THE winner of this year’s British Open golf tournament, which started on July 16th on the Old Course at St Andrews, will pocket £1.15m ($1.79m). Golf was not always so lavishly rewarded. The first time the Open was played at St Andrews, in 1873, the first prize was £11 (£1,079 in today’s money). There was no sponsorship, no TV (for obvious reasons) and only a handful of spectators braving the blustery Scottish weather. The prize money was a welcome windfall for the champion, a local caddy called Tom Kidd, but he still died poor 11 years later. He is thought to have sold his clubs and his champion’s medal to pay for booze.
It is not only the rewards that have improved. Because the Open has been played at St Andrews—the home of golf—more often than anywhere else, it is possible to measure what has happened to scores over a century and a half. They are vastly better today (see chart). Kidd took nearly 90 shots for each 18-hole round he played. Any competent modern amateur could do that. Louis Oosthuizen, the Open champion in 2010, averaged 68 shots a round, even though the course is now 7,305 yards, up from 6,577 in Kidd’s day....
from The Economist: International http://ift.tt/1Jka22s
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