Flory Van Donck
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Flory Van Donck (born June 23, 1912) was Belgium's most successful golfer in the twentieth century.
Van Donck was born in Tervueren, Flemish Brabant. Until the advent of Severiano Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer in the late 1970s, Van Donck was considered the greatest golf player ever from continental Europe. Van Donck's fame rested on his great putting ability, though his style was unorthodox as he kept the toe of his putter in the air, similar to Isao Aoki.
Van Donck won the Belgian national title sixteen times between 1935 and 1968, and held most of the national open titles in Europe at one time or another, including the Belgian Open and Dutch Open (five times each), Italian Open (four times), French Open (three times), German Open and Swiss Open (twice each), and Portuguese Open (once). He was second in the British Open twice: losing to Peter Thomson in 1956 by three strokes and to Gary Player in 1959 by two strokes.
[edit] Tournament wins
this list is incomplete
- 1936 Dutch Open
- 1937 Dutch Open
- 1938 Italian Open
- 1939 Belgian Open
- 1946 Belgian Open, Dutch Open
- 1947 Belgian Open, Italian Open
- 1951 Dutch Open
- 1953 Belgian Open, Dutch Open, German Open, Italian Open, Swiss Open
- 1954 French Open, Uruguayan International Golf Championship
- 1955 Italian Open, Portuguese Open, Swiss Open
- 1956 Belgian Open, German Open
- 1957 French Open, Venezuela Open
- 1958 French Open
- 1960 Canada Cup (individual title)