It was an historic occasion on the eve of the final round of the 100th Australian Open at the annual Association of Golf Writers Australia (AGWA) Annual Dinner.

Present at the dinner held at the Bonnie Doon Golf Club was four Australian-born Major Champions – Five time Open winner Peter Thomson, double Major winning David Graham, 1991 Open winner Ian Baker-Finch and 2006 US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy.

However in a first it was the first occasion the now Texas-based Graham and Ogilvy were together in Australia.

AGWA President Peter Stone, who introduced Graham to Saturday night’s gathering, takes up the story:-

David Graham was guest of honour at the Australian Golf Writers Association annual dinner receiving our 2015 Honoree of the Year award, not quite as big as his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame at St Andrews in Open Championship week in July but arguably just as much long overdue.

Three other Australian major champions were in attendance – five-times British Open Champion, Pete Thomson, the 1991 British Open Champion, Ian Baker Finch and the 2006 US Open Champion, Geoff Ogilvy.

Austalia’s only two U.S. Open champions together for a first time at the 2015 Australian Golf Writers Australia annual dinner.

Graham, who won the 1981 US Open two years after his PGA championship win, interviewed Ogilvy on his win at Winged Foot, specifically about the last two holes when Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson imploded why Ogilvy kept his nerve.

It’s a pity it wasn’t taped for posterity. If Ogilvy ever stops playing and designing courses and writing for golf magazines, David Feherty should look over his shoulder. Geoff’s dry wit is, as the late Richie Benaud would say, “simply marvellous”.

Richie’s wife Daphne, who along with Richie, is a foundation member of the AGWA, was at the dinner sitting with dear friends Peter and Mary Thomson, and keeping in touch with the Australia – New Zealand test via an App on her mobile phone. She relayed progress to Graham across the table.

Graham hoped to see just a bit of the cricket on Channel 9 today while watching the golf on Seven. I recall Kerry Packer once exploding when he entered The Australian clubhouse bar when the TV was on a different channel to his Nine Network.

A new TV set had to be bought.

The Grahams and Thomsons have spent time in each other’s company this week, dining together and, of course, taking part in official engagements through the week.

It should be remembered that Graham was the first International team captain for The Presidents Cup against the United States in 1994 and was named as captain for the 1966 event, but replaced by PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Fincham after a revolt of some international players.

David Graham in 1981 becomes the first Australian to win a US Open.

“Was there tension between Graham and Thomson in the years following that,” I asked of Graham.

“Never,” he replied. “The 1996 Presidents Cup was a fiasco and it was brought about by one man’s selfish, egotistical attitude and he should never have been allowed to do it.”

He didn’t mention the specific player, but a clue might be that he instantly said when we met up yet again for the week yesterday when he asked: “Did you have to wear that shirt?”

It was white with a Great White Shark logo on the left side.

There was another occasion when tension may have, and probably did, arise between Thomson and Graham. It was in 1972 at Kooyonga GC in Adelaide when they were both tied in the Open after 72, and in those days it was an 18-hole playoff the next day.

At the appointed time, they walked onto the first tee of the opening par 5 and Thomson placed his tee peg in the ground and hit his drive. A visibly bewildered, even annoyed, Graham promptly hooked his drive out-of-bounds – a double bogey 7 to Thomson’s birdie 4. Thomson won the playoff by four shots.

“In that playoff, Peter gave me a thorough beating. I was caught off guard. I was expecting a coin toss (for the honour) I didn’t expect he would pull rank and just tee off saying, ‘Let’s get this over with.’ That was disturbing to a young guy. I’ll never forget that,” Graham said.

Go back a few years into the 1960s when Graham was a 17-year-old at Melbourne’s Riversdale course where the club pro George Naismith, who changed Graham from a left-handed player to right-handed, organised for him to play a game with Thomson at his home club, the Victoria GC.

He takes up the story: “I arrived and Peter was at least an hour late or I was an hour early and I asked the attendant have you heard from Mr Thomson. He replied, ‘You’ll hear him coming when he enters the main gate.’

“There was a roar of a car, a red Aston Martin, came up and Peter stepped out and said, ‘Come on, let’s go play,’” Graham said today.

Thomson was great friends with the author Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond who always drove an Aston Martin, and Thomson still has a telegram in his well-kept scrapbook from Fleming congratulating him on one of his five Open wins.

“Peter Thomson is the Arnold Palmer of Australian golf so to speak. You see an 86-year-old man going to dinners, shaking hands, signing autographs. That’s a very unique commitment for somebody,” Graham said.

“To do all the travelling that he does is also special. And Arnold did the same thing even at his age. They don’t need the money, they don’t need recognition, they certainly don’t need the accolades or anything, but it’s the way they’re built. It’s their DNA.

“It’s the love of the game and the respect for the game.”

This week, David Graham has shown he, too, that same DNA.