10 years ago, O'Meara ruled Open and Masters

Ten years later, Mark O'Meara happily returns to the place he cemented his golfing legacy -- the rolling sand dunes, flat fairways, whipping winds and striking white clubhouse of Royal Birkdale. The whole scene makes for a tidy complement to Augusta National. This week's British Open will unfold at Birkdale for the first time since 1998, when O'Meara won his second major of the year (and his career) by holding off Brian Watts in a four-hole playoff. O'Meara thus added his name to the long, storied list of Open champions at Royal Birkdale, a classic links course along the northwest coast of England. Peter Thomson won two of his five Open titles here. Arnold Palmer also won here, as did Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson (the last of his five Open victories) and Ian Baker-Finch. O'Meara did not exactly seem like a logical... [read full story]