Tag: Claret Jug

Augusta National, tractor rides and 90,000 Bulldog fans: Brian Harman is giving the Claret Jug a ride

Kisner told Golfweek that the Augusta National staff notified them this is believed to be a first.

As the Champion Golfer of the Year and with possession of the Claret Jug for one year, Brian Harman has been checking off some potential firsts with the famed silver trophy awarded annually to the winner of the British Open.

Harman took the Claret Jug to Augusta National Golf Club in late October during the weekend of the annual Florida/Georgia football game. Fellow Bulldog Kevin Kisner and a couple other friends joined him on the trip.

“Just bro-ing out up there,” Harman said.

Kisner told Golfweek that the Augusta National staff told them it is believed to be the first time that a winner has ever brought the Claret Jug to the home of the Masters.

“I can’t verify if it’s the only time it’s been there and so I feel bad saying that,” Harman tells Golfweek. “If they want to say that, that’s great.”

But he was more confident of another potential first with the Jug.

“It’s been inside my tractor,” Harman tells Golfweek. “I don’t know if it’s ever been inside a tractor. We took it down there and rode around for a minute just so we could say we did it.”

2023 British Open
Brian Harman looks on on the 18th hole on Day Two of The 151st Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Club on July 21, 2023 in Hoylake, England. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

Harman may need to check with Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 Open champ and avid farmer, about being first.

But the highlight of hanging with the Jug so far for Harman, he said, was being honored on the field during Georgia’s home game against Ole Miss in early November, a night game at Sanford Field.

“That was cool because my wife and kid were with me,” he said to Golfweek.

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“That was probably the highlight of the partying with it so far,” he said Thursday after his opening round at The Sentry. “It’s quite the party trick. It’s been a lot of fun to possess for a year.”

And enjoy it, he has.

“It’s an antique, it’s a relic,” Harman said Thursday. “It’s like a golfing past.” 

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Brian Harman shows off Claret Jug to Georgia football coach Kirby Smart, then hits Braves game

Harman had a chance to sit in a football team meeting, but Smart didn’t make a big deal about it.

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British Open champion Brian Harman was back at his old stomping grounds in Athens Monday ahead of playing in the Tour Championship starting Thursday in Atlanta.

“I got to take a picture with the jug,” Georgia football coach Kirby Smart said on 960 The Ref. “I got to see that. Pretty cool. I didn’t drink anything out of it.”

That would be the Claret Jug that Harman won at the Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England, joining two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson as former Georgia golfers to win a major championship.

Harman had a chance to sit in a football team meeting, but Smart didn’t make a big deal about it.

“I wanted to introduce him to the team, but I was afraid nobody would know who he was,” Smart said.

After Harman won the trophy at Hoylake, the 36-year-old Savannah native said he was inspired by words Georgia football coach Kirby Smart said prior to last season.

“I was a wreck,” Harman said, according to the Golf Channel. “I mean, I’ve been a wreck the whole week. But … I kept thinking about something Kirby Smart said, ‘I’m not gonna be hunted; I’m gonna hunt.'”

Harman, 36, never let up after holding the lead after the second and third rounds. He entered Sunday with a five-stroke cushion at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England and lifted the Claret Jug after winning by six.

“Dawgs on top! Congrats @harmanbrian,” Smart tweeted after the victory “Let’s celebrate this fall!”

Harman told reporters after his win that he’s impressed with how Smart has handled success.

“I’ve always kind of — I just always pay attention when really successful people talk,” he said. “There’s always clues there as to how they feel. I’ve always admired the fact that even with all the success that he’s had, it’s all about the next play, the next game, the next week of practice. He knows that the results come because of what you do in the trenches.”

After showing off the trophy to Smart and others on the Georgia campus on Monday, Harman added another big moment on Tuesday night when he threw out the first pitch at the Atlanta Braves game against the New York Mets.

Harman tees off at 1:27 p.m. on Thursday with Patrick Cantlay at the East Lake Golf Club.

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Watch: British Open champ Brian Harman guzzles beer from Claret Jug at surprise airport celebration

“It’s so cool. It warms my heart seeing everyone here.”

Brian Harman received a hero’s welcome when he arrived home to McKinnon St. Simons Island Airport in Georgia on Friday.

