The R&A's 1922 Open decision

[Mark Bourgeois]

In 1922 the R&A decreed that henceforth the Open Championship would be played only on links courses. From the Championship Committee: "The Open shall henceforth be played only on links courses, to provide a true test for the skilled players."

Clearly by that point inland golf was fully developed.  But was that all that was behind the decision?  It seems like there has to be an interesting story.

Was serious consideration given to inland courses?  How did the R&A decide that links golf was superior -- was that obvious or was there any serious debate? (I would think that with so much new construction occurring inland, there would have been serious lobbying efforts from those who could benefit financially from an inland Open.)

Was the decision an attempt (successful) to close off some brewing controversy or incipient campaigning?

Had an inland course been campaigning for the Open?  Was there an inland course "obvious enough" -- Ganton WH Old, Sunningdale Old -- that the R&A felt that a clear statement at last was needed?

Or, to take another tack, had a links course made a poor showing in the Open? The three prior years saw Deal (1920), TOC (1921), and Sandwich (1922).

For that matter, back then how far in advance were venues named?

Mark

PS Would have thought this topic already covered; however the "new and improved" search engine turned up nothing!

[Adrian_Stiff]

Mark there has been consideration to take the Open inland perhaps as recent as the 1960s. Indeed Michael Bonnalack supported the idea (he was a top amateur then). I dont think he would support the idea now. Ganton and Wentworth were given consideration, Wentworth being a 'commercial idea' todraw crowds really.

I dont know how serious the R & A were or if it was merely hyped paper talk.

[David Stamm]

While I love the fact that the Open is played on links courses exclusively, I would love to see Ganton or Sunningdale used once in a while. 

[Bill_McBride]

Just wondering - is there a course on the rota that is less a links than any of the others? 

Either in soil or playing characteristics......

[Pete_Pittock]

Bill,
Turnberry seems out of place with the cliffs, bu Robert Price points out it is a links course on a raised platform.

[Kirk Gill]

If the Donald is successful in building his links course, it would be odd to think that his course might host an Open, and none of the classic inland courses would ever be considered.

Still, regardless of the reasoning behind the 1922 decision, it's worked out very well.

[Wayne_Kozun]

Is there anything anywhere that says that those links courses have to be located in the UK?

[TEPaul]

"Is there anything anywhere that says that those links courses have to be located in the UK?"

Good question Wayne:

I suppose if one of those Las Vegas casino operators would pay Fazio a $22 million design fee and a $200 million construction tab to create a complete replica of TOC in Nevada those R&A merchants might consider taking $100 million from Walmart and have "The Open" called "The Walmart World-wide Version of the British Open."

[Peter Pallotta]

You're on to something, Mark.

I read that "to provide a true test for skilled players" from the R&A and it sounds loaded with subtext and meaning to me.

It also sounds as if in their heart of hearts the R&A didn't believe that links courses actually were a good test anymore, and so overcompensated with that bit of legislation.

Complicating matters further (if only in my fervid speculations), the R&A might not have been right about what they secretly believed, and so ended up doing the "right" thing for the wrong reason.

Anyway - I think you're asking a Big and Important question here. Look forward to the answers

Peter   

[Bill_McBride]

Here's a quote from Ran's introduction to the opinion piece by Ron Fream:

"Describing Birkdale, Sir Peter Allen once famously wrote, ‘So ends a big golf course, but to me my last visit left a tinge of disappointment , the valley fairways are just a little too green and grassy and too flat for this old Tory.'"

So perhaps that's the answer to my query above about the least links-like of the Open rota courses.

I haven't played there, any commentary from those who have?

[Mark Bourgeois]

Thanks, Peter.  There might be a subtext to that, but near as I can tell it might have more to do with the definition of "skilled."

Searched The Times archives and couldn't find a report of the 1922 announcement; however, formation in 1920 of the Competition Committee looks like a major event, or as Darwin wrote, "Birth of a new era."

Chaired by Norman Boase of the R&A, this 16-man committee was formed to administer the amateur and open championships. Apparently, the host clubs handled the arrangements prior to this committee.

This committee made major decisions, notably fixing the conditions of the competition (they decided to continue match play for the amateur), and "fixing" the definitions of "par" and "scratch," the latter decision occasioning golfers to keep a handicap.  Sounds like many already did but this was either a change in handicapping systems and / or the first mandate that competitors in the amateur maintain a handicap. Likely, this was a major decision in that it established a common, supra-club standard.

