On September 26th 1860 the first Open Golf Championship held at Prestwick.
There are four major golf tournaments in the world, the Masters Tournament, the U.S. Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship Did you notice the third one, THE OPEN, you might hear it being called the British Open but it is just The Open, the oldest of the four.
The first one was contested by eight entrants and the championship was won by Willie Park Snr of Musselburgh. It was played three rounds of Prestwick’s 12-hole course for which he was presented with the Challenge Belt, a silver-buckled leather belt that each champion was to keep until the following Open.
The tournament was opened to amateurs in 1861. In 1863 a purse of £10—which was to be shared among the professionals who finished in second, third, and fourth place—was introduced, and a first-place cash prize of £6 was added in 1864.
In 1870 Tom Morris, Jr., won the Open for the third consecutive time and was thus allowed to keep the Challenge Belt permanently. As there was no award to present to the winner, the Open was not held again until 1872, when it was determined that the winning golfer would receive the Golf Champion Trophy, now commonly known as the Claret Jug. In 1892 the Open became a 72-hole event (four rounds of 18 holes), and in 1898 a cut (reduction of the field) was introduced after the first two rounds of play.
The Open has always been dominated by professionals, with only six victories by amateurs, all before 1930. The last of those was Bobby Jones’s third Open, which was part of his celebrated Grand Slam (four major tournament victories in one calendar year).
The popularization of golf in the mid-20th century produced a string of noteworthy Open champions, including England’s Sir Henry Cotton (winner in 1934, 1937, and 1948), South Africa’s Bobby Locke (1949–50, 1952, 1957), Australia’s Peter W. Thomson (1954–56, 1958, 1965), and the United States’ Arnold Palmer (1961–62) and Tom Watson (1975, 1977, 1980, 1982–83). Watson’s final win in 1983 ended an era of U.S. domination, during which American golfers won 12 times in 14 years. For the next 11 years there was only one American winner, with the Claret Jug going to Spain’s Seve Ballesteros, Australia’s Greg Norman, Scotland's Sandy Lyle and England’s Nick Faldo, among others.
There has been 24 Scottish winners of the tournament, the last being Paul Lawrie at Carnoustie in 1999. The pic shows Willie Park Sr wearing the championship belt, and the Claret Jug at Prestwick.
