Frank Stranahan

Frank Richard Stranahan (August 5, 1922 – June 23, 2013) was an American sportsman. He had significant success in both amateur and professional golf. He was ranked number one in his weight class in powerlifting, from 1945 to 1954, and he became known on the golf course and off as the "Toledo strongman" long before the modern game of golf and fitness. After he retired from tournament golf in the early 1960s, he became a prolific long-distance runner, competing in 102 marathons.

Stranahan was born in Toledo, Ohio, on August 5, 1922. He was born into a very wealthy family. His father, Robert A. Stranahan Sr., and his uncle, Frank D. Stranahan, co-founded the highly successful Champion Spark Plug company. His uncle Frank was married to the actress and soprano Marie Celeste.

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. He received instruction as a junior at Inverness in the early 1940s from Byron Nelson, the club's professional, who was also playing the PGA Tour at that time.

Stranahan played college golf for the University of Miami. Nelson later mentored several other young players who went on to significant competitive success, including World Golf Hall of Fame members Ken Venturi, Tom Watson, and Marty Fleckman.

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. 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. 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. 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.

In September 1954, at age 32, he turned pro after losing to 24-year-old Arnold Palmer in the round of 16 at the U.S. Amateur the previous week. He is the only amateur golfer in PGA history to win a professional event as an amateur more than once. 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.

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.