The lack of coverage re "links" seems to indicate the decision was not too controversial.  But they had to have some reason for making the decision; presumably, the possibility of a nonlinks must have been significant.

Two other things:
1. Contingency plans were in place to take the 1922 Open away from Sandwich if the club failed to get the greens ready (apparently there was a drought)
2. The only announcement I could find of Troon hosting the 1923 Open was on 13 November 1922 -- what, something like 7 months in advance?  There must have been an earlier announcement, yes?

Mark

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark - I'd been searching the archives as well, before and after I posted -- and couldn't find anything either. Well, actually I rummaged through lots of interesting stuff, like a 1900 article by CB Macdonald on the history of the rules of golf, noting that the rules were based originally on the assumption that golf was being played solely on links courses; and that all the R&A did was to add clarifications over the years (never changing the basic spirit of the rules/games) so that the rules could be more easily be applied to the nature and vagaries of play on non-links courses.

Nothing really to do with your question, but the R&A in 1922 seemed to be re-asserting the "fundamental" nature of links golf. Why though? Why then? Your questions still stand. By the way, I thought "true test" more loaded than "skilled" -- but I can see your point.

Peter 

Couldn't find an earlier date for the Troon announcement either, Mark. What  did find was a 1921 article that praised Gleneagles VERY highly:

"Last year Gleneagles came into its own and is in constant demand for championships because of the supreme test it provides. The construction of the course was delayed through the Great War, but it was subsequently opened in 1919. Last year the famous Glasgow Herald tournament and both the Scottish professional and amateur championships were played there. This year promises to even surpass that in popularity for title events. Likely to bring Gleneagles still more to the front in the coming season is the great "Thousand Guinea" tournament which will take place there in the week commencing June 6th, when it is hoped that the pick of the players of America, France, Spain, Belgium, Australia, England, Ireland and Scotland will be on hand. The American pros who are going abroad will play in this competition. Gleneagles is admirably suited for such an international contest, and the choice of date—between the British amateur championship at Hoylake commencing onMay 23d, and the British open championship beginning on June 20th at St. Andrews, within easy distance of Gleneagles—is a particularly happy one......Golf at Gleneagles requires all the seaside shots and all the inland ones too. There are holes that remind one of St. Andrews, Troon and Prestwick; others that recall Sunningdale and the best bits of Walton Heath — the two grand English courses—with which Gleneagles will inevitably be compared. In the days to come when this course enjoys the notoriety we prophesy for it, like many other courses in the British Isles, the holes will be known by their names."

[Tom_Doak]

My guess is that the R & A were just sick to death of some predecessor of GCA.com where there was a thread every month about "Which courses should host the Open?" and they decided to pre-empt them once and for all by limiting the choices to old, established links courses.  Genius on their part.

[Melvyn Morrow]

Tom

Genius on their part – for what – doing their usual which is sitting back and wait for the 22nd Century before deciding. But then that’s the R&A we all love to hate. Don’t’ talk too loudly as I am advised that the majority at the R&A believe Old Tom is still alive. Progressive or What!

[Thomas MacWood]

I recall reading about the push to have the Open go to an inland site. In fact I think there was more than one attempt over the years. I want to say Fowler was one of the main forces behind the proposal, and Sunningdale and Walton Heath were the courses being considered.

[Wayne_Kozun]

"Is there anything anywhere that says that those links courses have to be located in the UK?"

Good question Wayne:

I suppose if one of those Las Vegas casino operators would pay Fazio a $22 million design fee and a $200 million construction tab to create a complete replica of TOC in Nevada those R&A merchants might consider taking $100 million from Walmart and have "The Open" called "The Walmart World-wide Version of the British Open."

That's thinking outside the box Tom!

I was thinking more of the Republic of Ireland - why can the event be held in Northern Ireland but not the south?  I know there is a political division between the two but why should national boundaries mean anything to the R&A.  To go one step further since the R&A is the governing body for the sport outside of the US & Mexico, there should be no reason why the event could not be held on a links course in Australia or Canada unless they have specifically decreed that it must be held in the UK.  After all those countries were recently part of Her Majesty's Empire and still have the Queen as the head of state.

[Peter Pallotta]

Mark -

off Tom M's post, if Sunningdale and Walton Heath were being considered for the Open, and if late in 1921 someone was promoting Gleneagles as being "admirably suited for such an international contest" given that it had golf holes -- and shot-testing demands -- reminiscent of both the best links courses as well as of "Sunningdale and the best bits of Walton Heath", I can imagine the R&A deciding it was a good time to set down the law. But of course, your questions still stand, still.

