Prince’s: Sarazen’s Open and a changing links

One Open, several different courses

Prince's occupies an unusual position among Open venues. It has hosted the championship only once, yet its connection with top-level golf did not end with Gene Sarazen's victory in 1932. The Kent links has been rebuilt after wartime damage, developed into three nine-hole circuits and repeatedly used for important amateur competitions and Open qualifying. Its history is therefore best understood as a succession of reinventions, each responding to a different need.

The setting beside Royal St George's can make it tempting to treat Prince's as an appendix to its neighbour. Its own record deserves a separate reading. A new Edwardian club, an American champion with an influential piece of equipment, a post-war reconstruction and a developing international amateur programme all belong to this ground. The current course is not simply the 1932 layout preserved intact. That distinction makes the surviving features more interesting: they connect different arrangements of the same coastal landscape.

An Edwardian foundation with a family ambition

Sir Harry Mallaby-Deeley and Percy Montagu Lucas supplied much of the capital for the project, with land provided by the Earl of Guilford. Charles Hutchings, the 1902 Amateur champion, worked with Lucas on the original course. The layout was completed late in 1906, and former prime minister A. J. Balfour struck the first ball in the Founder's Vase competition the following June. The club's origins account describes an ambition to welcome women, juniors and families as well as established male golfers.

That aspiration should be read in its Edwardian setting rather than assumed to mean modern equality. Nevertheless, it gives the club a foundation story broader than a single men's championship. Prince's was created during a period of changing equipment and expanding interest in golf. A substantial new links offered scope to accommodate those developments. Its early identity was built around what a new course could provide, rather than the inherited authority of an ancient club.

Women's golf before the famous Open

Women's competition formed part of the club's early programme. The English Ladies championship came to Prince's in 1912, and Joyce Wethered won an important women's event here in 1922. Later tournaments included the Women's Amateur and the Curtis Cup. The club's women's golf history records that long association, although historical event names need care: an English championship, the Women's Amateur and the modern professional Women's Open are separate competitions.

This distinction is especially useful at Prince's, where a quick list of loosely described 'British Ladies' events can make the record seem simpler than it is. A course's importance does not depend on treating all those competitions as interchangeable majors. Their variety is the point. They brought different formats, players and organisations to the links, helping establish a tournament identity well before Sarazen arrived and sustaining it after the club ceased to be an active Open host.

1932: qualifying across two neighbouring links

The Open came to Prince's in June 1932. Qualifying took place on the Monday and Tuesday, with competitors playing a round at Prince's and another at Royal St George's. The championship itself occupied the following three days, including two rounds on Friday. That schedule helps explain both the intensity of the week and the relationship between the neighbouring courses. The eventual champion had to negotiate more than the four rounds printed at the top of the results table.

The club's detailed 1932 record notes that five-time champion James Braid failed to qualify. Sarazen arrived with a different unfinished ambition: despite major victories in the United States, he had not won The Open. He had previously finished second and third, making Prince's an opportunity to complete a long pursuit rather than the sudden appearance of an unknown contender. The field linked several generations of professional golf, from Braid's qualifying attempt to players who would shape the later 1930 s.

Sarazen leads from beginning to end

Sarazen opened with 70 and followed it with 69. A third-round 70 left him four ahead of Arthur Havers, whose 68 had moved him into the closest pursuing position. Sarazen's final 74 produced 283. Havers could not repeat his morning scoring, finishing with 76, while Macdonald Smith closed strongly enough to take second on 288. Sarazen's winning margin was five strokes.

The official championship archive records that he led outright after every round. The numerical sequence shows how he controlled the event without needing the lowest score on the final afternoon. His first three rounds had created room for a less spectacular finish. A total of 283 also established a new championship scoring record. Prince's consequently occupies a significant place in Open history despite having only one entry on the host rota: its sole championship produced an emphatic winner and a measurable step forward in scoring.

The sand wedge and the limits of an invention story

Sarazen's equipment gives the 1932 championship an additional legacy. His sand wedge is inseparable from accounts of the victory and the development of the modern bunker club. The Open's historical journey describes the role of the new club at Prince's, while the USGA's equipment context credits Sarazen with popularising the sand wedge in the early 1930 s. 'Popularising' is a useful word when a longer history of experimental sand clubs lies behind the familiar anecdote.

The significance is not that technology removed the challenge of links bunkers. Sarazen still had to choose shots, control distance and make the rest of his score. Rather, an elite player demonstrated the value of a specialised tool on a highly visible stage. Prince's became part of an equipment story that reached far beyond Kent. The championship can therefore be read both as a contest won by five strokes and as a moment when a practical solution became closely associated with major success.

