History in the making - the earliest days of the Open
In a competition that celebrates 150 years of existence this week, it's one of sport's unlikeliest curiosities that the oldest and youngest ever winners at the tournament are a father and son whose records have stood since the late 19th Century.
Curious, but fitting. The Open Championship may remain one of Britain's most prestigious contemporary sporting events - but it is also a tournament tied inextricably with tradition.
This week, golf's oldest competition returns to golf's oldest course. But while the Old Course at St Andrews, Fife goes all the way back to 1552, the famed course was not the first to host the competition; when the Open was first played in 1860, the venue for that inaugural competition was Prestwick, another Scottish links course that survives to this day (although it hasn't hosted an Open since 1925 - and only offered a 12-hole course when the Open was first played there).
While the competition first took place 150 years ago, this is only the 139th Open, with the competition being cancelled for the duration of World Wars I and II - as well as in the year 1871, the frankly dubious excuse for that cancellation being that no trophy was available for the winner.
Aficionados will be aware that winners of the Open claim the famed Claret Jug, but that fabled trophy wasn't the original prize that players were striving for. During the initial 11 years of the tournament, the victor's reward was the Challenge Belt, a Morocco leather belt that became the permanent property of Tom Morris Jnr after the precocious young Scot had won the the Open for the third successive year in 1870.
Unfortunately, that victory seemed to engender some sense of apathy about the fledgling competition; in the following year, the future of the tournament already seemed in doubt, with no Open played in 1871. Perhaps it was simply because there was no trophy to be presented to the victor, or maybe it had something to do with the dominance of the aforementioned father and son combination of young and old Tom Morris - the pair had a virtual duopoly on victory. During the first decade of the Open, six out of 10 tournaments were won by one or the other of the two Toms.
While such mastery may have verged on the irksome back then, these days we can only view that familial supremacy with amazement; it's almost fanciful to think that to this day, the oldest winner of the tournament remains Old Tom, winning for the fourth time in 1867 at the age of 46 years and 99 days, while the youngest winner is fruit of his loins Young Tom, who won in 1868 at the age of 17, five months and three days (As an aside, Morris Jnr is also notable for scoring the first hole-in-one in championship golf, doing so in 1869 on the 8th at Prestwick).
In any case, in 1872 the tournament returned with the Claret Jug, even if it wasn't ready in time to be presented to the winner - who, you may not be wholly surprised to read, was Young Tom, taking his fourth victory in a row.
These days the winner no longer gets to hang on to the trophy, instead temporarily holding onto it before handing it back before the next tournament, though victors are given a replica of the trophy to keep. Both the original Claret Jug and the Challenge Belt are on display at St Andrews clubhouse, the belt having been donated to the club by the Morris family.
Not that it was either one of the Morris's who were victorious when the Open eventually came to St Andrews. When the historic competition was first hosted here in 1873, it was Tom Kidd who shot the winning score of 179 over 36 holes to take first prize - a cool £11.
This year's winner will pick up £750,000, but it is the opportunity to stake a place in history at arguably golf's most revered competition that is surely the far greater incentive.
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