The Story of the Claret Jug

The Claret Jug, or to use its proper name, The Golf Champion Trophy, is presented to each year’s winner of The Open Championship. Yet it is not the original prize. When the Championship began at Prestwick in 1860, the winner was presented with the Challenge Belt, made of rich morocco leather, embellished with a silver buckle and emblems.

According to the first rule of the new golf competition: “The party winning the belt shall always leave the belt with the treasurer of the club until he produces a guarantee to the satisfaction of the above committee that the belt shall be safely kept and laid on the table at the next meeting to compete for it until it becomes the property of the winner by being won three times in succession.”

In 1870, just 10 years after The Open Championship began, Tom Morris Junior won for the third consecutive time and became the owner of the belt.

Agreement was reached on September 11, 1872 between the three clubs that were to host The Open — Prestwick, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and The Royal and Ancient Golf Club that the winner would receive a medal and that each of the three clubs would contribute £10 towards the cost of a new trophy, which was to be a silver claret jug, instead of another belt. Its proper name was to be The Golf Champion Trophy.

The Golf Champion Trophy
The Golf Champion Trophy, now commonly referred to as the Claret Jug, was made by Mackay Cunningham & Company of Edinburgh and was hallmarked 1873. The first Open Champion to receive the new trophy was the 1873 winner, Tom Kidd, but Tom Morris Junior’s name was the first to be engraved on it as the 1872 winner.

In 1920 all responsibility for The Open Championship was handed over to The Royal and Ancient Golf Club. Following the 1927 Open, which was won at St Andrews by Bobby Jones, the club’s Championship Committee took the decision to retain the Claret Jug in future years and to present the winner with a replica.

In 1990 a further replica was made for display in the new British Golf Museum at St Andrews and in 2000 a third was made for use in travelling exhibitions, and a fourth was created in 2003 for the same purpose.

The original Golf Champion Trophy is on permanent display in The Royal and Ancient Golf Clubhouse. It sits alongside the original first prize, the Challenge Belt, which was donated to the club in 1908 by the grandchildren of Tom Morris Senior.

More info... 

With thanks to the R&A for providing us with this information.