How The Winner Was Decided

Jack Nicklaus triumphed in The Open For The Ages on Sunday, edging out Tiger Woods by one shot in a fascinating final-round battle.

Now that the result of this celebratory edition of The Open has been revealed, we can detail the process that led to the Golden Bear being crowned as a Champion once again.

The Open For The Ages used real archive footage to create a fictional Championship at St Andrews featuring the greatest players of the last 50 years. Yet before work could begin on piecing this innovative programme together, a winner of the event needed to be determined.

A model developed in partnership with NTT DATA, an Official Patron of The Open, analysed a combination of historical data sets, including metrics such as players’ overall career records and their performances at The Open.

A weighting was applied to results at St Andrews, the venue for The Open For The Ages, while statistics such as career wins and scoring averages, both in The Open and specifically at the Old Course, were also factored in.

This data was then combined with the results of a fan vote, which yielded over 10,000 responses via members of The One Club and social media.

Like any Open Championship, there were a number of potential winners, with heavy support in the fan vote for a number of players who featured in the final-round programme.

However, given his outstanding record – in majors, Open Championships and at St Andrews – Nicklaus was able to edge out the other star names at the top of the leaderboard.

In addition to winning two of his three Opens on the Old Course, Nicklaus was also the runner-up at St Andrews in 1964, while his tally of 18 majors remains unsurpassed.