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The 153rd Open
12 November 2024
1951
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What was happening when Royal Portrush first hosted The Open?
When Max Faulkner lifted the Claret Jug at Royal Portrush in July 1951, society was still reeling from the effects of World War II, Nat ‘King’ Cole was number one in the charts and the first computer was still being developed.
As you would expect, the world was remarkably different in 1951 from what it is today. The first-ever organ transplant was still three years away, Martin Luther King delivered his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech more than a decade later, while the first moon landing wouldn’t take place for another 18 years.
But The Open broke new ground in 1951, with the Championship being staged outside of Scotland and England for the very first time.
With the Claret Jug set to return to the County Antrim coast in 2025 for just the third time, we take a look at what golf – and the wider world – looked like during its very first trip to the Emerald Isle.
Golfers born in 1951:
The American [above] won The Open at Royal St George's in 1981, on what was just his second appearance in the Championship. Rogers followed a second-round 66 with a 67 to lead by five at the start of the final round. Bernhard Langer closed to within one but three birdies in four holes from the ninth put Rogers comfortably ahead again. He won by four from Langer and by seven from Ray Floyd and Mark James.
Fuzzy Zoeller
Two-time major winner Frank Urban ‘Fuzzy’ Zoeller remains the last Masters debutant (and one of only three) to win the Green Jacket, in 1979. He also won the US Open in 1984.
Pat Bradley
Born in Massachusetts, Bradley joined the LPGA Tour in 1974 and would go on to win 31 events, including six majors. She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1991 and her nephew Keegan will captain Team USA at the Ryder Cup in 2025.
Other notable births in 1951:
Robin Williams [above]
Michael Keaton
Sting
Bob Geldof
Luther Vandross
Kurt Russell
Mark Hamill
Lynda Carter [top, as Wonder Woman]
Tommy Hilfiger
Sporting events:
Football
Tottenham Hotspur [above] were the champions of England, while Newcastle United lifted the FA Cup. Hibernian were the champions of Scotland.
American Football
Los Angeles Rams won the NFL Championship game, the precursor to the Super Bowl. The first Super Bowl took place in 1967.
Basketball
Rochester Royals won the NBA Championship. The NBA was still in its infancy after the Basketball Association of America merged with the National Basketball League just two years earlier.
Baseball
The New York Yankees won the World Series, their third straight title and 14th overall.
Tennis
Dick Savitt became just the second American to win Wimbledon and the Australian Open in the same year.
Horse Racing
The first sporting event to be telecast in colour was a horse race on CBS, on 14 July.
World events:
12 March: Dennis the Menace first appeared in Beano, a British comic magazine.
29 March: All About Eve won Best Motion Picture at the 23rd Academy Awards. All About Eve remains the only film in Oscar history to receive four female acting nominations (Bette Davis and Anne Baxter as Best Actress, Celeste Holm and Thelma Ritter as Best Supporting Actress).
5 April: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for their roles in passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
3 May: Royal Festival Hall is opened by King George VI in London.
5 May: Two-time PGA Champion Leo Diegel dies.
28 May: The Goon Show, a radio programme created by Spike Milligan, first airs on the BBC.
14 June: UNIVAC I, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer – produced by John W. Mauchly and his former student J. Presper Eckert – goes into service.
16 July: The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, is published. The book, about a teenager disillusioned with the world, has been taught in schools worldwide ever since.
28 July: Walt Disney’s Alice In Wonderland is released.
4 September: US President Harry S. Truman’s [above] opening speech at a conference in San Francisco is broadcast across the country, marking the first time a television programme was broadcast from coast to coast.
26 October: Winston Churchill was re-elected as Prime Minister of the UK, a month before his 77th birthday.
31 October: The first zebra crossing was introduced on Slough High Street in the UK.
