1924 Open Championship

The 1924 Open Championship was the 59th Open Championship, held 26–27 June at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England. Walter Hagen won the second of his four Open Championships, one stroke ahead of runner-up Ernest Whitcombe. It was the fifth of Hagen's eleven major championships. Two years earlier in 1922, he became the Open's first winner born in the United States.

Contents

• First day leaderboard
• Final leaderboard
• References

Qualifying took place on 23–24 June. Entries played 18 holes at Royal Liverpool and 18 holes at Formby. The top 80 and ties qualified. The qualifying score was 158 and 86 players qualified. J.H. Taylor led the qualifiers on 142. Walter Hagen took 83 on the first day at Hoylake and was in some danger of not qualifying but after a 73 at Formby he made it safely through.

Cyril Tolley, the 1920 British Amateur champion, took the first round lead with a 73, but his 82 in the second round dropped him out of contention. Meanwhile, Whitcombe carded a 70 after a first round 77 to take a two-stroke lead over five-time champion John Henry Taylor. Hagen and Macdonald Smith were in third place, three behind. Hagen and Whitcombe shared the lead after three rounds due to Hagen's third-round 74 to Whitcombe's 77, while George Duncan, Frank Ball, and Smith were three back. In the final round, Duncan finished at 308 while Ball and Smith both finished on 304, which left Hagen and Whitcombe to battle for the title. Whitcombe shot 43 on the front-nine but responded with a 35 on the back to post 302. Hagen also shot 43 on the front but played his trademark brand of golf on the back. He sliced his second shot on the 12th and his approach shot found a bunker on the 13th, but both times recovered with a pitch and a putt. Hagen needed a 6-footer on the final hole to win and sank the downhill putt to post 301 for a one stroke victory. Had the putt not dropped, a 36-hole playoff was in order for Saturday.

Smith was three strokes back in a tie for third place, one of twelve times he finished in the top-5 of a major championship without a victory. Taylor finished in fifth at the age of 53, thirty years after his first Open title. Gene Sarazen, age 22, played in his first British Open this year and placed 41st. He won the championship in 1932 and played in the Open until 1976.