A long-drive competition? At the British Open? Diving into a quirky bit of history from Troon

TROON, Scotland — What if we told you that once ahead of the British Open at Troon, players took part in an official long-drive competition? There was prize money, a trophy, rules and the best players in the world.

It happened in 1923 and is chronicled in the book "The Breezy Links o'Troon," a history of the golf club written by R.A. Crampsey and published in 2001.

Rewind 101 years ago and Troon (the Royal title didn’t come until 1978) was hosting the Open Championship for the first time. Walter Hagen headlined the field as the defending champion, having won the claret jug for the first time at Royal St George's a year earlier.

At the time, players would play the opening two rounds on Thursday and the final two rounds on Friday. However, on the Wednesday in 1923, players were invited to take part in a long-drive event.

The rules of the competition were simple: Each player would get four drives. The aggregate distance of the best three would be the total in the competition. The drives were hit from the first hole of the adjacent Portland Course just east of the clubhouse.

Of the 68 players in the field, 59 took part in the pre-championship event. The winner received the Field Challenge Cup, and the player with the single longest drive got a £15 prize money payout.

So how far did they hit it? On that day, the wind was slightly at the players back as they stood on the tee near the 18th green. There is only one known image of the competition, shown here, with Walter Hagen teeing off with the Troon clubhouse and galleries of people in the background.

Roger Wethered won the title. He was the 1923 British Amateur champion and hit drives of 276, 264 and 268 yards for a winning total of 809 yards.

The runner-up, interestingly, was a 25-year-old Englishman named Arthur Havers. His longest drive finished 271 yards but his total of 788 saw him finish 20 yards behind Wethered. Havers, however, would lift a trophy of his own just steps from where the long drive competition took place, as he won The Open two days later. It would be the only major victory of Havers career.

As for the winner of the longest drive bonus, the £15 went to D.A. Curtis, who managed a drive of 278 yards. While that may not seem lengthy by modern standards, consider that 64 years later, in 1987, a player averaging 278 yards off the tee would rank inside the top five in driving distance on the PGA Tour. A substantial knock with a hickory club and gutta-percha balls.

Cyril Tolley, a two-time British Amateur Champion, was credited with the longest carry distance of the competition. One his four drives carried 264 yards. Famed American golfer Ted Ray was said to have carried his drives further "but did not finish on the course".

Tolley would return to Troon two years later for Open qualifying, where the club once again put on a long-drive competition. Tolley won the title that year “with a drive a few inches short of 300 yards.”

Sadly, the long-drive event was discontinued after the 1926 Open Championship, but this snapshot of 1923 competition lasts as a fascinating insight into the mentality and ability of the best golfers in the world more than 100 years ago.

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Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.

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