Fellow major winner Davis Love III, PGA Tour pro and fellow Georgia alum Harris English and Harman’s swing coach, Justin Parsons, were among more than 50 friends and fans that surprised The Champion Golfer of the Year upon his arrival.

“It’s so cool. It warms my heart seeing everyone here,” Harman told PGA Tour.com. “My wife played it off pretty good. I was thinking we would just scoot home and not see anybody, so I’m thrilled everyone came out. It’s really touching.”

Harman, who won for the first time in more than six years on Sunday and collected his first major championship, stepped off the plane holding his youngest of three children in his left arm and the Claret Jug, the famed trophy that the winner of the British Open is awarded custody for one year, in his right.

Harman hung around and posed for pictures, signed autographs and drank a Coors Light from the Claret Jug.

“There’s booze in there, sorry,” Harman said with a grin in a video posted to social media by the PGA Tour.

Young fans settled to touch the trophy.

Harman flew back to the U.S. early Monday morning following a celebration the night before at Hickory’s Smokehouse, not far from where he won the British Open at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England. Harman met up with his wife and three kids, who watched his victory from her family’s home in the Syracuse, New York, area.

“The last three or four days have been really nice,” he said. “We’ve been secluded up there by the lake. But it’s nice to get back and see a bunch of familiar faces and get to celebrate with them.”

Harman has called St. Simons Island, part of a chain of barrier islands nicknamed the Golden Isles, for most of his career. Based on his arrival home, the party is just beginning for Harman’s career-defining moment in this picturesque corner of southern Georgia – halfway between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida.

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Things to know about the Claret Jug, awarded to the British Open winner

The Champion Golfer of the Year earns a big paycheck and of course the Claret Jug.

The Champion Golfer of the Year, aka the winner of the British Open, earns a large sum of money, many accolades and the historic Claret Jug. OK, not the Claret Jug. We can explain.

There have been 150 Opens contested over the years but the trophy wasn’t yet created for the first nearly dozen tournaments.

And did you know that the Claret Jug has a lesser-known formal name of The Golf Champion Trophy?

Harry Vardon has the most Open Championship titles with six. Old Tom Morris is the oldest winner of the Open, doing so at age 46 years. The youngest champ was his son, Young Tom Morris, who was but 17 years old when he claimed the title.

Open Championship 2023: Leaderboard, scores, news, tee times, more

But what about the trophy? Here are some more interesting facts about the Claret Jug.

Cameron Smith held back tears when he returned the Claret Jug. Now he wants it back

“It’s the coolest trophy ever,” said Smith, who shot a Sunday 64 at St. Andrews to win last year.

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HOYLAKE, England — Cameron Smith held back tears when he returned the Claret Jug on Monday.

“I thought I was going to do all right,” he said. “A bit of a moment, I guess, that crept up on me.”

Smith became the Champion Golfer of the Year at the 150th British Open at St. Andrews by shooting a final-round 64 to clip Cameron Young and 54-hole co-leader Rory McIlroy.

“It’s the coolest trophy ever,” said Smith, who among other trips took the trophy back to Brisbane, Australia, where he grew up and celebrated with the members at the club where he learned the game.

“Had a ripping night,” he said. “For a little country club outside of Brisbane to have the Claret Jug in it I think was a pretty cool moment.”

MORE: 2023 British Open content hub

On the night Smith won his first major, Australian Penfolds Grange wine, tequila and beer all were poured into the Claret Jug, which got quite a workout in the days and months to come. What Smith loved most was seeing the reaction of lovers of golf when their eyes would meet with the famed jug.

“It’s like they’ve seen a ghost,” he said.

During his year of having custody of the trophy that dates back to 1872, Smith recalled some random moments when he’d walk into his home office in Florida and be sorting through mail and he’d bump into it as surreal.

“There was a few moments like that, I guess,” he said. “It still doesn’t feel real, even a year down the road. But yeah, hopefully I can get it back. I want that thing back so bad.”

It’s not farfetched to think Smith could be the first repeat champion since Padraig Harrington successfully defended in 2007-08. Smith is coming off a win at the LIV London event at Centurion Golf Club just two weeks ago.

“I think I’m actually a better golfer now than what I was last year. I think the stuff that I had to clean up is progressing. It’s still a little bit of a work in progress,” he said noting that 5-iron and up to the driver are the clubs that he tends to lack consistency. “That’s an area of the game that we’ve worked probably harder than we have on in the past.”

