Opens: 1894, 1899, 1904, 1911, 1922, 1928, 1934, 1938, 1949, 1981, 1985, 1993, 2003, 2011
Location: Sandwich, Kent, England

The first course outside Scotland to stage The Open Championship, Royal St George’s is set in a vast area of natural linksland on the Kent coast near to the ancient town of Sandwich. Founded in 1887 by Laidlaw Purves, an eminent Scottish consultant ophthalmologist at Guy’s Hospital in London, it played host to the Amateur Championship in 1892 and to The Open two years later, when J. H. Taylor was the winner with a four-round total of 326, the highest winning aggregate ever recorded in the Championship. Ten years later, Taylor proved that his mastery of the venue was no fluke when he shot 68 to become the first man to break 70 in The Open. That year, 1904, was a good one for scoring: the eventual winner, Jack White, finished on a total of 296, the first time that a winning score was under 300 since the Championship became a 72-hole event in 1892.

Sandwich at a glance

Course length (2003 Open) 7,106 yards, par 71 Great Moment Ben Curtis in 2003 becoming an unlikely Open Champion. Playing in the event for the first time, the world number 396 held off the world’s best golfers over the dramatic closing stretch. Club website www.royalstgeorges.com

Sandwich has its share of great champions, including Harry Vardon who won two of his Opens at the venue, in 1899 and 1911, and Walter Hagen who also triumphed in 1922 and 1928. In more recent years, the course has witnessed some dramatic finishes, most notably Greg Norman’s victory in 1993, when with Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer breathing down his neck he produced a near-flawless final round of 64 to win his second Open. Ten years later, the best players in the world once again locked swords over the last few holes, but this time it was Ben Curtis, playing in his first Open, who lifted the trophy.