Now’s your chance to own one of the most famous trophies in sports. Just be prepared to pay a hefty price.
John Daly’s Claret Jug from his 1995 Open Championship victory at St. Andrews is up for auction at Golden Age Auctions. The starting bid was $500, and with a little more than three days to go until bidding closes, the price to own a rare piece of golf history is up to $152,463 (as of Thursday morning).
The jug is being sold by a consignor, who originally purchased the trophy directly from John Daly in 2015. The Claret Jug comes with a signed letter of authenticity and provenance from Daly, too.
Daly beat Costantino Rocca in a four-hole playoff to win his first Open Championship and second major title.
Earlier this year, Golden Age Golf Auctions sold Gary Player’s Claret Jug from 1974 for $481,068. That Claret Jug was a 90 percent scale of the real Claret Jug that every Champion Golfer of the Year gets to parade around for a year.
Per the listing, Daly’s Claret Jug is “sterling silver (hallmarked), and measures 12 ¼” tall (50 percent scale of permanent traveling Claret Jug). The magnificent case measures 14 ¼” x 8 ½” and is embossed with the R&A logo on its silk-lined interior.”
As of Thursday morning, there have been 66 bids for Daly’s Claret Jug.
Wenyi Ding picked up one of the biggest wins of his life Sunday.
The 19-year-old from China, who won the USGA’s 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur at Bandon Dunes, captured the 2024 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship at Taiheiyo Club Gotemba in Japan, carding four consecutive rounds of 3-under 67 to claim the title by one shot over fellow countryman Ziqin Zhou, a freshman at California. Ding, ranked fifth in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, earned exemptions into the 2025 Masters and 2025 Open Championship with the win, but he’s planning to pass on them.
“Before I played this, I can’t imagine I’m guarantee(d) to win this tournament,” Ding said Sunday. “So, I don’t know. It’s a problem.
“I think more likely I should take the card.”
A follow-up question was then asked about when that would happen, and Ding said maybe next week.
Wenyi Ding of China lifts the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship trophy after winning the 2024 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship being played at the Taiheiyo Club in Gotemba, Japan on Sunday 6 October 2024. Photograph by AAC.
Ding, who withdrew from Arizona State before the fall after playing the spring with the Sun Devils, is No. 1 in the Global Amateur Pathway ranking, which rewards the top non-collegiate amateur every year with a DP World Tour card. To be eligible, a player must “not be a current NCAA Division-I player” and “be at least 20 years of age by the end of the calendar year.” Ding turns 20 in November.
The winner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur gets an exemption into the two major championship, with the caveat the player remains an amateur. However, Ding sounds confident he will find his way to both Augusta National and golf’s oldest major in due time.
“No matter what, I’m amateur or pro, I will still play the Masters and The Open. So if I can, I can make it later,” he said.
Last year, Ding fell in a playoff to Jasper Stubbs at Royal Melbourne to lose the Asia-Pacific Amateur. This time around, in what could be his final event as an amateur, he picked up his latest signature win and proved his worth of the professional opportunities waiting for him.
He was asked whether there would be any regrets to passing on the exemptions, to which he answered: “A person can have a lot of regrets. When I was 14, I won the amateur event in China for three years, and every time you win, you got the Volvo China Open. But the call didn’t come. So it’s hard.”
Only time will tell if and when Ding will tee it up in the major championships.
The year 1974 was a great one for Gary Player in the major championships.
The year 1974 was a great one for Gary Player in the major championships.
He won the Masters and Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. He also placed seventh at the PGA Championship and tied for eighth at the U.S. Open. It was the only time the nine-time major champion career won two majors in the same year.
And 50 years after his victory in the United Kingdom, his replica Claret Jug has sold for nearly half a million dollars.
Golden Age Golf Auctions posted the trophy on July 18 with a starting bid of $5,000. Twenty-nine bids and 11 days later, it has sold for $481,068.
