The Open Championship

The Open began at Prestwick in 1860, decades before the modern men’s major canon existed. It was one of the leading championships in Bobby Jones’s 1930 Grand Slam, alongside two amateur championships, so its foundational place in golf history belongs to an older arrangement as well as today’s four-event one. ↘

Prestwick was the birthplace and sole early home of The Open; St Andrews and other links later expanded its geography. The recurring venue tradition now returns the Championship to established links while preserving Prestwick as a former venue central to the origin story. ↘

The field combines exemption categories with several qualification pathways that are reviewed for each edition. Those pathways include international tour events and final qualifying, preserving routes into the Championship beyond automatic exemption. The title is decided over four stroke-play rounds. ↘