War interrupts the original course

The links were used for military purposes during both world wars. The second interruption was particularly destructive: the ground became a training area, and the original course suffered extensive damage. By the time golf could return, restoration meant substantially more than cutting rough and reopening old tees. The land's immediate wartime function had displaced its sporting use.

Prince's emerged from that disruption through a major rebuilding project. Sir Aynsley Bridgland supported the recovery, and Sir Guy Campbell and John Morrison were engaged in 1950. Their solution incorporated seventeen original greens into a new arrangement of twenty-seven holes. The regional account of the architecture cross-checks the club's reconstruction history. Reusing greens preserved a physical connection with the earlier course without pretending that the original routing could simply be resumed. The resulting Shore, Dunes and Himalayas nines gave the club a more flexible framework for everyday and tournament golf.

Competition returns to the rebuilt links

Bobby Locke won the Dunlop Masters at Prince's in 1954, an early demonstration that the reconstructed course could again stage substantial professional golf. The Curtis Cup followed in 1956, bringing leading women amateurs from both sides of the Atlantic. These events tested the new setting through different kinds of competition. A stroke-play professional tournament and an international team match asked different questions of players and organisers, giving the post-war course a record of its own. The club's tournament history places that recovery within a broader programme that later included the PGA Championship. The rebuilt links were a functioning championship venue, rather than simply a memorial to the course lost during the war.

Finding the 1932 connection on today's Shore

The sixth green on the Shore nine is the green where Sarazen completed his Open victory. The club's Shore description identifies that surviving link, an especially useful landmark when the rest of the routing has changed. It demonstrates why 'the same course' can be an imprecise phrase. The putting surface connects the modern round with 1932, even though its place within today's sequence is different.

Such survivals make a historical round more rewarding when approached with a little preparation. Rather than trying to reconstruct the entire championship from memory, look for the relationship between old features and new directions of play. Architecture is not only the construction of hazards; it is also the order in which golfers encounter them. Prince's post-war story shows how extensively that order can change while some of the most meaningful ground remains in use.

The modern transformation of the three nines

More recent work by Mackenzie & Ebert has changed the appearance and strategic variety of Prince's again. The reimagined Himalayas opened in 2018, introducing new holes and a stronger relationship with the coastline. Golf Monthly's independent assessment describes that transformation, including the sea-facing short fifth. Further work across the property means that the modern links should not be judged solely through descriptions written before the redevelopment.

The club has also created the Laddie composite course, selecting eighteen holes from all three nines. It takes its name from P. B. 'Laddie' Lucas, whose family connection to Prince's and later amateur career form another strand of the club's identity. A composite arrangement uses existing golf in a new sequence rather than adding a separate eighteen-hole estate. That is consistent with Prince's longer pattern: important changes have repeatedly come from reconsidering how the available ground can be used.

Amateur championships and the next chapter

Prince's has co-hosted the Amateur Championship and staged the Women's Amateur outright. In 2023 Germany's Chiara Horder beat Annabelle Pancake 7&6 in the Women's Amateur final, a result recorded in the R&A's official results. Its tournament role has also included Final Qualifying for The Open. These are substantial competitive responsibilities, distinct from hosting the championship itself.

The R&A has announced that Prince's will host the Walker Cup in 2030. The official host announcement places its recent redevelopment alongside its history of elite amateur golf. That future appointment gives the course's story a useful shape. Sarazen remains the defining Open champion, but he is not the endpoint. From Edwardian ambitions to reconstruction and modern championship preparation, Prince's has repeatedly adapted while retaining enough of its earlier ground and identity to make the changes legible.

Championships hosted

Championships at Prince’s appear below, bringing together the competitions covered in this History section. Qualifying courses are included.

Sources and useful official links

• Confirmed: origins account
• Confirmed: women's golf history
• Confirmed: club's detailed 1932 record
• Confirmed: official championship archive
• Confirmed: historical journey
• Confirmed: USGA's equipment context
• Confirmed: regional account of the architecture
• Confirmed: club's tournament history
• Confirmed: Shore description
• Reported: Golf Monthly's independent assessment
• Confirmed: the Laddie composite course
• Confirmed: R&A's official results
• Confirmed: official host announcement

Useful reading for your visit

• The Open 2027 St Andrews: Tickets & Hotels
• Where to stay for the AIG Women’s Open at Sandwich
• Golf history, where it happened

Visit today

• Royal St George's visitor guide
• The Open 2027 at St Andrews
• Where to stay for the AIG Women’s Open at Sandwich

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