PBA Galleries

[32] pp. Illustrated from photographs including one of Bobby Jones (the “American Amateur” winner) and Walter Hagen; ads with figure drawings; course map plan. Provides results through the first round for 115 players. 6¾x4½, original saddle stitched pictorial wrappers, white paper printed in red and blue.

Rare official program for the first British Open Championship to be played at the historic Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s golf course in Lancashire. It was first held in 1860 at the Prestwick Golf Club. This 1926 tournament was won by Robert Tyre (”Bobby”) Jones, his first British Open win, and also making him the first player ever to capture the "Double," winning both the U.S. and British Open Championships in the same year. From 1923 to 1930 Bobby Jones captured an amazing 13 of 21 tournaments and won five of eight U.S. Amateur Championships, and finished second in another. He won one of the two British Amateurs he played in. In eleven of the last twelve open championships he entered, he finished no worse than second, winning seven times. Jones won the British Open two more times after 1926 (the following year at St. Andrews and in 1930 at Royal Liverpool as part of his historic Grand Slam – winning all four majors in a single year, which still has never been duplicated). The Open Championship is the oldest of the four major championships in men's golf. Each year the event is hosted by one of several prestigious golf clubs in Britain. The inaugural tournament was restricted to professionals only and attracted a field of eight, who played three rounds of Prestwick's twelve-hole course in a single day. Willie Park, Sr. won with a score of 174, beating the favorite, Old Tom Morris, by two strokes. The following year the tournament was opened to amateurs; eight of them joined ten professionals in the field. The last time The Open was held at Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s, it was won by the American David Duval in 2001.