THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

The Open Championship is the oldest of golf’s four major championships: four days of stroke play in mid-July, Thursday to Sunday, on a seaside links in Scotland, England or Northern Ireland chosen in turn from a rota of ten. Four practice days come before it. The R&A runs it, and the winner is announced, as every winner has been since 1860, as the Champion Golfer of the Year.

The champion is handed the Claret Jug and keeps it for a year. The original has not left the R&A’s clubhouse at St Andrews since 1928.

Prestwick

Allan Robertson of St Andrews was held to be the best golfer of his day, and when he died in 1859 James Ogilvie Fairlie of Prestwick set up a competition to decide who should succeed him as champion golfer. On 17 October 1860 eight professionals played three rounds of Prestwick’s twelve holes, and Willie Park won by two shots from Old Tom Morris. The prize was a belt of red leather with a silver buckle, and the next year the championship was opened to amateurs, “to all the world”.

The belt was to belong to whoever won it three times running. Young Tom Morris won it in 1868, at seventeen, still the youngest major champion there has been, and again in 1869 and 1870, and kept it. With no trophy left to play for, there was no Open in 1871.

Prestwick, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club then put in £10 each for a silver cup, and agreed to take the Open in turn. It was not ready in time for the 1872 Open, which Young Tom won again, so his is the first name engraved on it; the first to be handed it was Tom Kidd, at St Andrews in 1873. Since 1928 each champion has been given the replica and the original has stayed at St Andrews.

The R&A has run the championship alone since 1920. Harry Vardon won it six times, more than anyone. Retiring champions take their last walk up the eighteenth at St Andrews and stop on the Swilken Bridge.

The Week

The week begins on the Sunday with four practice days, a last qualifying contest on the Monday and the busiest day of practice on the Tuesday. The championship proper runs from Thursday to Sunday: 156 players, eighteen holes a day, and after two rounds the field is cut to the leading seventy and ties. The leaders go out last on the Sunday.

There are thousands of public seats, with grandstands round the first tee and the eighteenth green. The champion is given the Claret Jug and a gold medal, and the best amateur to finish the silver medal.

In 2026, from 16 to 19 July at Royal Birkdale, Ryan Fox of New Zealand holed a birdie putt of twelve feet on the last green to win by a shot from Cameron Young, before a record crowd of 306,000.

What to Know

The championship is played from the Thursday to the Sunday in the middle of July, after four practice days. In 2027 it returns to St Andrews, for the thirty-first time: the championship from 15 to 18 July, after practice days from the 11th.

Tickets are sold by ballot, which for the championship days has been up to ten times oversubscribed; the 2027 ballot has closed. The R&A also sells hospitality across the Old Course and packages with rooms. In 2026 a day’s ticket cost from £30 to £150.

There is no dress code in the public areas, and the R&A asks only for clothes and shoes for the weather. In hospitality, smart casual, and golf shoes with soft spikes are allowed.

St Andrews is reached by train to Leuchars and a shuttle bus from there; Edinburgh airport is forty-nine miles off, Dundee’s fifteen. All public parking is at the park-and-ride. The university lets its halls for the week, all within walking distance of the Old Course.

The mistake is the camera. Photographing play is not allowed on the championship days, telephones must be silent, and the course takes no cash.

The Court

The Open Championship is not the Court’s own. Tickets, or a place in the R&A’s hospitality, are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay in St Andrews or nearby, and the table afterward. The Court keeps its own Golf Tournament in Southampton the same month.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.