Brian Huggett, the former Ryder Cup captain who finished second in The Open Championship, has died aged 87.
The news was met with great sorrow across the game with Ian Woosnam hailing his countryman as “a Welsh legend” and Europe’s current Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald saying, “nobody summed up [the biennial match] better than Brian Huggett
A statement issued on behalf of Huggett’s family announced he passed in the early hours of Sunday morning after a short illness.
Born in Porthcawl, Huggett played in the Ryder Cup six times, including the famous 1969 draw at Royal Birkdale. Playing the 18th in the penultimate singles, Huggett holed a putt to halve with Billy Casper and was in tears believing his contribution had clinched the overall match.
Just before his four-footer he had heard a huge roar from the 17th, that he presumed was Tony Jacklin beating Jack Nicklaus.
However, the celebrations were for Jacklin keeping the contest alive and 15 minutes later Nicklaus enacted one of the most famous gestures of sportsmanship when conceding a three-footer.
Huggett’s love of the match could not be exaggerated. In 1973 at Muirfield – where he went undefeated – he decided not to attend the birth of his first child, but instead to team up to beat Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer 3&1 win over Jack Nicklaus.
Four years later, he was a non-playing captain of the Great Britain and Ireland team at Royal Lytham, the last Ryder Cup before it was expanded to include players from continental Europe.
Huggett won 16 European Tour titles, but his biggest achievements were perhaps reserved for the Open, in which he was third in 1962 and second to Australia’s Peter Thomson in 1965.
Huggett was made an MBE in 1978 and retained a link with successive Ryder Cup captains, who used him to help inspire their teams. “I was vice-captain to Thomas Bjørn in Paris in 2018 and Brian was an integral part of a motivational video we played to the players on the eve of the contest,” Donald said. “Even though he was softly spoken, you could see the steely determination in his eyes when he stared down the camera lens – I will never forget that.”