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Smith expressed no regret in making his decision to defect to LIV Golf for a lucrative signing bonus. He’s optimistic about the future of golf despite being unsure what the future holds for LIV Golf. Smith did show a level of support for fellow Australian Greg Norman, the LIV Commissioner who lured him to leave the PGA Tour nearly a year ago.

“I think I’ve kind of become a bit of a friend of Greg’s, I guess, the last eight or nine months,” Smith said. “Personally I think he’s doing a great job for our tour. He’s looking out for our best interests. That’s all you can ask of a guy that’s running the show. Yeah, I’d love to see him keep on.”

But what Smith is really focused on is regaining possession of the Claret Jug. Someone during his pre-championship press conference asked him if he was OK after having to part ways with it.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Smith said. “I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

But he’s already joked with his buddies that this is going to be a one-week separation and he intends to be drinking fine wine and beer out of it again for another 365 days.

“You never know, sometimes you can play your best golf at major championships and you can run fourth or fifth,” he said. “Hopefully it’s another week like last year and I’m back with the trophy.”

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Cameron Smith is ‘going to find out how many beers’ fit in the Claret Jug after 2022 British Open win

Smith made a late charge with six birdies on his back nine for his first major title.

Rory McIlroy was the fan favorite in the final round of the 150th playing of the Open Championship at the Old Course at St. Andrews, but eventual champion Cameron Smith may have picked up a few more supporters in his post-round interview.

Smith was at a loss for words after his 8-under 64 in the final round on Sunday earned him a one-shot win and his first major title. After the championship ceremony, the 28-year-old Aussie was asked how he plans to celebrate with the Claret Jug, and he had the perfect answer.

“I’m definitely going to find out how many beers fit in this thing,” said Smith with a chuckle as the fans erupted with applause.

Smith won the Players Championship earlier this year and now has three victories on the season and six in his PGA Tour career.

He’s also up to $9,847,000 in on-course earnings during the 2021-22 season.

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Here are 22 photos of British Open winners celebrating with the Claret Jug

The British Open winner gets to take possession of a replica of the Claret Jug for 12 months.

The 2022 British Open marks the 150th playing of the historic event.

There was only one venue where they could stage this tournament and that, of course, is the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. It’s the 30th time St. Andrews, dubbed the Home of Golf, has hosted the oldest major championship in golf.

The winner on Sunday will bank a check for $2,500,000 but more importantly, he will be proclaimed the Champion Golfer of the Year, and will have his name engraved on the bottom of the trophy.

The winner gets to take possession of a replica for the next 12 months. How and what they will do with it once they leave St. Andrews is anybody’s guess.

Check out some photos of past Open Championship winners celebrating with the Claret Jug.

Rory McIlroy answers the big question: Another Claret Jug (this one from the 150th Open Championship) or a Green Jacket?

Rory McIlroy: “I don’t know if a golfer’s career isn’t complete if you don’t, but I think it’s the Holy Grail of our sport”

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Rory McIlroy called winning the Claret Jug at The Old Course at St. Andrews, “one of the greatest things you can do in our game.”

“I don’t know if a golfer’s career isn’t complete if you don’t, but I think it’s the Holy Grail of our sport,” McIlroy said during his pre-tournament press conference ahead of the 150th British Open. “Not a lot of people are going to get that opportunity to achieve that, but that’s what winning an Open at St. Andrews is. It’s one of the highest achievements that you can have in golf.”

But is winning another Claret Jug the Holy Grail for McIlroy or is it a Green Jacket awarded to the Masters champion, which would complete the elusive career Grand Slam for the Northern Irishman?

“I guess it’s both,” he said. “Obviously I’d love to win both. And I’ll be greedy and say that I’ll take both.”

To do so, McIlroy, 33, will need to master the famed and fabled fairways at The Old Course to end a winless drought in the majors which dates to the 2014 PGA Championship, a span of 29 major starts.

