The Open Championship…The Best Major of Them All?

I am a prisoner of the moment when it comes to major championship golf. The week of each major I can think of many reasons why that major is the best one. This week is no different.

And Gary Van Sickle of Golf.com thinks the same way in his piece “10 Reasons the Open is the Best Major of Them All.”

I cannot disagree with number one: The Open Championship is golf’s greatest event because it’s the oldest and has the game’s greatest pedigree. Hell, it’s the granddaddy of all modern sporting events. It began more than a century before the first Super Bowl.

Number two is pretty good too: Nothing says “I am the champion of the world” like a glitzy winner’s belt. Seriously, what sight was cooler than Muhammad Ali wearing the big golden heavyweight boxing champion belt?

The Open Championship started that tradition. The Challenge Belt was awarded to the Open winner in the event’s first outing in 1860. The Belt was the only prize for which the original eight-man field competed.

Young Tom Morris retired the Belt—OK, he kept it—after he won the Open for a third straight time in 1870. That caused the next year’s Open to be cancelled for lack of a suitable prize. A silver medal was given in 1872 because the new trophy, the Claret Jug, wasn’t quite ready.

Number three puts the Claret Jug in its rightful place: Speaking of hardware, the Claret Jug is the best and most identifiable of golf’s major championship trophies. It’s also functional, as 2009 champ Stewart Cink showed after he won by tweeting a photo of it at breakfast filled with orange juice.

You might know the name of the PGA Championship trophy, the Wanamaker, but you couldn’t pick it out of a lineup of trophies. The Claret Jug has a shape so unique, its silhouette is used as the Open’s official logo.

He goes on with some very valid reasons the Open is tops but here is one of my own: Early morning golf. Living in the USA on the east coast we get the broadcast starting very early in the morning and crown the Champion Golfer of the Year around 2:00pm EST. That affords me the chance to have two or three breakfasts, a Guinness or two and then a celebratory round in the afternoon.

It doesn’t get any better than that. And that’s why the Open Championship is the best major of them all…for this week anyway.