Denied by Sandy Lyle's dramatic birdie from a fairway bunker on the final hole of the Masters in 1988, Calcavecchia had to wait only until Royal Troon the following year to become a major winner.
After coming close to not playing in his third Open Championship because his wife was expecting, he tied with Australians Greg Norman and Wayne Grady, and then won the event's first four-hole play-off.
Twenty years later, just down the coast at Turnberry, he was only a stroke behind at halfway and in 2012 at Royal Lytham and St Annes, aged 52, he had his first top-10 finish in a major for a decade.
Calcavecchia spent over 100 weeks in the world's top 10 and among his 13 PGA Tour victories was the 2001 Phoenix Open, where he posted a second-round 60.
His four Ryder Cup caps included a memorable if traumatic half from four up with four to play against Colin Montgomerie in the 1991 singles at Kiawah Island, while he partnered former U.S. Open champions Tom Kite and Curtis Strange to the 1989 Alfred Dunhill Cup title at St Andrews and was runner-up to Russ Cochran in the 2011 Senior British Open at Walton Heath.