The championships: the Open, the Masters, the Ryder Cup and the crowds who follow them

The Open: where it began

The Open Championship is the oldest golf tournament in the world. It was first played on 17 October 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club in Ayrshire, over three rounds of a twelve-hole links. Eight golfers took part, and Willie Park Sr. won by two shots from Old Tom Morris.

The prize was the Challenge Belt, of red leather with a silver buckle, given by the Earl of Eglinton. A year later the event opened to amateurs as well as professionals, and the name has stood ever since.

The belt did not last long. Young Tom Morris won three Opens in a row from 1868 to 1870, and the rules let him keep it. With no trophy to play for, there was no Open in 1871. On 11 September 1872 Prestwick, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and the R&A agreed to put £10 each towards a new silver trophy and to take turns as hosts.

That trophy, made by Mackay Cunningham & Company of Edinburgh, is officially the Golf Champion Trophy; everyone calls it the Claret Jug. Its winner is still named the Champion Golfer of the Year, a title as old as the Open itself.

The Open on the move

The championship outgrew its birthplace. Royal Troon first hosted in 1923, but crowds at Prestwick in 1925 were so heavy that the course was never used again, and Carnoustie took its place, staging its first Open in 1931. In 1951 the Open left England and Scotland for the first time, for Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland.

In the modern era the Old Course hosts about once every five years, more often than any other venue. The 150th Open, at St Andrews in 2022, drew 290,000 spectators, the largest crowd in its history. St Andrews hosts again in 2027, for the 31st time.

290,000 spectators came to St Andrews for the 150th Open in 2022.

The Masters: one course, one green jacket

The Masters is the only major played at the same course every year. It was founded by the amateur champion Bobby Jones and the investment banker Clifford Roberts, and first played in March 1934 as the Augusta National Invitation Tournament; Horton Smith won it.

Since 1949 the champion has been given a green jacket, and since 1952, when Ben Hogan began it, past champions have gathered for a Champions Dinner. From 1963, honoured golfers, usually past champions, have opened the first round with a ceremonial tee shot. The 11th, 12th and 13th holes are known as Amen Corner.

The Masters is also its own kind of crowd. Series badges for all four rounds are sold only to people on a patrons list; a waiting list opened in 1972 and closed in 1978, and those on the list may buy badges each year for life.

Phones and photography are not allowed on the course, as across the club. The gallery for the final two rounds in 1939 was put at 10,000. In practice rounds, spectators at the 16th famously call "Skip it!", urging players to skip a ball across the pond to the green.

The American majors

The U.S. Open began on 4 October 1895, on a nine-hole course at Newport Country Club in Rhode Island, and was won by Horace Rawlins, a 21-year-old Englishman. It has been 72 holes of stroke play since 1898, and the USGA stages it in mid-June, to finish on Father’s Day.

The PGA Championship followed in October 1916 at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, New York, after a luncheon hosted by the department-store owner Rodman Wanamaker led to the founding of the PGA of America. Jim Barnes beat Jock Hutchison by one hole in a field of 32. It was a match-play event at first and became stroke play later. Its trophy, the Wanamaker, stands nearly 75 centimetres tall and weighs 12 kilograms.

The Ryder Cup: golf as a team sport

The Ryder Cup takes its name from Samuel Ryder, the English businessman who gave the trophy, and was first played officially in 1927 at Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts. Players from continental Europe joined the side in 1979, when the team became Europe and the match took the form it keeps today: foursomes and four-balls over the first two days, then twelve singles on the last.

No other event in golf sounds like it. The 1991 match earned the name the War on the Shore, after lively home advertising and fierce cheering from the American crowds.

Sportsmanship belongs to the story too: in front of 8,000 people, Jack Nicklaus holed his own putt and then conceded the putt Tony Jacklin needed to tie the match. In 2027 the Ryder Cup reaches its hundredth anniversary at Adare Manor in County Limerick, the first time the contest has been held there.

The other cups

The Solheim Cup, named after Karsten Solheim, brings the leading professional women of Europe and the United States together every two years and was first played in 1990. The Walker Cup is the amateurs’ match, between the United States and Great Britain and Ireland. After an unofficial meeting at Royal Liverpool in 1921, official matches began in 1922. It is named after George Herbert Walker, president of the USGA in 1920 when the idea was born.