The website stated the Claret Jug is a 90 percent scale of the real Claret Jug that every Champion Golfer of the Year gets to parade around for a year. It is the first time one has been sold by the website, which has also a Tiger Woods backup putter and other golf memorabilia.
Player’s victory in the’74 Open was memorable because he led wire-to-wire and won by four shots. It was his third Open title and eighth major victory.
The silver Claret Jug, which Schauffele will have custody of for one year, is even sweeter to Stefan.
TROON, Scotland – Xander Schauffele drank whiskey out of the Wanamaker Trophy after his victory at the PGA Championship in May. What will he drink out of the Claret Jug after winning the 152nd British Open? He said he’d leave that up to his father, Stefan.
“I’m just curious to see what my dad is going to pick as a first drink to drink out of this,” Xander said at his winner’s press conference on Sunday after shooting 6-under 65 to win by two strokes over Justin Rose and Billy Horschel. “He’s going to have to figure out what he wants to put in there because he’s taking the first gulp out of it.”
“Red wine,” he said. “We’re trying to find good wine. It’s a Claret Jug, no beer, that’s sacrilege. I’d rather put cider in it.”
Xander, for his part, noted that he rarely drinks alcohol but he’ll be making an exception to celebrate winning his second major championship in nine weeks.
“I don’t really get to celebrate too many things ever. This game is cruel at times,” he said. “So I have my whole family and most of my team here.”
Schauffele’s father, who was in Hawaii when his son won the PGA, said he took part in enjoying the Wanamaker Trophy and has it in his possession.
Xander Schauffele captures his SECOND major of the year! 🏆🔥
Take a look at the Open Championship host courses through 2026.
The 152nd British Open has come and gone, with Xander Schauffele coming out on top for his second career major at Royal Troon’s Old Course, the q10th time the venue hosted the oldest major in golf.
The R&A, which runs the Open, calls the tournament “nature’s test of character”, stating on its website:
“Links golf is nature in all its unforgiving force – and The Open is where nature is pitted against the very best of the very best. It’s where champions must set aside what came before. Alone, skill and years of diligent preparation are not enough.”
Unlike the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, which have a multitude of future sites announced, the Open has just two.
Take a look at the next two Open Championship host venues.
The lid is off now and Schauffele is going to try to keep stacking majors.
TROON, Scotland – After Xander Schauffele won his first major championship at the PGA Championship in May and finished all of his media obligations, he and his caddie and wife and some close friends retired to their rental house to celebrate. Nothing was open at that hour so they found two bottles of whiskey and nearly polished them off between the six of them.
“It was a rough next morning,” Schauffele’s caddie Austin Kaiser said. “But we’re having drinks afterwards and one of our buddies is like, ‘You feel lighter?’ And he smiled. He was like, ‘Yeah, I do,’ ” Kaiser recalled Schauffele saying.
Victory at Valhalla removed the proverbial monkey from his back. No longer stuck with the label of being the best golfer never to win a major, Schauffele said he felt relief. At the 152nd British Open, Schauffele doubled his pleasure and validated his major moment, shooting 6-under 65 in the final round at Royal Troon Golf Club on Sunday to win the Claret Jug by two strokes over Justin Rose and Billy Horschel.
“I mean, it’s a dream come true to win two majors in one year. It took me forever just to win one, and to have two now is something else,” Schauffele said.
In doing so, he became the first player since Brooks Koepka in 2018 to win two majors in a season. Schauffele carded four birdies on the final nine to turn a taut competition in which any of seven golfers seemed capable of hoisting the trophy to sucking all the drama out of the closing stretch and claiming his ninth career PGA Tour title with a 72-hole total of 9-under 275.
“Best round I’ve ever played,” said Schauffele, whose score was the best round of the day by two strokes and one of only two bogey-free rounds on the day.
“Now that he’s won two, it’s all up from here,” Kaiser said. “I told him, we got the lid off. Let’s just stack’em.”
