Snead immediately said to Locke: “Come to the US. You’ll make a fortune.” What Snead didn’t tell Locke was that he was going to back the South African against all the best players in the US at the time. They were Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, three-time Masters winner Jimmy Demaret and Lloyd Mangum, who won 36 PGA Tour events including the US Open.

Locke was a golfing prodigy, winning the SA Open and SA Amateur at Parkview Golf Club at the age of 17. Two years later and after another win at the SA Open, he was picked to play for the Springbok team along with Frank Agg, Clarence Olander and my father Otway Hayes. It was a four-month trip to Great Britain where, along with many provincial matches, they played at the British Amateur and The Open Championship.

He turned professional in 1938 and immediately won three SA Opens, three Transvaal Opens and three SA PGA Championships, along with the Irish Open, New Zealand Open and Dutch Open overseas. Not a bad start.

Unfortunately, the War started and Locke joined up and didn’t pay golf until 1946 when he immediately started winning again. He repeated his success at all three of the events in South Africa, and in Britain he lifted the trophies of The British Masters and the Brand-Lochryn and Yorkshire Evening News tournaments.

Locke won four Open Championships and a total of 94 tournaments. He only played at one Masters and one PGA Championship, and although he never won the US Open he played it six times and had five top-five finishes. Between 1946 and 1957 at The Open, he recorded four wins, two runner-up finishes and nine top-10s.

Locke was also inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1977 and was voted the Best Putter of the 20th Century by the Golf Magazine.

I was lucky enough to have dinner with Sir Bob Charles after this year’s Open Championship. Bob was the best putter I ever played with and I asked him who the best golfer was that he ever played with. Without hesitating, he replied “Ben Hogan”, who he described as a complete machine. Then I asked him who the best putter was. Again, no hesitation: “Bobby Locke.” I said: “What about yourself?” He replied: "Dale, I’m probably second.”

A new book on the South African legend Prince of Putters: Bobby Locke: Banned for his Birdies? is available now. It’s brilliant, with lovely old photos and caricatures done by Bob Connolly and Jock Leyden. The book is written by Grant Winter and is the most comprehensive biography of the South African great.