A Short History of the British Open

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.

 

Willie Anderson

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Born in North Berwick, Scotland in 1879, Willie Anderson moved to the United States at the age of 16.  He was the first golfer to win four United States Opens—1901, 1903, 1904, and 1905.  He remains the only man to win three consecutive U. S. Open titles, and only Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus can equal his four U. S. Open championships.

Anderson began to develop his golf knowledge and skills at an early age, serving as a licensed caddie at 11 while in Scotland.  While in his teens, he also served as an apprentice club maker. Once in America, Anderson obtained a job as the golf professional at Misquamicut Golf Club in Rhode Island.   He worked at 10 different clubs in 14 years.

At 20 years of age, Anderson won his first professional tournament, the Southern California Open, but the U. S. Open became Anderson’s playground.  He played in the U. S. Open fourteen times from 1897-1910.  Besides winning four times, he finished in the Top 5 in 11 of the tournaments. He used the gutta percha ball to win the title in 1901 but won the other three with the newly invented Haskell rubber-cored ball. He still owns the honor of the only man to win U. S. Opens with the two different balls, one that he certainly will own in perpetuity.

Anderson also dominated the second-largest professional golf tournament in the United States at the time, the Western Open—winning in 1902, 1904, 1908, and 1909.  In the 1902 contest, Anderson became the first professional golfer in United States history to break a score of 300 in a 72-hole tournament.

His peers marveled at Anderson’s club accuracy and concentration under pressure.  These skills and his professional victories, particularly those in the United States Open, served as the basis for his election into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1975.

Anderson died from epilepsy at the age of 31. Cheers to one of golf’s early greats!

The U. S. Open: America’s National Golf Championship

Dustin Johnson Photo Courtesy of Keith Allison

Theodore Havemeyer returned to his summer home in Newport, Rhode Island in 1889, after playing golf in southern France, determined to play the game again somewhere closer to home.  Havemeyer, and others like him, had a limited number of options for a round of golf in the Newport area or in the United States at that time.  While the game of golf had sprung deep roots in Scotland and England, it had inspired limited interest in the United States.  Those who played generally came from wealthy backgrounds and belonged to the smattering of private golf clubs around the country.  The undeterred Havemeyer persuaded some of the area’s upper crust–John Jacob Astor IV, Perry Belmont, and Cornelius Vanderbilt II–to buy a 140-acre farm property in 1893 with the intent to establish a golf club.  That club would become the Newport Country Club.  Not satisfied with a venue for his golfing buddies, Havemeyer wanted to host national championships at his new course.  In 1894, he held a tournament for some of the best amateurs in the United States at the new club.  That tournament would be one of two National Amateur Championships that year, the other held at the Chicago Golf Club.

Hoping for a single amateur championship every year, Havemeyer prompted a meeting in December at New York City’s Calumet Club with representatives of four other golf clubs:  St. Andrews Golf Club in Yonkers, New York; Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island; The Country Club of Brookline, Massachusetts; and the Chicago Golf Club.  The representatives agreed that the Newport Country Club would host the first U. S. Amateur Championship, confined strictly to amateurs, and the first U. S. Open Championship, for professionals and amateurs, in 1895.  In addition, the representatives formed the Amateur Golf Association to administer the national amateur championship and the Rules of Golf for the United States.   Soon afterwards the name changed to the United States Golf Association (USGA) to order to include both amateurs and professionals, and Havemeyer became the USGA’s first president.  The U. S. Amateur trophy is named in his honor.

The U. S. Open started as almost an afterthought.  It took place the day after the U. S. Amateur at the Newport Golf Club in 1895.  Both tournaments were originally scheduled for September but were pushed back to October so as not to interfere with the America’s Cup yacht races, a more established Newport competition.  The first U. S. Open unfolded over a nine-hole course at the Club in a single day. Ten professionals and one amateur competed in the 36-hole competition for an overall purse of $335 and a $50 gold medal.  Englishman Horace Rawlins won the first tournament and the grand sum of $150, plus the gold medal.  By contrast, 2016 winner Dustin Johnson took home $1.8 million.

Because Rawlins was an assistant golf pro at the Newport Golf Club, the Club received the USGA-sponsored Open Championship Cup trophy.   Winners of the U. S. Open today take possession of the trophy until the next Open when it must be returned to USGA officials.

For a decade and a half British professionals won the U. S. Open Championship, but in 1911 John J. McDermott became the first American winner.  McDermott accomplished the feat again the next year before American amateur Francis Ouimet pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports history.  At the Country Club of Brookline in 1913, Ouimet defeated in a playoff arguably the world’s best professional golfers of the day–Britain’s Harry Vardon and Ted Ray.  Considered one of the great upsets in sports history, Ouimet’s victory spurred an interest in golf in the United States that eventually would lead to the obsession that it is today.  After Ouimet’s triumph, the sport moved from that of the ultra-rich to a game shared by people from many different socio-economic levels.  According to USGA historian Michael Trostel, Ouimet’s conquest prompted the addition of about two million Americans to the list of golf participants over the next decade.  Also, more golf courses, both public and private, emerged in the United States to meet the demand.