Kaiser and Schauffele, 30, both transferred to San Diego State at the same time in 2012 and Kaiser has been on his bag since he turned pro in 2015. Kaiser remembers their humble beginnings when they were playing mini-tour events on the Golden State Golf Tour and traveling together in Kaiser’s Honda Accord, staying in Candlewood Suites and cooking sausage and eggs on a hot plate.
Schauffele quickly proved to be a player of great promise but as he piled up 12 top-10 finishes and six top-5s in his first 27 major starts without a victory, questions emerged whether he was a closer. In 2018, Schauffele was tied for the lead heading into the final round of the 2018 British Open at Carnoustie Golf Links in Scotland but carded a 2-over 72 in the final round and lost to Italy’s Francesco Molinari by 2.
“There’s calmness and super-stressful moments when you’re trying to win a major championship. I felt them in the past, the ones I didn’t win, and I let them get to me,” Schauffele said. “Today I felt like I did a pretty good job of weathering the storm when I needed to.”
Xander Schauffele celebrates with his caddie Austin Kaiser on the 18th green at the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon. (Warren Little/Getty Images)
In tricky conditions all week that turned Troon into a survival of the fittest, Schauffele was a model of plodding consistency, shooting rounds of 67-72-69 before his final-round brilliance. Conditions turned nastiest on Saturday afternoon with wind whipping and rain falling, but Schauffele managed to card four birdies in his first 10 holes before giving back shots at Nos. 11 and 18 to join a six-way logjam in second place, one stroke back.
On Sunday, with a brisk southwesterly wind blowing off the Firth of Clyde and gray skies, Schauffele showed great patience, starting with five pars before he went on the attack.
With nine holes to go, South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence held the lead, which was all the more remarkable given that he started the weekend 10 strokes back before shooting 65 on Saturday, tying for the low round of the week. He played his way into the final group and surged into the lead at 7 under with four more birdies on the front nine. But the 27-year-old cooled off on the back nine, losing the lead with a bogey at No. 12. The four-time winner on the DP World Tour settled for his best career finish in a major, a solo fourth that earned him a spot in next year’s Masters.
The 43-year-old Rose was attempting to win his second major more than a decade after winning the 2013 U.S. Open. He had to go through final qualifying just to make the field and put up a valiant fight until he made bogey at No. 12. He closed with a birdie at the last and posted 4-under 67.
“I left it all out there,” Rose said. “I’m super proud of how I competed.”
Horschel, the 54-hole leader, pictured himself hoisting the Claret Jug before he went to bed but hit into a pot bunker off the tee at the third, found the sand at the famed Postage Par-3 eighth and short-sided himself at No. 10, leading to bogey each time.
“Ah, Billy, Billy, Billy, you’ve made three mistakes today,” he said to himself aloud as he headed to the 11th tee. “Let’s clean it up.”
He did, signing for 68, but birdies on the final three holes came too late. Still, his T-2 finish is his best result in 43 majors.
Callum Scott won the Silver Medal for the low amateur at the Open, the first Scot to win the award since 2018.
But it was Schauffele who outshined the field, picking apart Troon’s vaunted back nine with birdies at the 11th, 13th, 14th and 16th to seal the deal. Kaiser labeled the birdie at No. 11, the second-hardest hole of the day, as the turning point. That’s where Schauffele uncorked a drive that veered left and had Kaiser praying for a good break.
“Please cut, please cut or get a good ground kick,” he recalled thinking. “Luckily it did a little bit, I guess.”
Schauffele took advantage, planting a wedge inside 3 feet and knocking in the birdie putt — he was the only player in the field to make birdie there on Sunday — to climb to 6 under. He jarred a 16-foot birdie putt at 13 to reach 7 under and never relinquished the lead once Lawrence made bogey.
“Winning the first one helped me a lot today on the back nine,” Schauffele said. “I had some feeling of calmness come through. It was very helpful on what has been one of the hardest back nines I’ve ever played in a tournament.”
