Phantom of the Open ?? ????

Maurice Flitcroft had a few jobs.

Door-to-door salesman, ice cream man, and for the last eight years, crane operator.

At one point he was even a comedy stuntman, sawing himself off of diving boards.

What he was not, was a professional golfer. Well, not yet anyway.

In 1974, aged 45, Maurice took to golf for the first time.

“I read up on the game and about The Open and thought it would be a great tournament to play in.” Maurice remembered.

Having never played an 18-hole round, Maurice found a loophole. He couldn’t enter as an amateur because he wasn’t a member of a club and had no handicap.

But you didn’t need those things to enter as a professional.

So that is exactly what he did.

With a bag of clubs bought by his Mother, he teed off beside Dave Roberts and Jim Howard (the first black player to become a PGA pro).

It went 20 yards.

Flitcroft's performance was, as expected, spectacularly dismal. He scored 121, the worst in the tournament's history, yet his infamous 18 holes made him a folk hero and he became known as the “Phantom of the Open,”.

The golfing world didn't know what to make of him. Some viewed him as a charlatan tarnishing a venerable sport, while others saw him as an embodiment of the everyman's dream.?

Despite attempts to bar him, Maurice continued to sneak into competitions, donning disguises and employing aliases, becoming a legend in the process.

Whilst Flitcroft’s story teaches the value of audacity, it also shows what you can achieve even if you don’t have the resources to mix it with the big players.

Maybe it doesn’t pay off the way you want it to (Maurice wanted to win the Open afterall), but putting yourself out there might just help you to fight off the volume-stealing big station down the road.

Episode 4 of Fuel Matters comes to you from the United States ??????.

In this episode,?Mark Truman?is joined by Slaton Whatley of multi-generational family business Whatley Oil Company.

Slaton talks about:

?? Making Whatley Oil’s team the company’s USP

?? Operating in a low margin market

?? The pull of regional foods

??What people really want our of their fill-up experience?

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Enjoy the show ??