The prestige of the U. S. Open grew rapidly and players from around the world competed for one of its coveted spots.   The USGA began sectional qualifying in 1924 to meet the demand.    The tournament ‘s and the sport’s popularity skyrocketed again in the 1920s as amateur Bobby Jones won three U. S. Open titles and then a fourth in 1930 on his way to winning the Grand Slam–U. S. Open, British Open, U. S. Amateur and British Amateur.  Only five amateurs have ever won the U. S. Open:  Jones, Ouimet, Jerome D. Travers (1915), Charles Evans, Jr. ( 1916), and John Goodman (1933).

The design of the U. S. Open courses over time has allowed only the best to win the tournament, and amateurs now have very little chance.  The courses today generally are very long with  narrow fairways and high primary rough around those fairways.  They also generally include undulating greens.  An example of such greens can be found at Pinehurst No. 2, of which NBC analyst Johnny Miller compares trying to land a shot on the greens to “trying to hit a ball on top of a VW Beetle.”  The vast majority of U. S. Open courses play at par 70.  All of these elements normally lead to a winning score somewhere close to par.  Because of this the U. S. Open has the reputation as the most difficult of the four majors–U. S. Open, British Open, the Masters, and PGA Championship–to play.

The U. S. Open format has changed several times since the inaugural tournament in 1895.  In 1896, the championship became a 72-hole contest with 36 holes played each day for two successive days.  The format changed again in 1926 with participants playing 18 holes for two successive days, then 36 holes the next day.  The current format took hold in 1965 as the contestants began to play 18 holes over four successive days.

Ties after 72 holes are decided by the players involved playing an additional 18 holes the next day.  If after 18 holes a champion has not been crowned then sudden death ensues. The first player to win a hole outright is declared the winner.  The U. S. Open is the only major that uses this playoff format.

While the U. S. Open’s four-day format provided more exposure for the tournament, television helped launch it to new levels of popularity beginning with ABC’s live coverage of the final two rounds in 1977, then ESPN’s live coverage of the first two rounds in 1982.  NBC became the first network to provide live television coverage of all four rounds.  Currently, Fox Sports televises the four-day spectacle.

Four men who have won the U. S. Open four times:  Willie Anderson (1901, 1903, 1904, and 1905), Bobby Jones (1923, 1926, 1929, and 1930), Ben Hogan (1948, 1950, 1951, and 1953), and Jack Nicklaus (1962, 1967, 1972, and 1980).  The United States has produced 82 U. S. Open champions with the rest of the 34 winners divided among England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and Argentina.

Fifty-one private and public courses have hosted the 116 U. S. Opens—Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania has hosted 9; Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, New Jersey boasts 7; Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, Michigan can claim 6; while Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York; Merion Golf Club in Haverford Township, Pennsylvania; The Olympic Club in San Francisco, California; and Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California have all hosted 5 U. S. Opens.  The 117th edition will be played at Erin Hills, in Erin, Wisconsin, a public course.

Today, more than 9,000 golfers participate in sectional qualifiers across the world hoping to claim one of the available spots in the 156 player field.  Qualifiers are open to men and women, both professional and amateurs.  However, an amateur must have a USGA Handicap Index no higher than 1.4 to participate in one of the sectionals.

After its meager beginnings in Newport in 1895 as a secondary sporting event, the U. S. Open now plays on some of the most majestic courses in America and holds the attention of the sporting world for four days in June every year.  Theodore Havemeyer would certainly be amazed at how the acorn he planted over 100 years ago has grown into the mighty oak that it is today.

 

The Players Championship and TPC Sawgrass

 

 

Courtesy of Craig ONeal

Courtesy of Craig O’Neal

Professional golf split into two organizations in 1968: the PGA of America and the PGA TOUR.  Founded in 1916, the PGA of America consists of local club and teaching professionals at golf courses throughout the country.  This group focuses on growing the game of golf and working closely with amateurs.  Also, this organization oversees the PGA Championship each year.  The PGA TOUR operates as the organization for professionals who play in tournaments. It hosts almost 50 events each year and consists of the PGA Tour, the Champions Tour, and the Web.com Tour.  The PGA TOUR does not host one of the professional Majors:  the Masters, the British Open, the United States Open or the PGA Championship. The fact that the PGA TOUR hosted no signature event led to then-PGA TOUR commissioner Deane Beman’s brainchild:  the Tournament Players Championship.

