Inaugurated in 1987, the Senior Open is now regarded as one of the five major championships in professional golf for players aged 50 and over. The competition is organised by the R&A as a 72-hole stroke play event over four days, with the field cut after the first two 18-hole rounds. The winner gains entry into the following year’s Open championship. Play-offs take place immediately after regulation play concludes in a sudden death, hole-by-hole format until a champion emerges.

Mark Wiebe from the United States beat Bernhard Langer from Germany in the 2013 play-off after both players had carded identical aggregate scores of 271 (9 under par) at Royal Birkdale. Play was suspended because of darkness after two holes of the playoff and both golfers returned the following morning to finish things off, with Wiebe prevailing after he parred the fifth extra hole.

The tournament got under way twenty-six years previously on the Ailsa course at Trump Turnberry in 1987, back in the days when it was called the Seniors’ British Open. Neil Coles, who had just won his third consecutive PGA Seniors title the previous month, overcame his nearest challenger Bob Charles by one stroke to lift the senior version of the Claret Jug trophy.

Knighted in 1999, Bob Charles would finish in the runner-up position at the Senior Open six times during his career but he also managed to win a couple of the events, at Turnberry in 1989 and Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1993.

Bernhard Langer has most victories (4), followed by Tom Watson and Gary Player, who each have three. Langer also holds the record margin of victory, achieved at Royal Porthcawl in 2013, when his 266 aggregate score was thirteen shots better than the next best competitor in the field.

Bob Charles, Gary Player and Tom Watson have all won both the Senior Open and the Open.

Even though more than half the host clubs have been of the Royal variety,Turnberry is where most Senior Opens have taken place (seven in all, between 1987 and 2012), followed by Royal Portrush with six (1995-2004) then Royal Lytham & St Annes with five (1991-2019). All told, only thirteen venues have been used so far to stage this annual contest.