History

By far the oldest major golf tournament, the British Open was inaugurated on Oct. 17, 1860, at the Prestwick Golf Club in Ayrshire, Scotland, to determine "the champion golfer of the world."

Eight professional golfers entered the tournament, which consisted of three rounds over Prestwick's 12-hole layout in a single day. Willie Park won with a score of 174 for the 36 holes.

Park didn't get any money for his win. The only prize was the Championship Challenge Belt, donated by the Earl of Eglinton. Prize money wasn't added to the lure until 1863.

When Tom Morris Jr. won the tournament for the third straight year in 1870, he earned permanent possession of the belt, and the Open wasn't held in 1871. However, it resumed in 1872 with a new trophy, the Championship Challenge Cup.

The event was expanded from 36 to 72 holes in 1892, and a 36-hole qualifying round was added in 1927. From then through 1962, every entrant had to play in the qualifying round. Since 1963, though, a number of golfers have been exempt from qualifying.

Prestwick hosted the tournament through 1872. For the next 18 years, the Open rotated among three Scottish courses, Prestwick, St. Andrew's, and Musselburgh. Muirfield, also in Scotland, first hosted the tournament in 1892, and it moved to English soil for the first time in 1894, when it was held at Sandwich.

Similarly, Scots golfers dominated the championship through its early years. In 1890, John Ball Jr. became the first Englishman and the first amateur, to win it. The first American golfer to win the British Open was Jock Hutchison, in 1921, but Hutchison was a native of St. Andrew's, Scotland, who had come to the United States as a teen-ager. The following year, Walter Hagen became the first U. S. native to win the title.

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