Beman sought to have a championship for the PGA TOUR, much like the PGA Championship for the PGA.  Only recently split from the PGA of America, the PGA TOUR, according to Beman, needed to establish important events that would lure the television networks and the money they could provide.  The Tournament Players Championship became the first of such events.  Later, the World Series of Golf (currently, the WGC-Mexico in Mexico City, the Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, TX, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, OH, and the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, China), Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament and Arnold Palmer’s Invitational at Bay Hill Club and Lodge became PGA Tour mainstays.  All of these tournaments helped establish credibility for the PGA TOUR and attract much needed television revenue.

The Tournament Players Championship (TPC) teed off in 1974 at the Atlanta Country Club.  Jack Nicklaus won the inaugural tournament in early September and would win three out of the first five TPCs.  The event moved to the Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas for 1975, then in 1976 to Inverrary Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  The event moved to Sawgrass Country Club’s Oceanside Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for a mid-March date in 1977 and remained there until 1982 when the Stadium Course at TPC at Sawgrass opened.

Before the construction of the Stadium Course, Beman envisioned a special and unique site for the Players Championship.  He believed the players of the PGA TOUR should own the event and the host site.  Beman sold his idea to landowners Jerome and Paul Fletcher, who liked it so much that they offered to sell 415 acres of wooded wetlands and swamp to the PGA TOUR for $1.  This land served as the basis for the Pete Dye-designed Stadium Course.

Beman told Dye that he wanted a course that would favor no specific player or style of play.  The course had to be balanced; must contain a selection of short, medium and long holes within the categories of par-3s, par-4s and par-5s; and had to have right and left doglegs.  Also, the course must not have two consecutive holes played in the same direction so that wind direction would have a more balanced influence on the players.

Because the site was to be built on wetlands and amidst heavy woods, Dye created lakes for strategic play of a hole and for fill necessary to create contours of play and “stadium” mounding, according to TPC.com.  Spectator viewing became an integral part of Dye’s design. Strategic viewing areas lined the 1st and 10th tees and the 9th, 16th, 17th and 18th greens.  These mounds allowed thousands of spectators to have unobstructed views of play.

The famous 17th island hole came about by accident.  Dye originally designed the green near a small pond. However, constructors continually dug out valuable sand around the pond until the green was surrounded by water, and arguably the most famous par-3 hole in golf emerged.

The event changed its name to the Players Championship in 1988.  The event and TPC Sawgrass are indeed owned by the players and the tournament has the richest purse of any tournament on the PGA TOUR, $10 million in 2015.  The field consists of 144 players chosen by various criteria, including rankings, PGA TOUR victories and Majors titles.  Players can also receive invitations from the Players Championship Committee.  Winners of the Players Championship receive exemptions of five years on the PGA TOUR, three-year exemptions for the Masters and British Open, and an exemption for the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship later that year.

Beginning in 2007, the Players Championship moved from its March date to its current May date in a restructuring that accommodated the new FedEx Cup, which concludes with the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta in September.  Players now have a significant event for six consecutive months beginning in April (The Masters in April, The Players Championship in May, the U.S. Open in June, the British Open in July, the PGA Championship in August, and the Tour Championship in September).

The Players Championship has become known as golf’s fifth major because of its lucrative purse, exemptions and FedEx Cup points awarded (the same as the four Majors). TPC Sawgrass offers a challenging, yet fair, golfing experience for players of all levels, professional and amateur, while the course contains one of the most famous par -3s in golf, the 17th island hole.  It may have taken a few decades, but Beman and the PGA TOUR found their signature event.

 

 

A Look at the Ryder Cup

 Courtesy of Dan Perry

Courtesy of Dan Perry

Samuel Ryder made his money selling seeds in packets in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  By 1908 Ryder began to experience health problems and at the behest of a local church minister started to play golf for exercise. He joined the Verulam Golf Club in St. Alban’s near London and quickly fell in love with the game.  Ryder hired Abe Mitchell, a professional golfer, to coach him.  Over a decade later, in 1921, a group of 12 American golfers came to the Gleneagles Golf Club in Scotland hoping to showcase their skills in order to compete in the British Open a couple of weeks later.  Ten Americans actually competed against a team of 10 British golfers, including Mitchell, on June 6.  The two sides competed in foursomes in the morning and singles in the afternoon.  The British team scored a resounding 9-3-3 victory.