Xander Schauffele celebrates on the 18th green in celebration of victory at the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon. (Jack Gruber-USA TODAY Sports)
Until this season, Schauffele’s most notable title had been capturing a gold medal at the Olympics held in 2021 in Toyko. In May, he canned a 5-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to outlast Bryson DeChambeau and win the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. With Scottie Scheffler, who finished T-7 after shooting 72, winning the Masters in April and DeChambeau the U.S. Open last month, this marks the first time since 1982 that all four majors were won by Americans and the first time since Tiger Woods won consecutive Opens in 2006-07 that Americans went back-to-back in the Open Championship. (Brian Harman won in 2023.) Schauffele said he watched the highlights of the last time the Open was played here in 2016 as motivation and it proved effective.
“He’s obviously now learning that the winning is easy,” said Rose, who played alongside Schauffele on Sunday. “He’s got a lot of weapons out there. I think probably one of his most unappreciated ones is his mentality. He’s such a calm guy out there. I don’t know what he’s feeling, but he certainly makes it look very easy. He plays with a freedom, which kind of tells you as a competitor that he’s probably not feeling a ton of the bad stuff. He’s got a lot of runway ahead and a lot of exciting stuff ahead, I’m sure.”
Added Rose’s caddie Mark Fulcher: “When you see a round that good you take your hat off. He didn’t put a foot wrong. It was nice to be able to watch it and not have to buy a ticket because it was fantastic…You’d almost like him to be a bit of a wanker but he really couldn’t be nicer.”
In just a matter of nine weeks, Schauffele has flipped the narrative from being the nearly man who can’t close to being a serious contender for PGA Tour Player of the Year and bona fide Hall of Fame candidate. He possesses both the Wanamaker Trophy and the Claret Jug and earned the distinction of Champion Golfer of the Year. The lid is off and now Schauffele and Kaiser are going to try to keep stacking majors.
Moving Day at the 2024 British Open has come and gone and the top of the leaderboard at Royal Troon is loaded with star power.
After a third-round 2-under 69, Billy Horschel holds the outright lead at 4 under, his first 54-hole lead or co-lead in a major championship. There’s a pack of players one shot back of the Florida Gator, including Sam Burns, Xander Schauffele and Justin Rose.
Royal Troon is a par-71 golf course measuring 7,385 yards.
This week’s winner, on top of being crowned the Champion Golfer of the Year, will earn $3.1 million of the $17 million purse and 700 FedEx Cup points.
From tee times to TV and streaming information, here’s everything you need to know for the final round of the 2024 British Open at Royal Troon. All times listed ET.
Canter said he would be strictly playing the DP World Tour and honor its rules.
TROON, Scotland – Not even the rain that fell as he played the back nine at Royal Troon Golf Club could dampen the spirits of Laurie Canter after shooting 1-under 70 in the third round of the 152nd British Open. Canter smiled wide at the thought of earning a PGA Tour card through the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai standings.
“That would be awesome, wouldn’t it? To play on the PGA Tour is something I would love to do at some point,” he said.
Canter, a 34-year-old Englishman, is trying to do a first: go from LIV Golf to the DP World Tour and then earn a spot on the PGA Tour via a pathway opened for players last year to procure status on the PGA Tour with their play on the DP World Tour.
Before Canter could return to the DP World Tour, he had to pay his fines which he said LIV Golf took care of and totaled £725,000. How that money would be used, he didn’t know.
What Canter did next could be life-changing: he won the European Open in Germany and entered the week No. 13 in the DP World Tour Race to Dubai rankings. Ten PGA Tour cards are available to the highest-ranked players in the final Race to Dubai standings who don’t already hold Tour status for finishing in the top 125 of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The likes of Rory McIlroy, Robert MacIntyre, Ludvig Aberg, Adam Scott and Tommy Fleetwood therefore wouldn’t count in the top 10, meaning he’s currently eighth, though there is a long way to go.
But even if he were to earn his PGA Tour card, Canter said he’s been notified that even though he’s a non-member (and thus not suspended) he’s ineligible for PGA Tour competition for playing on LIV.