Peter

[Pete_Pittock]

Anti-London?

[Wayne Wiggins, Jr.]

With the Senior Open Championship being played at Sunningdale in '09, this would be the first time the championship has been played on a non-links course, right?  Could the R&A be using this as a "test" to see if it could be used for Open Championship?

[Chuck Brown]

Mark, I haven't had time to check my copy of "Golf Between Two Wars" by Darwin; I just wonder if the R&A's pre-emptive announcement weren't some sort of vanity decision, as opposed a response to a serious movement?  I'm picturing this being the end to a night of hard drinking in the bar at Prestwick or Berwick...

[Mark Bourgeois]

Well, Chuck, the R&A formed a Championship Committee and this presumably was one of their decisions, so I think it wasn't a small thing.  Did committees back then get forced into "mission and values" discussions, too?

By the way, don't have my notes handy but I recall reading it was a 16-man committee.  One article listed eight of the members, who seemed a fairly geographically-diverse lot.  I didn't see an anti-London bias in that list, but obviously that's pretty incomplete analysis.

It's either down to:
1. forward-thinking visionary genius
2. response

Explanation 1 just doesn't seem very "committee like," but I haven't found anything to support Explanation 2 -- although that announcement of "contingency plans" for holding the 1922 Open elsewhere seems fairly ominous.  Maybe there was a push to an inland course where perhaps conditions were not at the mercy of that year's drought or perhaps more broadly could be said not to be at the mercy of conditions in general owing to their "modern" construction and agronomy.

Mark

[Bob_Huntley]

Tom

Genius on their part – for what – doing their usual which is sitting back and wait for the 22nd Century before deciding. But then that’s the R&A we all love to hate. Don’t’ talk too loudly as I am advised that the majority at the R&A believe Old Tom is still alive. Progressive or What!

Isn't he?

Bob

[Ally Mcintosh]

"Is there anything anywhere that says that those links courses have to be located in the UK?"

Good question Wayne:

I suppose if one of those Las Vegas casino operators would pay Fazio a $22 million design fee and a $200 million construction tab to create a complete replica of TOC in Nevada those R&A merchants might consider taking $100 million from Walmart and have "The Open" called "The Walmart World-wide Version of the British Open."

That's thinking outside the box Tom!

I was thinking more of the Republic of Ireland - why can the event be held in Northern Ireland but not the south?  I know there is a political division between the two but why should national boundaries mean anything to the R&A.  To go one step further since the R&A is the governing body for the sport outside of the US & Mexico, there should be no reason why the event could not be held on a links course in Australia or Canada unless they have specifically decreed that it must be held in the UK.  After all those countries were recently part of Her Majesty's Empire and still have the Queen as the head of state.

Wayne,

We had this discussion before and I seem to recall we came across some statement by the R&A that said The Open had to be held in the UK... I think it was on the back of Harrington winning at Carnoustie and the suggestion then that the competition could be held at Portmarnock...

[Tom Birkert]

With the Senior Open Championship being played at Sunningdale in '09, this would be the first time the championship has been played on a non-links course, right?  Could the R&A be using this as a "test" to see if it could be used for Open Championship?

Wayne,

I really don't see this happening for a number of reasons (infratructure, lack of corporate space etc) aside from the fact that the rota exists and all are links courses as is being discussed on this thread.

The scores in IFQ haven't been too low - I think -8 was the best score for 36 holes on The Old and The New this year.

For those interested in seeing what the Seniors will be playing next year, look out for the Womens Open which starts on Thursday. It's live on the BBC over here, not sure about the coverage in the US.

[Wayne_Kozun]

We had this discussion before and I seem to recall we came across some statement by the R&A that said The Open had to be held in the UK... I think it was on the back of Harrington winning at Carnoustie and the suggestion then that the competition could be held at Portmarnock...

Do you remember why that was the case - the R&A's web site says the following:

The R&A is the governing body for the Rules of Golf and the Rules of Amateur Status in all parts of the golfing world, except the United States and Mexico.

With that being the case why shouldn't the R&A have the mandate to hold the tournament anywhere except the US and Mexico.

Is the R&A even the governing body of golf for the UK?  I thought that purpose was held by organizations like the Scottish Golf Union and English Golf Union?  Why then would the Open have a geographic limitation of the UK if it is truly THE Open rather than The British Open?