The 150th Open Championship is upon us and to help you enjoy the week even more we're taking a look at how past champions at St. Andrews have done, successful defenses on the Old Course, and couple of key holes that almost always play a role in determining the Champion Golfer of the Year.
Since Rory McIlroy missed his title defense in 2015 through injury, no defending Champion Golfer has finished lower than tied 12th at The Open.
Here's a look at each defending champion's position, score to par, and ultimately strokes finished behind the champion.
- Rory McIlroy (2015) DNP
- Zach Johnson (2016) T12, 1-under par, 19 strokes back
- Henrik Stenson (2017) T11, 3-under par, 9 strokes back
- Jordan Spieth (2018) T9, 4-under par, 4 strokes back
- Francesco Molinari (2019) T11, 3.under par, 12 strokes back
- Shane Lowry (2021) T12, 6-under par, 9 strokes back
No defending Champion has missed the cut since Darren Clarke in 2012.
Successful Defenses at St Andrews
In the 29 previous occasions St Andrews has hosted The Open Championship, five players have successfully defended their title over the Old Course.
- Jamie Anderson Champion at Prestwick in 1878, then at St Andrews in 1879.
- Bob Ferguson Champion at Prestwick in 1881, then at St Andrews in 1882.
- JH Taylor Champion at St George’s in 1894, then at St Andrews in 1895.
- Bobby Jones Champion at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1926, then at St Andrews in 1927.
- Peter Thomson Champion at Royal Birkdale in 1954, then at St Andrews in 1955.
All five of these players won at least three Open Championships in their careers.
There have been three defending Champions who finished as runner-up in the following year at St Andrews, Harry Vardon in 1900, Peter Thomson in 1957 and Tom Watson in 1984. At the time both Vardon and Watson were trying to win The Open for a third successive year, while Thomson was aiming for a fourth successive Championship.
Champions Multiple Times at St Andrews
Five players have won The Open twice at St Andrews; Bob Martin (1876 & 1885), JH Taylor (1895 & 1900), James Braid (1905 & 1910), Jack Nicklaus (1970 & 1978) and Tiger Woods (2000 & 2005).
1933 – Gene Sarazen in a Bunker and Denny Shute’s Matching Rounds
In 1933, in the final round, defending Champion Gene Sarazen pulled his tee shot on the 11th left into Hill bunker. He took three shots to escape and holed out in six. Although his marker confirmed this, a steward, who apparently could not see into the bunker from where he stood, claimed that Sarazen had taken seven.
Sarazen recalled the incident in his book Thirty Years of Championship Golf. After his second failure in the bunker he waved his club in anger. The steward thought this was a stroke and reported it to the Championship Committee. Sarazen was summoned before the Committee, ‘twelve men sitting austerely around a long table’. After confirming with the marker, Sarazen’s word was accepted but he was sorely disturbed that his integrity had been doubted. He finished the Championship one shot out of a play-off in joint-third place.
The play-off featured Denny Shute and Craig Wood. Shute had shot four consecutive rounds of 73, a unique feat among all major champions, and in the final round Wood drove into one of the Spectacles bunkers on the 5th, approximately 420 yards away from the tee, albeit when the ground was hard as rock and with a gale behind. Shute won the 36-hole play-off by five shots, with scores of 75 and 74, to be the fifth player to win The Open on his debut.
Sub-80 and Sub-70
The first sub-80 rounds in an Open at St Andrews were recorded in the second round of the 1895 Championship, the eighth time it was played here - JH Taylor (78), Sandy Herd (77) and Willie Fernie (79). Taylor shot another score of 78 in the final round and won the Championship by four strokes.
The first sub-70 score in an Open at St Andrews was recorded by Bobby Jones in 1927 in the first round, the 13th time it was played here. Jones shot a 68 to lead by three strokes from Len Nettlefold and went on to win the Championship by six strokes.
The 14th Hole (614 yards, Par 5)
The 14th – Long – is the longest hole in the current rotation of courses at 614 yards, although now plays four yards shorter than it did in 2010. In 1984 it was 567 yards and played to a stroke average of 5.30, the second hardest par-5 at The Open since statistics were kept in 1982. Helping to rack up that figure was Bill Rogers, Open Champion in 1981, who in the first round drove three balls out of bounds onto the Eden Course to be seven off the tee and took a seven-over-par 12. The following day he drove out of bounds again and took a seven .
The 17th Hole (495 yards, Par 4)
The 17th – Road – has been the hardest hole at St Andrews in every Open here since statistics were kept. In 1984 it played to a stroke average of 4.79, statistically the hardest hole ever at The Open. In the list of the top ten most difficult holes in relation to par since 1982, the 17th features six times.
- The 17th Hole 1984 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
- Stroke average 4.79 4.65 4.62 4.71 4.63 4.67 4.65
- Rank 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
- Birdies 11 15 13 13 19 16 9
- Double bogeys or worse 56 50 48 64 53 68 43
In recent years, several players have taken nine strokes to complete the hole, the last being Mark Calcavecchia in the first round of 2015. The most famous 9 on the 17th was Tsuneyuki “Tommy” Nakajima who putted his third shot into the bunker when putting for the lead in the third round of 1978. He took four strokes to escape and two-putted for a quintuple bogey. The Road Hole Bunker became known as the ‘Sands of Nakajima’ as a result of his misfortune.
In a post-round press conference in 1984, Seve Ballesteros described his route down the hole as, “A good tee shot, 5-iron, chip and two putts for a par-five.” The R&A press officer, George Simms, pointed out that the hole was a par-4 , to which Ballesteros replied, “For you, George, it may be a par-four. For Seve Ballesteros, it’s a par-5 .”
Course Record
The course record for the Old Course is 61, shot by Ross Fisher in the 4th round of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in 2017. Fisher missed a four -foot birdie putt at the last for a 60. (Out: 4, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 3 – 29; In: 4, 3, 3, 3, 4, 3, 4, 4, 4 – 32)
The lowest score on the Old Course in an Open Championship is 63, shot by Paul Broadhurst in the 3rd round of 1990 and Rory McIlroy in the 1st round of 2010.
Broadhurst: Out 3, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 3 – 29
In 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 3 – 34
McIlroy: Out 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2 – 33
In 3, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3 – 30
Number of Champions
In the previous 149 Open Championships there have been 87 different Champion Golfers. 62 Opens have resulted in a repeat winner.
Longest Span of First Time Winners
The longest span of first-time winners of the Championship is from 1994 to 2004; there were 11 first-time Champions in this period from Nick Price to Todd Hamilton. The current streak is eight first-time Champions, starting with Phil Mickelson in 2013 through to Collin Morikawa. This is the second longest streak of first-time winners since The Open began. The last player to have won two or more Championships was Ernie Els in 2012.
Jock Hutchison in 1921
A local St Andrean, Jock Hutchison emigrated to the USA and became a naturalized US citizen in 1920. When he won The Open in 1921 he was the first US citizen to be the Champion Golfer. In his first round he had a hole-in-one at the 8th then nearly had another at the 9th ,his 300-yard drive hitting the lip of the hole and finishing three inches away.
The St Andrews Golf Club, situated next to the 18th green, holds an annual tournament called the Jock Hutchison Cup, for a trophy presented to the club by him in 1935. It involves two rounds of stroke play over the New and Eden Courses, with the top-32 aggregate nett scores going forward to match play over the Old Course. Hutchison was later made an Honorary Vice President of the Club.
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