Canter was a founding member of LIV Golf and played on the Cleeks in 2022. But he lost his roster spot in 2023 and played as a reserve. He managed to compete in 11 of the 14 events and finished 44th in the standings. He lost out in a 3-for-2 playoff to join a team this season. Nevertheless, he played in the first two events this season at Mayakoba and Las Vegas, but has since returned to the DP World Tour.
“It’s been amazing to come back and play full time on the DP World Tour, and I’m thankful I can do that,” Canter said Saturday. “In that respect I’m one of the lucky ones, and I’ll just keep chasing it the rest of the year and hopefully try and finish as high up the list as I can.”
Canter said he would be strictly playing the DP World Tour and honor its rules.
“Once the arbitration business, it was like them the rules,” Canter said of the legal battle that allowed the Euro Tour to be able to suspend and fine LIV Golf players who featured in conflicting events without permission.
Canter’s victory at the European Open, his first on the DP World Tour, has him in position to earn a PGA Tour card much the way that MacIntyre and Matthieu Pavon played their way onto the American-based circuit and parlayed status into victories as rookies this season. But the PGA Tour has blocked LIV golfers from playing on the tour and hasn’t been clear in sharing what the path back might be. Asked if he knew if he would be allowed to play on the PGA Tour should he earn his card, Canter said he was sent an email detailing that his dream to compete there would be deferred and his start date on the Tour would be backdated from his last unauthorized start. The Tour confirmed that to be accurate.
“I would have to serve a year from the time of my final LIV event,” he said. “That would be a year after this year’s LIV Las Vegas (in February during Super Bowl weekend).”
“I thought it was absurd,” he added. “I’ve never played on the PGA Tour.”
But thanks to his win in Germany, Canter may have to serve a suspension for his LIV participation anyway. Still, a Tour card has never seemed more possible.
“It’s kind of slightly moved the goal posts for me,” he said of being in the mix for one of the 10 cards through the Strategic Alliance between the two tours. “I’ve got something to aim for, and that would be great, yeah.”
Canter has a unique perspective having played both LIV and DP World Tour and he said there is room for both.
“I like both formats. Can I say that? Are you allowed to say that these days, like you actually like both things? I really do,” he said. “I think the four-round, what we grew up watching, the kind of hearty cuts, and you see (Max) Homa’s reaction yesterday, that’s awesome. As a professional when I see that, I think that’s amazing, that something like that still happens in golf. That should always be the staple of the big tournaments.
“But I love the LIV stuff. I love the three rounds, and you’re bringing a kind of different energy. I think it has the potential to be so exciting for fans, especially if the team thing can keep picking up some momentum. I really think it could be cool. I’m firmly on the middle of the fence because I actually like both.”
TROON, Scotland – It used to be that if you asked Phil Mickelson a question, you were bound to get a lengthy answer of some sort. He loved to expound on a variety of topics and any time he was scheduled to speak to the press you wanted to be there to listen, uncapped pen at the ready knowing you could count on him to fill a notebook and provide snappy quotes and anecdotes that would jump off the page. In short, he was good copy.
But these days, ever since he went to LIV and really dating to the moment he got burned by some of what he believed to be off-the-record remarks being published, Mickelson has gone mute.
He rarely does pre-tournament press conferences anymore, even this week at the return to the site of his famous duel with Henrik Stenson in 2016 he was not one of the players to participate, and he declined to speak to the media after the first two rounds. But on Saturday, after posting a 1-over 72 in the third round of the 152nd British Open, Mickelson agreed to stop and field questions from the media.
He said he enjoyed the round and always loves coming to Troon, a place with fond memories despite coming up short in 2004 and 2016.
He detailed his adventures at the Postage Stamp, where he found The Coffin Bunker and had to contort his legs and aim away from the flag to extricate himself from a dreadful lie.
