The European Open is a 72-hole stroke play men’s professional tournament on the European Tour which dates back to 1978. Thirteen of the first seventeen editions were held at either Walton Heath or Sunningdale in England before the event moved outwith the United Kingdom.

The inaugural contest at Walton Heath was won by Bobby Wadkins in a play-off against Gil Morgan and Bernard Gallagher, with the American birdieing the first extra hole played. Another golfer from the United States, Tom Kite, claimed the title at the same venue two years later, when his aggregate total of 184 was enough to secure victory by one shot from his closest rivals.

There were further non-European winners in those early years, including Australians Graham Marsh (1981), Greg Norman (1986), Peter Senior (1990) and Mike Harwood (1991). Isao Aoki also captured his only European Tour win at Sunningdale in 1983, edging out three others, one of whom was Seve Ballesteros.

Seve never did win the European Open, coming second in three out of four years starting in 1981. Ironically, in the year when he didn’t feature in 1982, the event was won by Manuel Piñero, who remains the only Spanish player to have lifted the trophy since it was first contested.

In 1995, the championship took up a new long-term residency at the K Club in Ireland (becoming the Smurfit European Open) with Bernard Langer winning his second Open ten years after he’d won his first. Per-Ulrik Johansson and Lee Westwood then successfully retained the title they’d won the previous year (in 1997 and 2000, respectively) before home favourite Darren Clarke triumphed in 2001 with a three stoke winning margin.

The tournament returned to England in 2008 at the London Club but sadly it only lasted for two years on the Jack Nicklaus-designed Heritage course before entering a five year period of hibernation. When it re-appeared, the competition was staged in continental Europe for the first time, at the Hartl resort in Bad Griesbach, Germany.

Thongchai Jaidee from Thailand won the 2015 edition on the flagship Beckenbauer course and he was followed onto the winner’s podium twelve months later by Frenchman Alexander Lévy, who overcame Ross Fisher in a playoff with a birdie on the second extra hole – amazingly, a year later, after the Open headed 800 kilometres north to the Green Eagle Golf Courses outside Hamburg, Lévy lost to Jordan Smith from England in the exact same manner.

The K Club has hosted the European Open on 13 occasions, with Sunningdale staging the event 8 times and Walton Heath 5 times. You won't find the North course at Green Eagle below as it’s not currently ranked in our German listings.