The fascinting story of the 1860 Open Championship

The tide will surely turn. It has to. But the second round of 12 holes finishes with the duo locked together on 59. A dozen to go and Park still has a three stroke advantage.

“At this crisis the excitement waxed most intense, many being sanguine that whatever might betide, a tie would be the worst contingency they had to fear.”

The players wind their way round the Ayrshire coastline once more and Park slips to a 60. But Morris only improves it by one, and it is his great rival taking the precious championship belt.

1860 Open Championship leaderboard

174 Willie Park Sr
176 Tom Morris Sr
180 Andrew Strath
191 Robert Andrew
192 George Brown
195 Charlie Hunter
196 Alexander Smith
232 William Steel

Prestwick is stunned. And so is the Advertiser.

“No one who was a spectator of the struggle could refrain from feeling and expressing their high appreciation of Park’s play,” their correspondent writes.

“On the other hand, the most veteran frequenters of the Links will also admit in all their experience of Morris they never saw him come to grief so often, for it is well known that the battle of Bunker’s Hill is an engagement which he has very seldom to fight.”

Less charitable is George Glennis, who, from Royal Blackheath in London, just two days after Park takes the belt, writes to say: “There is no doubt that Park is a fine player but in all the matches that I have seen him play, he is what I should call a lucky player. He goes at everything…”

Being handed the title Champion Golf Player of Great Britain by some members of the fourth estate also triggers Moriss’s supporters, but they need not fear.

He has his revenge and quickly too.

Only days after the belt slips out of his grasp, he sees off Park with £20 on the line.

And 12 months later – in a competition now “open to all members of established golf clubs and professionals”, according to the Fife Herald – a field of 18 can only flail their clubs in frustration as Park blows up on the Alps hole and Morris records a remarkable final-round 53 to win the Challenge Belt by four.

So what becomes of our main protagonists?

Park will win again, in 1863, 1866, and 1875, but this is the beginning of the legendary Morris dynasty. From 1861 until 1873, there are only three occasions when the name Morris is not being etched into the emerging Championship’s growing legend.

Old Tom will give way to Young, who will claim that gorgeous Moroccan belt for his own when he records a third successive win in 1870.

And though he never lifts the Claret Jug, as it won’t be presented for the first time until the following year, it is Morris Junior’s name that heads the list of immortals on that most famous of trophies when he wins for the fourth successive occasion in 1872.

These humble beginnings are a far cry from the huge grandstands, the enormous tented village, and record-breaking crowds that will greet the 150th staging of what we now simply call The Open at St Andrews.

But without those two titans of the game – Morris and Park – locking horns to such delight at Prestwick in 1860 and for so many years subsequently, what would golf look like today?

For from that first great rivalry has come decades of heroes: Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, and Tiger Woods.

All spanning from 36 holes in Ayrshire 149 tournaments ago.

So, as we gather in St Andrews to celebrate the sesquicentennial, let’s raise a toast to the next 150.