“Whenever you play at The Open, you are always quite nervous.” 43 years on, David J Russell, affectionately known as DJ, recalls his record-setting hole-in-one at Royal Troon.
At just 19 years old, Russell had achieved qualification to The 102nd Open Championship after a successful 36-hole qualifier at Lochgreen, less than a mile from the 1973 host course.
Russell was paired with John McTear and David Vaughan for the first round at Royal Troon and it would take just eight holes for the Birmingham-born teenager to make his mark on Major Championship history.
“I was pleased to be a couple over par at the time,” he said. “I hadn’t hit any destructive shots.
“And then we got to the Postage Stamp. It was only 125 yards, so I went for my seven iron. I hit it left and thought it was a goner.
“But it pitched up off one of the dunes, rolled onto the green and then went in. A lot of people say they know it’s going in as soon as they hit it. That wasn’t the case for me. It was very lucky.”
At 19 years and 70 days old, Russell became the youngest golfer in history to shoot an ace at a Major Championship – a record that stands to this day.
Just over an hour later, Gene Sarazen, then aged 71, also recorded an ace on the Postage Stamp, becoming the oldest golfer to score a hole-in-one at a Major – a record that also remains unbroken.
Gene Sarazen pictured with the Claret Jug in 1932
“It means a lot to me,” said Russell. “And it probably means a lot more now that the years have gone by. I don’t think it will be a record that will be broken any time soon.
“Gene congratulated me after my round and I got a nice picture with him, but I think I was too young to understand the importance of what had just happened.”
Now a regular on the European Senior Tour, Russell recalled how he nearly made it two in a row during the second round of that Championship.
“On the second day, I hit my drive to within a few inches of the hole – I thought it had gone in again. During his round, Gene hit a poor shot into a bunker but then holed it for two.
“We say that Arnold Palmer had a seven on the eighth hole during that second round. So between ourselves, me and Gene recorded a lower aggregate score on the eighth across two days than he did on that one round.
“I played with Sam Torrance on the third day, which back then was on a Friday. That was the start of what has been a very long-lasting friendship.
“Sadly, I missed the cut by a shot and then travelled back to England to play in a Midlands County match at Burnham and Berrow in Somerset.
“I made up for the miss at Troon because I hit a hole-on-one on the fifth hole. So within the space of four days, I had two holes-in-one in two different countries. It was with the same club too.”
After the first round of the 1973 Open, Russell was tied for tenth place, level with the aforementioned Palmer and ahead of the likes of Christy O’Connor Snr, Bernard Gallacher and Gary Player.
Despite missing the cut for the final day at Troon, Russell believes the experience of one of golf’s greatest stages set him up for what has been a successful career - which includes being named as an Assistant Captain for the 2006 Ryder Cup, when Europe equalled their highest ever winning margin with an 18 1/2 - 9 1/2 victory over the United States.
“It was the first time I had pitched myself against players at that level,” he said. “I released that I had the ability to compete with them.
“It took me a few years to fully go professional, but that gave me a lot of confidence.”
