A Short History of the British Open

July 20, 2017 By 1 Comment
Photo Courtesy of Dan Perry

Photo Courtesy of Dan Perry

Scotland held the distinction of the golf capital of the world in the nineteenth century.  In the 1850s, St. Andrews clubmaker Allan Robertson held the honor as the country’s (and the world’s, for that matter) best golfer, according to www.theopen.com.  After his death in 1859, a debate ensued as to Robertson’s successor.  Two influential members of the Prestwick Golf Club, the Earl of Eglinton and Colonel James Fairlie, decided that a tournament should be held at Prestwick to determine the greatest golfer in the world.  Clubs and golfing societies in Blackheath, Perth, Edinburgh, Musselburgh, and St. Andrews received letters asking them to send their best golfers to play a three-round, one day tournament on the 12-hole Prestwick course on October 17, 1860.  The winner would receive the Challenge Belt, a red Moroccan leather belt that featured silver panels of golfing scenes.  However, the winner would not receive any money.  Eight golfers participated in the first Open Championship.  Willie Park, Sr. from Musselburgh beat Tom Morris, Sr. from Prestwick by two strokes.  The Open Championship was off and running.

The tournament remained at Prestwick from 1860-1870, with the winners receiving the Challenge Belt to hold until the tournament the following year.  Prize money became part of the Open beginning in 1863.  Open officials retired the Belt as the winner’s prize after Tom Morris’ son, Tom Morris, Jr., won it three years in a row, whereby a rule stipulated that Tom Jr. could keep the Belt as his own.  Without a trophy of some type, the tournament skipped 1871.  That same year Prestwick officials agreed to join the Royal and Ancient of St. Andrews and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers in Musselburgh in a three-site rotation to host the Open.  Prestwick held the Open in 1872 and the winner, Tom Morris, Jr., received a gold medal.   The first Claret Jug was presented to the winner of the 1873 Open, Tom Kidd.  However, Tom Morris, Jr. had his name engraved on the trophy (along with Kidd’s) as its first winner in 1872.  The Claret Jug has been awarded to the Open winner ever since.

During the 1890s, the Open became a four day, 72-hole event; the Royal St. George’s Golf Club in England hosted the tournament for the first time outside of Scotland; and because of the large number of participants, a cut after two rounds became a standard.  In 1920, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club assumed the responsibility for the staging and management of the Open.  The Open became an official PGA Tour event in 1995, meaning that any prize money won by a participant would be included in the official PGA money list (important for maintaining PGA Tour status and gaining exemptions into PGA-sponsored tournaments).

The Open rotates among ten links courses (generally treeless courses built along a coast that incorporate the natural uneven terrain of their locations).  These are the Old Course at St. Andrews; Carnoustie Golf  Links in Carnoustie, Scotland; Muirfield in Gullane, Scotland; the Ailsa Course at the Westin Turnberry Resort near Girvan, Scotland; Royal Troon Golf Club in Troon, Scotland; Royal St. George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England; Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England; Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s Golf Club in Lytham St. Annes, England; Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England and Royal Portrush Golf Club in Portrush, Northern Ireland.   Besides the unique terrain, these courses are all affected by the weather, which can change dramatically in a matter of hours.  More so than the other majors, the weather can destroy a player’s round.

Professionals have dominated the Opens, as only six amateurs have ever won one.  The last amateur to win the Open was Bobby Jones in 1930, the year he won the Grand Slam (U.S. and British Amateurs and the U.S. and British Opens). England’s Harry Vardon holds the record with six Open titles (1896, 1898, 1899, 1903, 1911 and 1914).   Those who won five include, England’s J. H. Taylor (1894, 1895, 1900, 1909 and 1913), James Braid from England (1901, 1905, 1906, 1908 and 1910), Australian  Peter W. Thomson (1954, 1955, 1956, 1958 and 1965), and American Tom Watson (1975, 1977, 1980, 1982, and 1983).  Scotland’s Tom Morris, Sr. won four (1861, 1862, 1864 and 1867) as did his son, Tom Morris, Jr. (1868, 1869, 1870 and 1872). Other notable winners are Jack Nicklaus (1966, 1970 and 1978) and Tiger Woods (2000, 2005 and 2006).  South Africa’s Gary Player holds the Open record with 46 appearances, including titles in 1968 and 1974.

