Nick Faldo

In cool Misty weather conditions, Faldo's solid and steady play in the final round won him the Open title a day after his 30th birthday.

Highlighting a bunker shot on the 8th hole as a key shot of his final round, Faldo said: "The one at 8 was fantastic, a 35-yard shot and I knocked it to three feet."

Sir Nicholas Alexander Faldo, (born 18 July 1957) is an English retired professional golfer and television commentator.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his dedication to the game, he was ranked No. 1 on the Official World Golf Ranking for a total of 97 weeks.

Faldo was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England, in 1957, as the only child of Joyce and George Faldo, an accountant at Imperial Chemical Industries.

Faldo missed a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th green which would have made him the first British player since Tony Jacklin in 1970 to hold both major national championships.

The following day, Strange won the 18-hole Monday playoff by four strokes.

Faldo "became hooked" on golf at age 14 — having never "even picked up a golf club" himself, watching Jack Nicklaus play the 1971 Masters on his parents' new colour television (his first exposure to the game).

Faldo qualified to play in the 1974 English Amateur at Woodhall Spa.

His successes came too late to gain a Walker Cup place that year, the match being played in late May with the team selected in November 1974.

In 1975, he won both the English Amateur at Royal Lytham and the British Youths Open Amateur Championship.

He represented Great Britain in the Commonwealth Tournament in South Africa in November 1975.

Faldo describes his late discovery of golf enthusiastically, saying that he "love[d] school, until golf came along"—after which "the only thing [he] was interested in was getting out of the gates as quick as possible and going to the golf course."

Faldo's golf prowess was soon noticed in the United States, where he was given a golf scholarship to the University of Houston.

He attended for ten weeks, but he felt the distraction of going to school hurt his golf game.

After leaving the school, Faldo turned professional in 1976 and joined the European Professional Golfers Association.

Faldo achieved instant European Tour successes, finishing eighth on the Order of Merit in 1977, and third in 1978; and winning a European Tour event in each of those seasons (in 1977, he became the then-youngest Ryder Cup player at the age of 20).

As a rookie, Faldo won all three of his matches at the 1977 Ryder Cup including a win over Jack Nicklaus and an astonishing singles victory over Tom Watson, who had just won the 1977 Open Championship two months earlier.

Faldo continued his European Tour successes in the early 1980s, winning two consecutive Sun Alliance PGA Championships in England, in 1980 and 1981.

In the mid-1980s, Faldo began rebuilding his swing under the tutelage of David Leadbetter, to reorder his game and become a regular contender in major championships (many contemporaries and commentators viewed his all-encompassing swing change as excessive, although later players have adopted similar strategies to varying degrees—most notably, Tiger Woods).

Leadbetter felt that although Faldo's swing "looked beautiful," and had "marvelous rhythm," it "camouflaged a number of faults".

Faldo finished top of the Order of Merit in 1983, with five European Tour victories.

His 41 professional wins include 30 victories on the European Tour and six major championships: three Open Championships (1987, 1990, 1992) and three Masters (1989, 1990, 1996).

Faldo has since become a television commentator for major golf championships.

After a series of setbacks, Faldo's efforts paid off in May 1987, when he won the Peugeot Spanish Open, his first European Tour victory since 1984 (Faldo later said the win was a "major turning point," which restored his confidence).

Two months later, in July 1987, Faldo claimed his first major title at The Open Championship at Muirfield.

After rounds of 68 (-3) and 69 (-2), Faldo emerged through stormy conditions with an even-par 71, thus entering the final round one stroke behind American Paul Azinger.

Faldo parred every hole in his final round for a one-shot victory.

At the 1988 U.S. Open, Faldo ended 72 holes of regulation play in a tie for the lead with Curtis Strange.

Faldo's even-par fourth round of 71 started with 14 consecutive pars.

In 2006, he became the lead golf analyst for CBS Sports.

In 2012, Faldo joined the BBC Sport on-air team for coverage of the Open Championship.

Responding to suggestions that Faldo might be an Italian surname, George Faldo stated it is of English origin, and had traced it to a 13th-century Knight in Bedford.

A birdie on the 15th hole gave him a share of the lead with Strange.

However, on the 16th hole Faldo found himself with a difficult bunker shot to play.

After backing away from his bunker shot to scold some photographers for talking, Faldo made his lone bogey.

At one point Azinger held a lead of three shots with nine holes to play, but bogeys at four of his last nine holes, including at the 17th and 18th, placed him a stroke behind Faldo.

Strange dropped a shot on the 17th to leave the two rivals tied for the lead on the 18th tee.

He holed a five-foot putt on the final hole for his 18th consecutive par.

Faldo later said: "I knew I'd do it. And I knew I had to do it."