Description
When some local enthusiasts formed a golf club at Troon in 1878, their first clubhouse was a converted railway carriage and their links no more than six holes. Nowadays, Royal Troon is one of the most renowned links in the world and will host the Open Championship for the eigth time in July 2004.

The Open Championship was first played here in 1923 and since then some of the game's greatest exponents have triumphed on these links. They include Bobby Locke, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson.

The Old Course includes one of the game's most famous holes - "The Postage Stamp" where the seventy-one year Gene Sarazen famously holed in one during the 1973 Open Championship. Royal Troon also has a reputation as one of the hardest inward halves of any of the Championship venues.

This film describes the development of both the golf club and the town. It explains how some of the holes on the links came to have names such as 'Tel-el-Kabir' and 'The Fox', and how Royal Troon came into possession of the oldest known set of golf clubs in existence.

Using unique archive footage and interviews with both players and spectators, "The Magnificent Nine" also charts the history of The Open Championship at Troon and chronicles how this small town on Scotland's West coast developed from a popular Victorian holiday destination to a town whose name is synonymous with the game of golf.