The [British] Open’s transformation from a fading relic into a global event was largely spurred by one man, Arnold Palmer. Back in 1962, Palmer arrived an heir apparent and there was nothing royal about Troon. With the western Scottish links preparing to host its ninth Open this summer, Paul Trow recalls one of The Open’s pivotal episodes.

When Arnold Palmer made his debut in the centenary edition of the world’s oldest major championship at St Andrews in 1960, Australian Kel Nagle went off message and upstaged him by a single stroke. But the 1962 Open at Troon, a forbidding links on the west coast of Scotland, witnessed something of a role-reversal, with Palmer claiming his sixth Major title with Nagle back on message and finishing second.

This time, though, the contest wasn’t remotely close. The real threat to Palmer’s supremacy turned out not to be from the giant dunes, dense bushes, spiny broom and tangled grasses that menacingly frame every fairway at Troon, nor from the constant whine of jets landing and taking off less than two miles away at Prestwick International Airport. Rather it came from unruly galleries swarming across the course on the final day when 36 holes were played.

Earlier in the year, the charismatic Palmer won the Masters and came up just short in the U.S. Open at Oakmont following a playoff with Jack Nicklaus. At Troon, he led Nagle by five going into the final round before posting a six-stroke victory, the biggest winning margin since 1929.

To underline the extent of the King’s superiority that week, indeed that year, Nagle ended up seven shots clear of American Phil Rodgers and Wales’s Brian Huggett, who tied third.

It was Palmer’s second straight Open triumph, following his highly popular success at Royal Birkdale the previous year, and the frenzy triggered by his “repeat” at Troon prompted an R&A rethink about crowd controls. Roping off fairways and fencing course boundaries duly began a year later at Royal Lytham & St Annes, and have been the norm ever since.

Troon, later dubbed Royal Troon in 1978, the year of its centenary, is an unusual test of golf. Its first six holes, alongside the Firth of Clyde, are flat and bordered by long grass. Then the course turns inland over hilly dunes. In 1962, the fairways were narrow, blotted with deep bunkers that looked like moon craters and burned brown by a rare Scottish drought. Indeed, on some holes there were better lies in the rough than on the fairways.

Many of the longer shots were blind—for example, the second on the 9th was played to a hidden green beside a trailer camp while the drive on the 10th had to be aimed at the airport runway’s approach lights over towering dunes. Then there was the distraction of repetitive baritone horn blowing from commuter trains by the 11th.

Gary Player had said earlier in the week that the last nine holes were “the most difficult in the world when the wind is blowing.” The wind didn’t blow, but Player still couldn’t handle the conditions and went home early.

“There’s so much luck involved,” the 1961 U.S. Open champion Gene Littler, who also missed the cut, observed. “You can watch two perfect drives go down the middle of the fairway, and one will bounce into the rough while the other will kick straight ahead and roll 50 yards.”

But seemingly well-struck approaches that ended in trouble were even more irksome than the stray fairway bounces. As is the case on many British links, the greens were firm and American pros, used to aiming at the pin and spinning back a few feet, had trouble adapting to the home technique of landing short and letting the ball release towards the hole. In addition, it was virtually impossible to impart backspin to the smaller ball played in Britain at the time (1.62 inches in diameter compared to the U.S.-favored 1.68-inch version).

Shortly before his first qualifying round, Palmer sneezed but thought nothing of it. Then he felt hip twinges and leg pains, and the result, on a sparse, windswept links, was an unimpressive 76.

Following massages from wife Winnie, he wore thermal underwear the next morning and carded 67 over the less demanding Lochgreen course.

Winnie said: “I keep rubbing his back every day and it seems to feel better, but the pain comes back each time he sneezes. I think there’s some pollen in the air.” On Tuesday night, after the qualifying rounds, seven hours of rain softened Troon and drowned the pollen. Wednesday dawned warm and clear, the kind of day to give fresh heart to a man with an aching back.

Palmer shot 71 and followed up on Thursday with 69 to lead Nagle by two—with the rest nowhere. Yet he was still frustrated by his putting (echoes of Oakmont where his propensity for three-stabbing cost him the title). Winnie then performed her second good deed of the week, telling her husband he was moving his head as he putted. He worked on the tip overnight and the result was nine one-putts in a course-record 67 on the Friday morning.

But this tour de force didn’t start as planned. Nagle birdied the first two holes to pull level and on the 4th Palmer drove into a deep fairway bunker to fall one behind. He tugged sternly at his white sweater, walked briskly to the 5th, a 210-yard par-3, and arrowed a long iron to 12 feet. After curling home the putt, he birdied the 6th and led by one through 10. A strong finish saw birdie putts drop at 13, 15, 16 and 17.

By the 11th hole of the afternoon, Palmer had galloped 10 strokes clear and spectators were joyously stampeding around him. Glasgow was on vacation and more than 15,000 Scots were in attendance, many having gatecrashed the course from the beach to avoid paying for admission. This was Palmer’s magnetism, irrepressible and in full force. The Open had never attracted such mayhem and the modest police presence was overwhelmed. Panicked Troon officials locked up the clubhouse, windows were somehow broken and the golf course required extensive repairs in the aftermath.

Palmer had to fight his way through this mob over the closing holes, dropping a few shots along the way, and it took a police phalanx to usher him onto the 18th green. When he made it, he staggered and stumbled in mock exhaustion, thus defusing a mood that had seemed on the verge of ugliness.

“I’ve never played four rounds of golf like these in my whole life,” said Palmer. “Also, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced crowds like this one. We had to wrestle with them the whole way.”

Palmer’s score—71-69-67-69 for a total of 276 (the R&A didn’t declare a par for Open courses in those days)—was built on 1-iron tee shots into the hogs-back fairways. It also tied him with Ben Hogan’s (then) low Major aggregate from the 1948 U.S. Open at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California.

At the time Palmer was the world’s premier golfer but, strangely, he never finished higher than seventh in the Open after this, and he won just one more Major, the 1964 Masters.

But in 1962 at Troon the crowds were reckless while Palmer was peerless.