Tony Jacklin - Part 1 (The Early Years)

Tony Jacklin’s brief, but memorable, brilliance revitalize British and ultimately European golf with his remarkable exploits. For four seasons, from 1969 through 1972, there was no brighter star in golf’s firmament than Jacklin. At age 26, he broke a number of performance records in British golf, simply doing for the game in Great Britain what Arnold Palmer had done for it in the United States barely more than a decade before.

For these compliments and for breathing life back into the Ryder Cup later in his career, Tony Jacklin was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Despite his success as a teenager in winning the Lincolnshire Championship as an amateur, Jacklin’s parents thought turning pro was too risky a proposition. But when Bill Shankland offered him an assistant pro position at Potters Bar, the 17-year-old Jacklin thought the six-pound salary was a fortune and launched his professional golf career. But life as an assistant wasn’t always appealing to Jacklin.

“There were times when life was heartbreaking-long hours spent practicing with Shankland seldom satisfied with what I was doing.”
“There were times when life was heartbreaking-long hours spent practicing with Shankland seldom satisfied with what I was doing,” recalled Jacklin. But he worked diligently on his game and the hard work paid off with victories in Europe and Jacklin’s dreams soon began to come true. He traveled to America to compete against the best and it wasn’t long before he won the Jacksonville Open in 1968 and became the first Briton to win on the PGA TOUR.