Rory McIlroy poses with the Open Golf Claret Jug trophy at halftime of the Premier League match between Manchester United and Swansea City at Old Trafford on August 16, 2014, in Manchester, England. (Photo by John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)

This season McIlroy has shown moments of brilliance in the majors – a final-round 64 at the Masters to finish second, the 18-hole leader at the PGA en route to finishing three strokes shy of a playoff and a disappointing eighth at the PGA Championship and in the trophy hunt until the latter stages at the U.S. Open before settling for a T-5. Victories at the CJ Cup in October and the RBC Canadian Open have been nice, but it is last call to add to his major total of four or else endure the nearly nine-month wait until the Masters in April when he will face the same questions all over again.

This marks McIlroy’s 13th appearance at The Open, dating to when he first played the major as an amateur in 2007. The 2014 Champion Golfer of the Year finished T-3 in 2010, when he posted a record-tying 63 in the first round only to be swept away by the wind a day later and ballooned to 80. McIlroy said his memories of that best of times, worst of times week are minimal and he’d have to review the highlights (and lowlights, presumably).

“This is sort of a good lesson in human behavior, but the only thing I remember about the 63 is hitting a 6-iron into 3 feet at 17 and missing the putt,” he recalled. “That’s the one thing that sticks out in my mind because I remember coming off the golf course thinking that was a really good opportunity (to be) the first person ever to shoot 62 in a major, and I didn’t quite get it done. So you can always be better.”

McIlroy never got to defend his 2014 Open title at St. Andrews due to rupturing a ligament in his left ankle kicking a soccer ball with friends. (He noted there would be no soccer this week.) McIlroy, who has returned to World No. 2, said he was surprised to see the fairways playing so fast and firm this week thanks to an unusual spell of dry summer weather, and found the greens quite receptive.

“Still have a very firm first bounce, but they’re receptive if you hit a well-enough-struck iron shot,” McIlroy said.

After playing four weeks in a row on the PGA Tour, he took off the week of the Horizon Irish Open and played last week in the two-day JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor in Ireland. Then he played an enjoyable practice round at Ballybunion on Thursday with Tiger Woods.

“Apart from that, didn’t really do too much,” McIlroy said. “Hung around Adare for a couple of days, did a little bit of practice, got in here Sunday. Then, yeah, played whatever I played. Played the first five and the last five yesterday in a practice round.”

McIlroy said his confidence in his game is as high as it it’s been in quite some time, but he won’t fall into the trap of simply believing it is “his time.”

“It’s going to be a game of chess this week,” he said of The Old Course, which he believes has stood the test of time. But the weight of chasing the Holy Grail will never be far from his mind.

“This was the major championship, it was the first one I ever attended as a kid. Yeah, it just means a little bit more,” he said. “To hear your name and winner of the gold medal, Champion Golfer of the Year, it’s what dreams are made of. I still remember that pretty vividly. I’d love to replicate that on Sunday evening.”

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‘It sucked’: Collin Morikawa hands over Claret Jug, begins British Open prep at Old Course to reclaim it

“The replica is beautiful, but it’s not the same. It really isn’t. It will never be.”

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Collin Morikawa’s possession of the Claret Jug came to an end Monday morning.

It was not an easy separation.

“It sucked. It really did,” Morikawa said in his pre-tournament meeting with the media Monday at the Old Course, home to the 150th Open Championship. “I woke up this morning and looked at it. The replica is beautiful, but it’s not the same. It really isn’t. It will never be.

“But I don’t want to dwell on the past. I think I’ve talked about that early on in my career. I always look forward to what’s next. Maybe hopefully just giving it back kind of frees me up and allows me just to focus on winning this week.”

In his first start in the Open Championship, Morikawa held off Jordan Spieth and Louis Oosthuizen to win the Claret Jug last year at Royal St. George’s (Morikawa also won the PGA Championship in 2020 at TPC Harding Park in his first start).

Morikawa is making his first start at the Old Course, the rumpled, flat grounds nestled in the city. The Home of Golf was love at first sight for Morikawa.

“I can see why guys love it,” he said. “I can see how special this week can be. I can see how the course can play a million different ways, depending on the weather.

“Looks like we’re going to get some pretty consistent weather and some wind patterns this week. I think overall you’ve just got to be ready to play some good golf because you’re going to get some good bounces and probably some bad ones.”

Morikawa, ranked No. 8 in the Official World Golf Ranking, has not won in 2022. Trying to reclaim the Claret Jug might be the final push to victory.

