean, I remember we can here - we got here Friday, my wife and I came out on Saturday and Sunday, and my caddie was out here - Andy was out on Sunday for the first time, so we kind of walked around, played 18, and then Monday I just went into London with Candace and we walked around, saw a few sites and did a few things and then came out Tuesday, came back to work.

"As far as expectations, really the only goal I had was to play four days and to see what it was like to play - it was my first major, just to see what it was like and just to enjoy it. I said 'This is the last time I might play in it'."

Perhaps the lack of expectation played to the 26-year-old's advantage. Two one-over par rounds of 72 comprised a solid start to the tournament, three behind halfway leader Davis Love III albeit with a number of high profile names in and around his score.

A third round 70 kept Curtis in the mix, two shots adrift, although Thomas Bjorn was now in the lead heading into the final round. The real story, however, was the disqualification of journeyman Englishman Mark Roe - who thought he had shot a tournament-leading round of 67 before being summarily disqualified after it was discovered that he and playing partner Jesper Parnevik had forgotten to swap cards on the 1st.

The rule has since been abolished, but Roe's chances had already been extinguished. Nevertheless, with many players within striking distance of Bjorn - including high profile names like Woods, Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia - Curtis was still grabbing little attention.

His final round pairing, with Welshman Philip Price, didn't help in that regard - although Curtis actually preferred it that way.

"One thing that did help me is that I was playing with a guy I had never even heard of in Phillip Price," Curtis said, perhaps unaware of the irony. "There were so many big names -- Tiger, Vijay, Davis Love III -- that we were the lost group out there among all these great players. It was a case of 'Who are these guys?'"

Nevertheless, Curtis had suddenly acquired a confidence in his own chances that others would have struggled to justify.

"My confidence was high. Candace and I were laying in our little cottage in bed, and she goes, 'How do you feel about tomorrow?' and I just kind of looked at here and said, 'I'm going to win'," Curtis remembered. "It wasn't cocky or anything, I just felt comfortable."

But his caddie was one man who didn't share that confidence - along with the rest of the golfing public.

"I was out in Maidstone in the pub on the Saturday night having a drink with an old mate, and he asked me what I thought was going to happen," Sutton recalled. "I'm a pessimist and I always expect the worse, so I was fully expecting him to shoot 80 and for us to finish 20th."

Sutton need not have worried, however. Curtis birdied the first come Sunday afternoon and never looked back, reaching the turn in 32 (four-under) to put himself at the top of the leaderboard.

He then birdied ten and 11 for good measure, shocking everyone as he powered away from the crowd, before finally succumbing to both the pressure and the testing nature of the course. Bogeys at 12, 14, 15 and 17 saw many begin to write off his chances, but nevertheless he reached the 18th tee with a good chance of posting a testing target others would be forced to match.

2003 Open Championship - final leaderboard

Ben Curtis never thought his final putt would be for victory © Getty Images

• -1     Ben Curtis                       (72 72 70 69)     283
• Par    Thomas Bjorn                (73 70 69 72)     284
• Par     Vijay Singh                     (75 70 69 70)    289
• +1     Davis Love III                  (69 72 72 72)    285
• +1     Tiger Woods                    (73 72 69 71)    285

Coming down the 18th, Curtis was now three shots back of Bjorn but narrowly ahead of those already safe and sound in the clubhouse. Having left himself a difficult 15-footer for par, the American showed his nerve by fearlessly rolling in the putt. Little did he know it would ultimately clinch him victory.

"At the time I thought it was going to be for second or third place," Curtis said. "I didn't realise it would be to win the tournament. But crazy things happen."

That they do. Bjorn - famously, perhaps more so than Curtis' triumph - imploded down the par-three 16th after already having dropped a shot at the 15th, hitting his approach shot into a right-side bunker and taking an agonising three shots to get out (on Thursday the Dane had managed something similar on the way to a quadruple bogey at the 17th - he subsequently claimed he hadn't left a shot in a bunker in a decade).

In many ways a double-bogey was a good result after all that, but a bogey on the next nevertheless suddenly meant he needed a birdie to get into a play-off with Curtis - who was out on the range, ignoring the action, mentally preparing for play-off.

He needn't have bothered. Bjorn could only make par, leaving Curtis to be informed by an excited Sutton, galloping across the practice ground in a state of pure elation, that he had just become the first player in 90 years to win the first major he ever played in.

"Right now many people are probably saying, 'Well, he doesn't really belong there,'" Curtis said afterwards. "But I know I do, so that's all that matters."

What happened next?
Curtis was an overnight media sensation, while he also jumped over 300 places to 35th in the world rankings. Unfortunately, further success in professional golf was not immediately forthcoming. The American did win twice on the PGA Tour in 2008 (after an ill-advised spell of NFL sponsorship which saw him become a walking billboard for the various teams), and has subsequently finished in the top ten of the Open twice more, but as yet has failed to become a regular on leaderboards around the world.

After being paired together for the Open, Curtis and Sutton remained a partnership until the 2008 Ryder Cup, where they parted company. However, in a quirk of fate, the two will be together again for the opening two rounds at Royal St George's this week - as Sutton hopes to guide talented Australian Aaron Baddeley to a similarly impressive success.

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