John Ball
1 Major Championship • 90th All-Time
1
Wins
0
2nd Place
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First Win Age
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Last Win Age
Major Championship Wins
Career Highlights
- 1890 Open Championship — First non-Scottish player to win a major golf championship
- Historic Double — Won both The Open and British Amateur in 1890, joining only Bobby Jones in achieving this feat
- Amateur Dominance — Won record eight British Amateur Championships (1888, 1890, 1892, 1894, 1899, 1907, 1910, 1912)
- Elite Record — Compiled remarkable 99-22 match play record (81.8%) at the British Amateur
- Irish Success — Captured four Irish Amateur titles during his career
- Early Excellence — Finished 5th in The Open at age 16 in 1878
Did You Know?
- The Niblick Protest: Ball famously refused to carry a niblick (equivalent to modern 8- or 9-iron), calling it "another bloody spade" and admonishing the R&A for allowing such "horrid-looking contraptions" in competition
- Poet of the Swing: Legendary golf writer Bernard Darwin wrote, "I have derived greater aesthetic and emotional pleasure from watching John Ball than from any other spectacle in the game"
- Hoylake Legend: Born next to Royal Liverpool Golf Club where his father owned the Royal Hotel, Ball learned the game competing against Harold Hilton on the famous links and became "more of a legend in his own lifetime" than any golfer of his era