Dai Rees
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For the Welsh rugby union international see Dai Rees (rugby player)
Dai Rees (31 March 1913 – 10 September 1983) was one of the Britain's leading golfers either side of World War II.
Born in Fontygary, Wales, Rees is best remembered as the captain of the Great Britain team which defeated the United States to win the Ryder Cup at Lindrick Golf Club in Yorkshire, England in 1957. The score was a decisive 7.5-4.5. This was the only defeat which the U.S. suffered in the competition between 1933 and 1985, and the last achieved by Britain's golfers without the assistance of the rest of Europe. Following this triumph he won Britain's best known sports award, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, for 1957. In 1958 he was made a CBE, a rare honour for a sportsman. Rees played in nine Ryder Cups in total, and was selected for the aborted 1939 Cup. He has a 7-9-1 win-loss-draw record, which was well above average for a British player in an era when the British team suffered many heavy defeats.
In individual events, Rees' wins included four British PGA Matchplay Championships (1936, 1938, 1949, 1950). He didn't win a major, but he was runner-up in The Open Championship in 1953, 1954 and 1961. This is as well as any Welshman has yet finished in The Open. The European Tour was established in 1972 and Rees was a member for the first few seasons, but by then he was past his best. A keen Arsenal fan, he was involved in a car crash on his way back from watching his team play a match, and failed to recover from his injuries, dying some months later.
Ryder Cup appearances: 1937, 1947, 1949, 1951, 1953, 1955, 1957, 1959, 1961
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Jim Laker | BBC Sports Personality of the Year 1957 | Succeeded by Ian Black |
European Ryder Cup Captains |
|---|
| Great Britain
1927 Ted Ray · 1929 George Duncan · 1931 Charles Whitcombe · 1933 John Henry Taylor · 1935 Charles Whitcombe · 1937 Charles Whitcombe · 1947 Henry Cotton · 1949 Charles Whitcombe · 1951 Arthur Lacey · 1953 Henry Cotton · 1955 Dai Rees · 1957 Dai Rees · 1959 Dai Rees · 1961 Dai Rees · 1963 John Fallon · 1965 Harry Weetman · 1967 Dai Rees · 1969 Eric Brown · 1971 Eric Brown Great Britain & Ireland 1973 Bernard Hunt · 1975 Bernard Hunt · 1977 Brian Huggett Europe 1979 John Jacobs · 1981 John Jacobs · 1983 Tony Jacklin · 1985 Tony Jacklin · 1987 Tony Jacklin · 1989 Tony Jacklin · 1991 Bernard Gallacher · 1993 Bernard Gallacher · 1995 Bernard Gallacher · 1997 Seve Ballesteros · 1999 Mark James · 2002 Sam Torrance · 2004 Bernhard Langer · 2006 Ian Woosnam · 2008 Nick Faldo |
