Talk:1876 Open Championship

Second or third time Strath was runner up?

The statement in the article that "This was the third occasion (after 1870 and 1872) that Strath was runner-up in the Open Championship" is problematic. The main Davie Strath article (in both the main text and the infobox) states that his best Open performance was two second place finishes - in this year (1876) and in 1872. The article for the 1870 states that Strath finished third that year (as does the Strath article). The confusion is I suspect that in 1870 both Strath and Bob Kirk finished with a score of 161, which was the joint second best score after Young Tom Morris, who finished 12 strokes ahead of them. While today this would be classed as a joint second, at this time there were playoffs for all the prize money positions where they were tied. Thus Strath and Kirk played-off for the £4 second prize. Kirk won this play-off and the £4 prize and Strath one the the £2 given to the third-placed competitor. Thus officially Strath was third in 1870, and I think the statement should probably be changed as it is misleading and goes against the other articles.

Yes. This is a problematic situation. I've always taken the view that he was a runner-up in 1870. The playoff was to determine who took the second prize and who took third prize. Happened too in 1878. This is also interesting in that John Ball took his prize money despite being nominally an amateur (https://www.golf-monthly.co.uk/tour/open-championship/39-things-you-never-knew-about-royal-liverpool-and-the-open-29845). 1966 Masters Tournament may be the last major when this happened, not sure. Nigej (talk) 16:08, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks - I agree it is tricky situation, but I think it would be good if there could be a way found for their to be continuity between this and Strath's own article. Maybe "This was the third occasion (after 1870 - when Strath tied for second - and 1872)"? Dunarc (talk) 20:14, 23 August 2020 (UTC)