Winning a major championship is one of the greatest achievements in any sport. 

Being the best individual out of over 100 players over four days of action takes not only out of this world talent, but a solid mental fortitude for all 72 holes. And if you’re in the position to win a major championship, you must take that chance. Who knows if you’ll ever get one again.

Unfortunately this sentiment resonates greatly to a player who played the best golf of his life all the way up until the final putt. He missed from three feet to throw away an Open Championship win at St Andrews, and he never won a major in his career.

The 1970 Open Championship was played at St Andrews, and all that stood between Doug Sanders and golfing immortality was three feet on the iconic 18th green. He’d come back from two strokes down to lead the tournament, but blew it at the last.

Sanders missed the three foot putt, sending the tournament to an 18 hole playoff the following day, which Nicklaus won. His career was filled with major championship near misses, but this is the one he regretted for the rest of his life.

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Speaking to Reuters in 2015, Sanders said, “I thought in my mind that I had already won it but you shouldn’t really do that. I walked up to my ball, looked down at the line and saw what I thought was a pebble. I bent over to get it but it wasn’t a pebble, it was just where the sun had burned the grass.

“All the fans on the other side of the green started to laugh. They had a good laugh and when I missed I got to have a good cry and lost a couple of million dollars on top of it.

“But I can’t complain about the life I’ve had and the people I’ve met, the friendships I’ve made.”

It’s a great attitude to have, but to regret something so meaningful 45 years later must be agonising. This was one of four runner up finishes at majors in what ended up being a career of near misses.