“Now that I know what it’s like to have the Claret Jug for a year, there’s nothing like it. It’s a really special year,” he said. “Even though you won that tournament a year ago, it’s going to be in your history for the rest of your life. And it’s pretty cool. I think trying to defend this week at the 150th at St Andrews would be even more special.”

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As St. Andrew’s prepares for 150th Open, remembering ‘jut-jawed powerhouse’ Tom Kidd and his 1873 win

The Open of 1873 was staged during the R&A’s autumn meeting. It was very much second fiddle.

It’s all happening at the Old Course — a modern-day Open Championship requires the kind of epic production process that the MGM big-wigs embarked on with Ben-Hur.

Grandstands are rising up here, scoreboards are emerging there and the clatters, batters and clanks of hectic industry are generating more racket than Charlton Heston’s chariot race.

Last weekend’s declaration during the Masters by Tiger Woods, meanwhile, that he’ll be at St. Andrews for July’s 150th showpiece whipped up such a flurry of excitement, the weather vane on top of the Royal & Ancient clubhouse just about birled itself crooked.

It should be quite the celebration of golf’s most cherished major. The Herald newspaper had already been on the go for 77 years when the first Open was staged at Prestwick in 1860. Since then, this fine auld organ has reported on every championship. The only omissions, for whatever reason, were the Opens of 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868 and 1870.

“One is tempted to suggest that the sports editor of the time should be retrospectively sacked,” wrote the late, much-missed Douglas Lowe in The Herald Book of The Open Championship. Funnily enough, some readers have suggested the current golf writer should be immediately sacked.

With St. Andrews gearing up for a major milestone this summer, let’s have a venture back in time to 1873 when the Old Course staged its first Open.

It was the first time too that the Claret Jug was officially presented. Young Tom Morris, the superstar of the day, had won the title for a fourth time the previous year but there was no trophy to give him. His name, though, was etched on to the spanking new silver pitcher prior to the 1873 championship.

“To win a trophy that Tommy Morris’ name was on was a real badge of honor,” said esteemed St. Andrews golf historian Roger McStravick.

In 1873, the badge of honor – and the Claret Jug – belonged to Tom Kidd, a 25-year-old Open debutant described as a “jut-jawed powerhouse” who won by a shot from Jamie Anderson. The Herald’s fairly modest report of affairs, which was shoehorned under news of a miners’ strike at the North Motherwell and Braidhurst collieries, suggested Kidd played “a strong game, but if deficient in any way it is when on the greens.”

“He was almost damned by faint praise,” added McStravick.

The weather in the build-up to the championship had been particularly foul with biblical downpours leaving pools of water all over the links.

“In those days, of course, you played it where it lay,” noted McStravick. “There was no distinction between casual water and water hazards. Players could lift out of water only under penalty. There’s a great photo from the late 1800s of Freddie Tait playing a ball floating on water. For some of us, it’s bad enough hitting a stationary ball let alone one that’s bobbing about in a puddle.”

The Open of 1873 was staged during the Royal & Ancient’s autumn meeting. It was very much second fiddle.

“The pros playing in The Open were all working class and they were, effectively, getting in the way of the gentlemen’s game,” said McStravick of this fairly slap-dash arrangement. “It would be like saying to Tiger, ‘can you please hurry this up, we’ve got our own golf to play.’ There were no course closures or big preparations back then. It could be all rather chaotic.”

Kidd won with rounds of 91 and 88. In something of a trail-blazing move, he’d etched basic grooves onto his iron clubs to generate more backspin. “That wouldn’t have sat well with the purists,” added McStravick of Kidd’s innovative efforts to steal a march on his rivals.

As well as the Claret Jug and the plaudits, Kidd’s Open win earned him about $15. Not quite the $2 million-plus that gets handed out today.

“He had to pay a deposit to receive the Claret Jug,” explained McStravick. “Officials would be worried that, because of his working-class status, he’d flog it.”

Kidd didn’t find much fame or fortune. He died 11 years after his triumph and is buried in an unmarked grave in St. Andrews.

As the Old Course prepares for a very special anniversary in July, however, a few bunnets will be doffed to the man who was both the first champion of a St. Andrews Open and the first to hoist the Claret Jug.

Nick Rodger is a correspondent for Newsquest, a subsidiary of Gannett and part of the USA Today Network.

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