Tony Lema won his only major championship, five strokes ahead of runner-up Jack Nicklaus.

[8] It was Lema's fourth victory in six weeks; he won three events on the PGA Tour in June.

Lema played in two more Opens; two weeks after competing in 1966 at Muirfield, he and his pregnant wife were killed in a plane crash near Chicago.

[9][10][11] ^ The 10th hole was posthumously named for Bobby Jones in 1972 Previous lengths of the course for The Open Championship (since 1950):[1] The exemption categories were: 1.

The first 20 and those tying for 20th place in the 1963 Open Brian Allen, Peter Alliss, Bob Charles (3), Neil Coles, Max Faulkner, Jean Garaïalde, Harold Henning, Brian Huggett, Bernard Hunt, Alex King, Malcolm Leeder, Hugh Lewis, Ian MacDonald, John MacDonald, Sebastian Miguel, Kel Nagle (3), Jack Nicklaus (5), Christy O'Connor Snr, Frank Phillips, Gary Player (3), Phil Rodgers, Sewsunker Sewgolum, Ramón Sota, Peter Thomson (3), Brian Wilkes 2.