The Open Championship
There is a moment that belongs exclusively to The Open Championship. It arrives somewhere in the middle of the week, usually on the Friday afternoon when the wind has been building since morning and the leaderboard has become a study in survival. Players who were near the top at lunch have dropped three or four shots in an hour. Others, seemingly out of the tournament at the morning tee time, have ridden the conditions to a position no one anticipated. Nothing else in golf creates this atmosphere because nothing else in golf is played on the same terrain under the same meteorological conditions with the same historical weight pressing on every decision.
The Origin
The Open Championship is the oldest of golf's four majors, first played at Prestwick Golf Club in Ayrshire, Scotland, on 17 October 1860. Eight professional golfers competed over three rounds of the twelve-hole course. Willie Park Sr of Musselburgh won with a score of 174. Old Tom Morris, the dominant figure in nineteenth-century golf, won four Opens between 1861 and 1867; his son Young Tom Morris won four consecutive Opens between 1868 and 1872, retiring the original Championship Belt and prompting the introduction of the Claret Jug as a permanent trophy in 1873.
The R&A has organised The Open Championship since its early years, initially rotating between Prestwick, St Andrews, and Musselburgh before the current multi-venue rota was established. The championship has been played at courses in England since 1894, when Royal St George's in Sandwich, Kent, hosted it for the first time. It has also been played in Northern Ireland since 1951, when Royal Portrush hosted it for the first time. The most recent Return to Portrush, in 2019, was won by Shane Lowry in conditions of theatrical difficulty.
The Rota
The modern Open rota comprises nine courses, each on the links of the British Isles. St Andrews Old Course in Fife is the most frequent host and the most historically significant venue. Carnoustie in Angus, sometimes called 'Car-nasty' for the severity with which it can play, hosted the 1999 Open in which Jean Van de Velde stood on the 18th tee needing a double bogey to win the Claret Jug and made a triple. Royal Birkdale in Lancashire has hosted ten Opens and produced Open champions from Arnold Palmer (1961) to Jordan Spieth (2017). Royal Troon in Ayrshire features the Postage Stamp, the 8th hole, a 123-yard par three with a green approximately the size of a small dinner table, surrounded by deep pot bunkers.
Royal Liverpool at Hoylake staged the 2006 Open in which Tiger Woods carried a fairway wood off nearly every tee and won with a final round that relied entirely on course management. Royal St George's, the only Open venue in the south of England, has hosted fifteen Opens with a course that plays across the undulating duneland of the Kentish coast, the 4th hole featuring an elevated tee from which the drive must carry a vast hollow. Muirfield in East Lothian, home of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, has hosted sixteen Opens; its routing, a clockwise outer loop and anticlockwise inner loop that ensures the wind comes from a different direction on virtually every hole, is considered architecturally ideal. Royal Portrush in County Antrim is the only venue outside Britain and the first non-mainland venue to be included in the rota.
Turnberry on the Ayrshire coast, now operating as Trump Turnberry, has not been on the active Open rota since 2009, though discussions about its return remain ongoing. Its Ailsa Course, with the lighthouse view from the 9th tee and the sea-surrounded closing stretch, is the most photographed stretch of links land in Scotland.
Playing Conditions
The Open is the only major played exclusively on links courses, and links golf operates under conditions that have no parallel in parkland or desert golf. The turf is firm and fast, which means approach shots land short and run onto greens that cannot reliably be held from distance. The wind — coastal, changeable, occasionally ferocious — is both obstacle and instrument; players who work the ball with the wind, flighting the ball lower and allowing it to run, gain an advantage over those who try to fly every shot. The rough at The Open is fescue and gorse rather than the manicured bermuda rough of the US Open, which means an errant drive finds an unpredictable lie rather than a controllable one.
Scoring at The Open varies more dramatically than at any other major because the weather can change by ten shots in an afternoon draw. The low scores at Carnoustie in 2018, when Francesco Molinari won at eight under, look nothing like the Turnberry scores of 1977, when Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus were exchanging 65s in what became known as the Duel in the Sun. The Open plays differently every year, which is part of its authority.
The Claret Jug
The Championship Trophy, universally known as the Claret Jug, is engraved with the name of every Open champion since 1872. The original jug is kept by the R&A; the champion receives a replica. The ritual of handing over the trophy is conducted on the 18th green immediately after the final putt, with the champion's name announced before the engraving is confirmed — a tradition that has occasionally created awkward pauses when a playoff looms.
Tom Watson won the Claret Jug five times, between 1975 and 1983, across five different venues. Jack Nicklaus won it three times, Peter Thomson five times. Harry Vardon holds the record with six Opens, all won between 1896 and 1914. Among active players, Rory McIlroy won in 2014 at Royal Liverpool; Jordan Spieth won in 2017 at Royal Birkdale; Shane Lowry in 2019; Collin Morikawa in 2021 at Royal St George's; Cameron Smith in 2022 at St Andrews with a final-round 64.
Attending and Following
The Open draws spectators from across the world, and the experience of walking a links course with forty thousand other fans — galleries that follow play rather than sitting in fixed stands — is unlike any other in sport. Ticket availability varies by venue; St Andrews Open years tend to sell out furthest in advance. The walk from the 1st tee to the 18th green, with the wind and the fescue and the town visible throughout, connects the spectator to golf's deepest history.
For those planning a trip to any of the Open venues, or simply looking to experience links golf on the courses that have shaped the game's character, Open the map shows the full range of links layouts available to visitors across the British Isles and beyond.