As I watch this year's Open Championship, I can't help but think back to my time at Prestwick Golf Club, the site of the first Open Championship in 1860.

Prestwick hosted twenty-four Open Championships, including the first twelve. But for me, its importance goes beyond those numbers.

When I was researching THE OPEN, I spent countless hours reading about the people, places, and events that shaped the early history of golf. Prestwick was one of those places I kept coming back to.

Eventually, I had the opportunity to stand on that historic ground myself.

There is something different about researching a place from a distance and actually being there.

 

The Birthplace of The Open

When the first Open Championship was contested on October 17, 1860, golf was still in its formative years.

Prestwick was nothing like the championship courses we know today. It was a rugged stretch of natural coastal links, with towering dunes, rolling fairways, deep natural bunkers, and blind shots that demanded both skill and imagination.

The course wasn't manufactured into existence.

It was shaped by the landscape.

Prestwick Golf Club was founded in 1851 under the leadership of Major James Ogilvy Fairlie, a passionate golfer and R&A member who envisioned a championship-caliber course on Scotland's west coast. To bring that vision to life, he recruited Tom Morris, who was thirty years old at the time.

Morris served not only as the course designer but also as its greenkeeper, clubmaker, and Prestwick's first professional. His influence on the development of golf would extend far beyond Prestwick.

Rather than reshape the landscape, Morris allowed the natural contours of the seaside links to dictate the routing of each hole.

Prestwick demonstrated that a great golf course could emerge from the natural character of the land rather than being imposed upon it.

 

Twelve Holes and a Championship

The original Prestwick course occupied about fifty acres of coastal links just west of the town of Prestwick, near the railway station.

The sandy ground had long been used for grazing sheep and was considered unsuitable for much agricultural use.

For golf, however, it was ideal.

The club leased the property from twelve local freemen for an annual rent of six pounds before eventually acquiring ownership as membership expanded.

The original course consisted of twelve holes measuring 3,799 yards. Today, a twelve-hole course might seem impossibly small for a championship. But in 1860, the competitors played the course three times, completing thirty-six holes in a single day.

Fairways crossed one another. Players sometimes had to wait for other golfers to play their shots. Blind drives and approaches over enormous dunes were common. Golfers often had to aim at distant landmarks or rely on the guidance of their caddies.

The greens were closely grazed areas of turf. The bunkers were natural sand hollows. There was no irrigation, little earthmoving, and almost none of the artificial landscaping associated with modern championship golf.

The golfers played the land as they found it.

 

Willie Park and the First Open

The first Open Championship was organized following the death of Allan Robertson, who was widely regarded as Scotland's finest golfer.

Major James Ogilvy Fairlie wanted to establish an annual competition to determine the "Champion Golfer."

On October 17, 1860, eight professional golfers gathered at Prestwick for the first Open Championship.

Eight.

That was the entire field for the first Open Championship.

After thirty-six holes, Willie Park emerged as the winner with a score of 174. His prize was the Challenge Belt, purchased by Prestwick's members for £25.

It is fascinating to compare that first championship with The Open we know today.

There were no enormous galleries surrounding every hole. No television coverage. No worldwide audience watching every shot. Just eight professionals playing across a rugged twelve-hole links. Yet that small competition would eventually become one of the most important championships in all of sport.

 

Walking Through the History

One of the reasons I enjoyed researching THE OPEN so much is that history isn't simply about dates and statistics. It's about people and places, too.

When you stand at Prestwick, you can begin to imagine what the game must have looked like in 1860. You can picture the professionals walking across the dunes, carrying their clubs and playing a course that would be almost unrecognizable to today's golfers.

You begin to understand how much courage and imagination early golfers needed.

And you begin to appreciate how remarkable it was that these men were creating a championship tradition that would survive for generations.

Prestwick eventually expanded to eighteen holes in 1882 and hosted twenty-four Open Championships before leaving the Open rota after 1925.

But its greatest legacy isn't the number of championships it hosted.

It's that The Open began there.

 

From History to Historical Fiction

Researching Prestwick and the other historic places associated with golf became one of the great joys of writing THE OPEN.

The novel is historical fiction, but the foundation beneath the fiction is history—real people, real places, real events, and the world in which they lived.

That gave me an enormous amount to work with. I wasn't simply trying to tell readers what happened. I wanted them to feel what it might have been like to be there.

That meant researching the courses, the towns, the people, the equipment, the customs, and the world surrounding early golf.

And that is one of the great rewards of writing historical fiction.

You begin with history. Then you step inside it.

 

A Question for Golfers

As I watch The Open this year, I find myself wondering what it would have been like to tee it up at Prestwick in 1860. No modern clubs. No perfectly manicured fairways. No yardage books. No GPS. Just twelve holes carved into a rugged Scottish links, and the chance to become the first Champion Golfer.

So here's my question:

If you could choose, would you rather play the original twelve-hole Prestwick as it existed in 1860, or one of today's modern championship venues?

There is no wrong answer. But I'm pretty sure I know which round I'd remember for the rest of my life.