British Open: Ranking the 25 most dominant performances of all time

The British Open has seen some of the most impressive golf of all time. With 160 years of history, there are plenty of exceptional performances to choose from.

The British Open Championship, more formally (and correctly, depending on who you ask) known as simply The Open, is the world’s oldest ongoing golf championship. It was established in 1860, and from the start it produced some incredible surprises.

Willie Park Sr., from Musselburgh, Scotland, prevailed in that first event over a field of eight players at Prestwick, among them Old Tom Morris, the prohibitive favorite. Old Tom got this revenge, beating Park in 1861 and again in 1862. Those were two of his eventual four victories.

The Morrises and the Parks were the two great golfing families of the era; in fact a member of one of those families won 13 of the first 15 Opens contested through 1875.

In time, of course, new generations emerged and they, too, produced dominant showings. Between 1894 and 1914, three players – Harry Vardon, James Braid and John Taylor – combined to win 16 of the 21 championships.

Led by Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen, Americans took over in the 1920s. Between 1921 and 1933, American natives or immigrants won all dozen tournaments, shutting out the rest of the world. When Arnold Palmer crossed the ocean to play in the 1960 event, it shot the British Open to new worldwide levels of popularity.

This essay is about the most dominant performances in the history of the world’s most prestigious golf tournament. The ratings are objective, based on the standard deviation of the player’s performance compared with all players who completed four rounds of play.

The list illustrates that the Open has produced dominant performances in all eras. Champions from nine different decades are represented, with only one decade – the 1970s – producing as many as five entries.

Here’s the full list, beginning with a champion who dominated more than a century ago.