[2] He was born into a very wealthy family; his father, Robert A. Stranahan Sr., was the founder of the highly successful Champion Spark Plug company.

Stranahan 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.

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.

Stranahan was able to remain amateur by forgoing the prize money he could have won as a professional, due to his family wealth.

[2] 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.

[6] Stranahan's dream was to win this championship; his closest was a 1950 finals loss in extra holes to Sam Urzetta.

He was seen as arrogant by many fellow competitors, who often struggled to make ends meet, well before the evolution of golf into its modern big-money era.

Notably, Stranahan was warned, and then finally suspended from the tournament in 1948, for playing more than one ball during practice rounds, although he had finished as runner-up the previous year.

Stranahan was invited to compete again the following year, despite the controversy, which continued, due to his failure to respect the rules.

His personal support, along with the 1961 and 1962 wins of Arnold Palmer, revived, sustained, and returned the greatness of the Open Championship through encouraging other top Americans to compete, despite the low prize funds of that era.

LA = low amateur NT = no tournament CUT = missed the half-way cut DNQ = did not qualify for match play portion R256, R128, R64, R32, R16, QF, SF = Round in which player lost in match play "T" indicates a tie for a place Sources: Masters,[16] U.S. Open and U.S.