STEPPING BACK IN TIME

Fergus Bisset travels to Prestwick to play the original 12-hole Open course, laid out to celebrate the 150th running of the event, with hickories...

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As a golf journalist of nearly 20 years, I hadn't played a round using hickory-shafted clubs until October. Opportunities had arisen, but for one reason or another (maybe because of my innate fear of making a fool of myself) I hadn't done it. Prestwick Golf Club, over the original 12-hole course on which the first Open was contested in 1860, seemed a pretty good (if exacting) place to make my hickory debut. When I received an invitation to do just that, I jumped at the chance.

This year saw the playing of the 150th Open Championship over the Old Course in St Andrews. It may have been 162 years since the first Open was played at Prestwick in 1860, but a couple of missed years in the early days, the World Wars and Covid meant it took a little more time to get to 150.

The plan at Prestwick

Prestwick Golf Club was keen to mark the occasion of the 150th Open, but it wanted to ensure its celebrations didn’t clash with the main competition in July. The solution was to run its events at the time of year the original Open was contested – that first one was arranged around the Prestwick Golf Club autumn meeting of October 1860.

Prestwick’s celebrations centred around the recreation of the original, Old Tom Morrisdesigned 12-hole course that was in play from the inception of the club in 1851 until 1882. Some 15 early Opens were decided over that layout.