Frank Stranahan

Stranahan was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1922.[2] He was born into a very wealthy family; his father, Robert A. Stranahan Sr., was the founder of the highly successful Champion Spark Plug company.[3] Frank's father's millions allowed Frank to concentrate on golf, and while in his teens he set a goal of becoming the best golfer in the world. He grew up playing the famous Inverness Club in Toledo, and won several club championships there.

During his amateur golf career, spanning from 1936 to 1954, Stranahan won over 70 amateur tournaments, and several Open events as well, competing against professionals. Stranahan was able to remain amateur by forgoing the prize money he could have won as a professional, due to his family wealth. His greatest accomplishments included appearing as a finalist in over a dozen national championships, winning seven. He won two major championships (as they were counted at the time): the 1948 and 1950 British Amateurs.[2] Stranahan was runner-up in five other major championships, including the British Amateur, the Masters Tournament, The Open Championship, and the U.S. Amateur. He won the Canadian Amateur Championship in 1947 and 1948.[2] He won the Tam O'Shanter All-American Amateur six consecutive years from 1948 to 1953; this was a significant extravaganza hosted by impresario George S. May.[2] His globetrotting allowed him to compete in over 200 tournaments across three continents during his amateur career.

He remained an amateur most of his career, during which time he played on three winning Walker Cup teams in 1947, 1949, and 1951. He finally turned pro at age 32 in September 1954,[2] after losing to 24-year-old Arnold Palmer in the round of 16 at the U.S. Amateur the previous week.[5] He is the only amateur golfer in PGA history to win a professional event as an amateur more than once.[6] Stranahan's dream was to win this championship; his closest was a 1950 finals loss in extra holes to Sam Urzetta. Stranahan stated at the time of turning pro that one of his reasons for making the switch was a desire for the Tour players to develop greater respect for him, since if he won a Tour event as an amateur, the runner-up received the first-place money. As a pro, his greatest victory was the 1958 Los Angeles Open.[2]

Stranahan worked with several golf instructors in an attempt to find the perfect swing; he was characterized by his fellow competitors as someone who experimented too much with his game, with a 'made' swing as opposed to a 'natural' swing, although his short game was very well respected. Stranahan became good friends with the young Gary Player, then, in the mid-1950s, just beginning to make his mark on the professional circuit, with advice on fitness, which Player successfully incorporated into his own training and preparation which Player had been training on since a boy. Stranahan drew chuckles from many by traveling to golf tournaments with his weightlifting equipment, but was in fact pioneering an eventual method which would become the norm several decades later, with the Tour supplying staffed workout facilities to players at Tour events by the 1980s.

Stranahan was known as something of a playboy during his amateur years, before settling down with his marriage in 1954. He was seen as arrogant by many fellow competitors, who often struggled to make ends meet, well before the evolution of golf into its modern big-money era.

After leaving competitive golf, he concentrated on business. He studied at Harvard University and the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania.[8]

Stranahan's greatest personal feat is that he helped save the Open Championship. After World War II when few American golfers competed in the event, Stranahan competed in eight consecutive Open Championships, and was runner-up in 1947 and 1953. His personal support, along with the 1961 and 1962 wins of Arnold Palmer, revived, sustained, and returned the greatness of the Open Championship through encouraging other top Americans to compete, despite the low prize funds of that era.[9]

Stranahan suffered significant family misfortune. His wife Ann, whom he married in 1954, was herself a top-class amateur golfer; she finished runner-up in the 1960 Canadian Women's Amateur.[8][10][11] Ann died at age 45 from cancer. His eldest son Frank Jr. died from cancer at age 11. His second son Jimmy died of a drug overdose in Houston, Texas at age 19. Stranahan's father also died from cancer.[12] His youngest son Lance works in real estate in Florida.[13]

Stranahan died June 23, 2013, aged 90, at his home in Miami Beach, Florida, where he had lived for many years.[14][9][15]

this list is incomplete

• 1940 Toledo District Junior Championship
• 1941 Trans-Mississippi Amateur, Ohio Amateur
• 1942 Ohio Amateur, South Florida Championship
• 1946 Mexican Amateur, Western Amateur, North and South Amateur, Great Lakes Amateur
• 1947 Canadian Amateur, Great Lakes Amateur
• 1948 British Amateur, Canadian Amateur, Mexican Amateur, All-American Amateur
• 1949 Western Amateur, North and South Amateur, All-American Amateur
• 1950 British Amateur, All-American Amateur
• 1951 Mexican Amateur, Western Amateur, All-American Amateur
• 1952 Western Amateur, North and South Amateur, All-American Amateur
• 1953 All-American Amateur

Amateur

• Walker Cup: 1947 (winners), 1949 (winners), 1951 (winners)
• Americas Cup: 1952 (winners)