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History of The British Open

The British Open championship is the oldest of the four major golf championships. It was first held in 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club, and attracted a strictly professional field of eight players. Played over three rounds of the twelve-hole course in one day, the championship was won by Willie Park Senior with a score of 174. The 2005 British Open event was won by Tiger Woods, who played four rounds of the 18-hole St Andrews course over four days, watched by millions of people around the world.

Over its 145-year history, The British Open has grown into one of the four major golfing events in the sporting calendar, alongside The US Masters, The US Open and The US PGA Championship.

Here are some of the key events in the history of the British Open:

1860: Willie Park Senior beat the favourite Old Tom Morris by two strokes and was awarded the Champion's belt and the first British Open championship.

1861: This was a key year in the history of The British Open Championship as it was opened to amateurs as well as professionals as Prestwick Golf Club declared that The Open would be “open to the whole world!”

1863: A prize fund of £10 was introduced. This was shared by the second, third and fourth placed professionals, with the winner still only receiving the Champion's belt to mark his victory.

1864: Old Tom Morris won the British Open and received the first Champion's cash prize of £6.

1870: The Champion's belt was replaced by the now famous ‘Claret Jug' trophy, after Tom Morris Junior was allowed to keep the belt, because he had won the competition for three consecutive years.

1892: The competition was lengthened to seventy-two holes (four rounds of an eighteen hole course, played over two days). The prize fund reached £100.

1898: The Cut was introduced to thin out the number of players after the first two rounds of the event.

1920: Administration of The British Open was wholly taken over by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews.

1922: Walter Hagen became the first American to win the British Open Championship.

1930: Bobby Jones won for the third time. This was the last British Open to be won by an amateur.

1961: Arnold Palmer took the first of two consecutive titles. Whilst he was not the first American player in the history of the British Open to have won, this is generally seen as the start of American players taking the championship seriously, making it a major event on their playing schedules.

1966: Jack Nicklaus became the British Open champion on the first of three occasions (the others coming in 1970 and 1978). Nicklaus's statistics at this event are extremely impressive, having finished second seven times and finishing in the top five a record fifteen times.

1977: Tom Watson's duel with Jack Nicklaus went down to the very last shot at Turnberry. Watson had drawn level with Nicklaus at 15^th and had moved into the lead by the 17^th. At the last hole, Watson drove straight down the middle of the fairway, but Nicklaus landed in the rough. Watson's second shot put him on the green, a few feet from the flag with victory easily in sight.

However, to the crowd's amazement, Nicklaus cleared the rough and finished with the ball on the edge of the green and then sunk a forty foot putt. Fortunately for Watson, the nerves held steady as he holed his shot to claim the British Open title.

1995: The British Open officially became part of the PGA Tour for the first time.

2002: All British Open wins before 1995 were classified as PGA Tour wins. John Daly's win that year hailed a new era of American dominance with Tiger Woods as the most prominent American golfer in the event, winning in 2000 and 2005.

2004: The prize fund for the 2004 British Open Championship event reached £270,000.

2005: Tiger Woods won for the second time at St Andrews and Jack Nicklaus played his final British Open championship.

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