The current Open field allows for 156 golfers chosen from various sources, including the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking; the top 30 in last season’s European Tour Race to Dubai and PGA Tour FedEx Cup; all previous Open Champions 60 years old or younger; winners of the other three majors within the last five years; the top 10 from the previous year’s Open; and the winners of the British Amateur and United States Amateur, as long as the winners are still amateurs. The Open winner receives about $1.8 million, and the tournament, since 1979, has been played during the week that contains the third Friday of July.

Inside Great Britain, the tournament is referred to as the Open or The Open Championship.  Everywhere else, it is referred to as the British Open.  Whatever the name, old Allan Robertson (hopefully, somewhere above us) must be proud of the tournament that was initiated to find the successor to his title as the greatest golfer in the world.

 

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James Braid

June 29, 2017 By Leave a Comment

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Born in Earlsferry, Fife, Scotland in 1870, James Braid became known as part of the Great Triumvirate, which included Harry Vardon and J.H. Taylor. These golfers are generally considered Great Britain’s best of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Braid won the British Open five times and became a well-known golf course designer upon his retirement from professional golf.

Braid began to play golf at an early age and entered his first tournament at eight. As he grew older he developed an interest in club making and at 23 took a job in London as a club maker.

In 1896, Braid played in his first tournament as a professional, but while he drove the ball a long distance, his putting failures kept him from winning. So Braid switched to an aluminum-headed putter in 1900—most golfers were using wooden-headed putters at that time. His accuracy improved as did his scoring. Braid won the first of his British Opens in 1901—his others were in 1905, 1906, 1908, and 1910. He finished second in 1897 and 1909. His 1906 victory marked the last successful European defense of the title until Padraig Harrington accomplished the feat in 2008.

Besides his Open championships, Braid won the British PGA Match Play Championship in 1903, 1905, 1907, and 1911, and the 1910 French Open.  He won 17 professional tournaments in his career.

By 1912, Braid began to tire of professional tournaments and took a job as the club professional at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey, England, where he remained until his death. He also began a new passion—designing golf courses. Braid’s claim to fame was his use of the dogleg in many of his designs. Although such holes existed in some form centuries before Braid, he made them famous by including them in the layout of his courses. Braid designed over 200 courses in Great Britain, but his fear of flying and propensity for sea sickness kept him from overseas designs. Some of his more famous courses include “King’s Course” and “Queen’s Course” at Gleneagles Golf Club in Scotland, Stranraer Golf Club in Scotland, and Wrexham Golf Club in Wales. He also re-designed Carnoustie Golf Links and Royal Troon Golf Club, two of the current British Open venues, and Prestwick Golf Club, a former British Open site.

Braid, a founding member of the British Professional Golfers’ Association in 1901, became a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1976. He died in 1950. Cheers to one of the Great Triumvirates!

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J. H. Taylor

June 23, 2017 By 2 Comments

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A member of the Great Triumvirate (along with Harry Vardon and James Braid), John Henry (J. H.) Taylor graced the earth in Devon, England in 1871. He won close to 20 professional tournaments, served as a Ryder Cup captain, and designed numerous golf courses in England.

Taylor became an orphan as a boy and started work as a caddie and laborer at Royal North Devon Golf Club in 1882.  He worked his way into a greenskeeper position and learned about course layout and maintenance.

At the age of 19, Taylor became a professional golfer and a year later won his first professional tournament, the Challenge Match Play in England. Taylor won the first of his five British Open Championships in 1894 and followed that with Open victories in 1895, 1900, 1909, and 1913. His early Open triumphs enticed the Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club to name Taylor its golf professional, a job he held until his retirement in 1946.