The Walker Cup, a match play event featuring amateur American golfers against amateur British golfers, began the next year.  Ryder believed a similar event should take place between professionals and offered to present a special trophy to the winning side.  In 1926, another group of American golfers agreed to compete against a group of British golfers at the Wentworth Club in England as a tune up for the British Open. Again 10 golfers competed on each side.  The event consisted of five foursomes on the first day and ten singles on the second day.  As in 1921, the British scored a lopsided victory, this time by a score of 13-1-1. Mitchell again played for the British.  Some historians believe this outing was meant to be the first Ryder cup match and that Ryder would present a trophy to the winning team.  However, according to Golf Illustrated, it was unclear how many Americans would be able to compete in the contest because of a national strike in Britain, so Ryder decided to present a trophy the following year.

The first official Ryder Cup match took place at the Worcester Country Club in Worcester, Massachusetts from June 3-4.  A formalized Deed of Trust detailed the rules of the match well before the contest and the respective PGA organizations selected the teams. Players were not to be paid for their participation in the event. Each team carried nine golfers.  The format consisted of four foursomes playing alternate shot on the first day and eight singles matches the second day.  Led by team captain Walter Hagen, the American team won 9.5-2.5.  According to www.europeantour.com, Ryder paid 250 pounds for the construction of a 19 inch solid gold cup with a golfer on the top resembling his longtime coach, Abe Mitchell.  Even though Ryder could not make the match because of health reasons, the Cup was still presented to the American team.  Officials from both sides agreed that future matches would be held every other year because of the impracticality of trying to host one every year.  So the Ryder Cup was born.

The event would change in player inclusion and format over time.  For the first 22 Ryder Cups, the United States competed against Great Britain (including Ireland).  The United States won 18 of those, Great Britain won three and the 1969 match ended in a draw.  No matches were played in 1939, 1941, 1943 and 1945 because of World War II.  At the suggestion of Jack Nicklaus, the Great Britain team expanded its membership to all of Europe beginning with the 1979 match in an effort to make the matches more competitive.  The suggestion clearly has worked for the European team as they sport a 10-7-1 record since 1979.  The current overall record has the United States with 25 wins, Great Britain/Europe with 13, and two matches that ended in a draw.  The event switched to even years after the 2001 match was cancelled because of the 9/11 tragedy.  The Ryder Cup started anew the following year.

The process for selecting team members has changed over the years.  In the early matches the players were selected by their respective PGA organizations.  Later, team members earned their way onto the team based on performance standards. From 1929 through 1967 each team consisted of 10 players.  Beginning in 1969, each roster increased to 12 players.  From 1989 through 2014, nine team members on both sides earned their membership based on performance standards while the team captains picked three additional players.  For the 2016 Ryder Cup, the European team adhered to the three captain’s picks while the United States team decided to name four captain’s picks to go along with eight players who earned their way onto the team.

The format of the Ryder Cup has also changed over the years. From its inception through 1959, the Ryder Cup took place over two days, four 36-hole foursomes the first day followed by eight 36-hole singles matches the second day.  For the 1961 match, the format changed to four 18-hole foursomes in the morning and afternoon of day one while eight 18-hole singles matches took place in the morning and afternoon on day two.  From 1963 to 1971 the event spread to three days.  The first day witnessed four foursomes in the morning and the afternoon, the second day consisted of four four-balls in the morning and afternoon, and the third day eight singles matches took place in the morning and the afternoon.  The format changed some during the next three matches but remained contested over three days.  Beginning with the first European team in 1979 the format morphed into what it is today.  For the first two days eight foursomes/four-ball matches are played and 12 singles matches are played on day three. A total of 28 matches are played over the three days of competition under the current format.  The winning team must secure 14.5 points.  In the event of a 14-14 tie the defending champion keeps the Cup.  Team members on both sides still receive no pay for Ryder Cup participation.

From the dream of a man enthralled with the game of golf to the passionate event that it is today, the Ryder Cup has indeed evolved into one of the must-see spectacles in the world of sports.  Cheers to the vision of Samuel Ryder!

 

 

The Masters Tournament at Augusta National

For a golf fan, the Masters tournament at Augusta National is the ultimate venue for golf. Legendary Atlanta golfer Bobby Jones designed the course and Horton Smith of Missouri won the first tournament in 1934. Americans won the tournament from 1934 through 1960 (no tournament 1943-45) before Gary Player of South Africa won the first of his three titles in 1961.

Interestingly, very few golfers with Georgia ties have won the Masters. Savannah-born Claude Harmon won in 1948 while Tommy Aaron from Gainesville put on the green jacket in 1973. Larry Mize from Augusta and Georgia Tech took home the title in 1987. St. Simons resident Zach Johnson won in 2007 before UGA golfer Bubba Watson earned his green jacket in 2012.

Jack Nicklaus has won the most titles with six while Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods have won four apiece.

For those of us who won’t be at Augusta National this weekend, grab a pimento-cheese sandwich and some sweet tea, plop yourself in front of the tellie, and enjoy a bit of heaven as the world’s best golfers vie for the title of Masters champion!
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Photo by Pocketwiley