“That hole is one of the greats,” he said. “I’m trying to make par. I’m not trying to make two. If I make four, I’m not that upset. It’s a hole that you’ve seen it dismantle a bunch of opportunities for players to win, and you just don’t want to make the big number. Bogeys are fine there if it happens, but it’s just one of the great holes in the game.”
Asked to name where this week’s test ranked among the British Opens he’s played in, he said it was premature to say with another round to go. “I’ve played this course in all different winds, and it’s like playing the course for the first time,” he said. “Every time you get a different wind. It’s incredible. It’s just one of the best designs in the world.”
On the subject of his wearing joggers after losing a bet to YouTube star Grant Horvath, Mickelson waxed on and on about discovering the YouTube audience and over several follow-up questions blathered on about why a 54-year-old man would be wearing joggers again for Sunday’s final round.
“Out here where the wind is blowing and my pants are getting caught on the socks, whatever, they’re not. I really do like them,” he said.
But when the subject shifted to Tiger Woods and PGA Tour and LIV Mickelson suddenly became reticent. Asked if he conversed with Tiger on the range earlier this week when the two greats were set up next to each other, he said, “We said hi. Yeah, we said hi, but we were both preparing. It’s not like we’re going to sit there and chat. But we said hello, yeah.”
Could he and Tiger work out the golf world’s problems?
“I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see,” said Mickelson.
Two timeless competitors. 💪
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson warm up next to each other on the range at Royal Troon. pic.twitter.com/p67aAqb4yo
Asked what he would say if he’d been told a year ago that the PGA Tour-PIF negotiations hadn’t resulted in any changes or resolution yet, he said, “ Look, I don’t know about that stuff. I’m not involved. I’m not sitting in those rooms. I am enjoying where I’m at and what I’m doing and playing. I’ll let other people figure that stuff out. “
Another reporter wondered if Mickelson would prefer there to be peace in the pro golf ranks, “that everybody was happy about it?”
Mickelson paused and considered his words. A man who used to love to hear himself speak said simply, “You know, it would be great. It would be great.”
And with that Mickelson was done engaging, although it’s debatable whether he had ever started at all.
In the real estate world, the saying is, location, location, location!
TROON, Scotland – In the real estate world, the saying is, location, location, location!
For a golf fan, it doesn’t get much better than “Blackrock House,” a semi-detached house in the center of Royal Troon Golf Club, and it recently went on the market for the princely sum of £1.5 million.
Situated on Crosbie Road and with views of five holes of the course hosting its 10th British Open this week, the home has been put on the market this week by the children of David and Isabel Kelly, who lived there for the last four Opens at Troon, dating to Mark Calcavecchia’s playoff victory in 1989.
David died less than two years ago at age 91. Isabel died recently.
“This is a different Open for us because our mother has just passed away in the last month,” Andrew Kelly told The Associated Press.
The house, which appears on maps as early as 1878, when Troon was established as a six-hole course, is located between the second and 16th holes. It also offers views of the third, 17th and 18th tee.
“And seeing them teeing on the 18th as well,” Andrew Kelly said of the last tee, directly in front of the house. “It’s fantastic, you’re right here and you’ve got everything going on around you. You’re spoiled for choice, to be honest.”
Blackrock House is actually two semi-detached houses – 14 and 16 Crosbie Road, Troon. The Gregorys bought No. 16 in 2007 and the Kelly house that is for sale is next door at No. 14.
For sale signs from realtor Strutt and Parker have drawn much interest but no showings this week, thank you very much.
Blackrock House is situated between the 2nd and 16th holes at Royal Troon GC (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler said he noticed the property but that it didn’t stand out quite as much this week with corporate tents and oversized merchandise shop in the vicinity.
“If I came here six months from now when all the tents and all the build-out is gone, I think it would be a lot more unusual,” he said.
Troon doesn’t officially have another Open booked in the future just yet but expect an 11th edition to be held here on Scotland’s west coast somewhere between 8-12 years from now and for the next owner of Blackrock House, no tickets required.