Taylor finished second in the British Open six times and in the 1900 United States Open, an event he participated in twice. Among his professional victories, Taylor won two British PGA Match Play Championships, a French Open, and a German Open.

In 1901, Taylor co-founded and became the first chairman of the British Professional Golfers’ Association. This was the first professional golf association in the world. The United States Professional Golfers’ Association did not form until 1916.

Another of Taylor’s claims to fame happened in 1933 as he captained the British team to a victory over the United States in the Ryder Cup. He remains the only captain from either side never to have played in the Ryder Cup.

Throughout his golf career and retirement in the twentieth century, Taylor designed golf courses in England. Some of them include Frilford Heath’s Red Course, Hainault Golf Club’s Upper Course and Lower Course, Axe Cliff Golf Club in Devon, Batchwood Hall Golf Club in St. Alban’s, and Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport. Taylor became president of Royal Birkdale in 1957, a course still in the British Open Championship rotation for the men and the women.

Noting Taylor’s keen accuracy and ability to play in adverse weather conditions, the World Golf Hall of Fame inducted him into its facility in 1975. Taylor passed away in Devon in 1963. Cheers to another of the Great Triumvirate!

 

 

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Harry Vardon: One of Golf’s Greatest

June 9, 2017 By Leave a Comment

 

 

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James Braid, J.H. Taylor, and Harry Vardon formed the Great Triumvirate that ruled the golf world in the mid-1890s through the mid-1910s. Arguably, Vardon was the best of the three. He is the only person to ever win six British Opens. Also among his 62 professional victories was the 1900 United States Open. The World Golf Hall of Fame (inducted Vardon in the original class of 1974) calls Vardon “golf’s first superstar.”

Born in Grouville, Jersey in 1870, Vardon learned the game as a caddie during his teen years and later took a job as a greenkeeper at Studley Royal Golf Club in Ripon, Yorks in 1890.   A year later, Vardon took the job as club professional at Bury Golf Club, a position he held for five years before taking the same position at Ganton Golf Club in Yorkshire.

Vardon became the first professional to wear knickerbockers, famously worn by Payne Stewart in more recent times. Sporting his unusual attire, Vardon won the first of his six British Opens in 1896. He would win the Open again in 1898, 1899, 1903, 1911, and 1914. He finished second four times. Vardon played in three United States Opens, winning in 1900 and finishing second in 1913 and 1920. At the 1913 US Open, 20-year old American amateur Francis Ouimet stunned the golf world by defeating Vardon in an 18-hole playoff. Ouimet’s upset is generally credited as the reason behind the game’s increased popularity in the United States.

Besides his sartorial splendor, Vardon is known for his club grip. The Vardon grip is the one most used by professional golfers today. With this grip, the golfer places the little finger of the upper hand between the index and middle finger of the lower hand while gripping the club. This grip, upright stance, and relaxed swing helped Vardon hit his shots higher and longer than his contemporaries. According to the World Golf Hall of Fame, Vardon had “a swing that repeated monotonously.” Both the PGA Tour of America and the European Tour award trophies named for Vardon—the PGA of America awards the Vardon Trophy to the player with the lowest adjusted scoring average for the year and the Harry Vardon Trophy now goes to the winner of the European Tour’s Race to Dubai, similar to the FedEx Cup in the United States.

In 1903, Vardon was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was in and out of medical facilities battling the disease until 1910. Afterwards, his hands shook while putting. Even though he won two British Opens after contracting the disease, golf historians wonder how many more tournaments Vardon could have won if not for tuberculosis.

In his later years, Vardon designed golf courses, coached golf and wrote instructional books. He passed away in 1937 after a bout with either pleurisy or lung cancer, and in 2000, Golf Digest ranked Vardon the 13th best golfer of all time. Cheers to one of the greats, Harry Vardon!

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