The same trophy that Robert T Jones Jnr won during his ‘Grand Slam’ year of 1930 took a similar battering in 1997. Newly crowned Open Champion, Tom Lehman, came home one evening to find his five-year old daughter Holly had accidentally bent it about 45 degrees at the base. A rapid visit to a local silversmith helped straighten it out but it was not the only adventure the famous trophy suffered that year.
Within weeks of his victory at Royal Lytham, the Claret Jug was a subject of a police investigation after a Minneapolis tavern owner reported it stolen. A 1.00 am phone call to Lehman’s home revealed that it had been taken on a bar crawl by a member of his management company following a charity dinner where it had been on display.
Not that it compared with the post Open celebrations enjoyed by 2012 winner, Darren Clarke. Barely stopping for sleep the popular Ulsterman admitted: “bending the Claret Jug back into shape with my bare hands after it kept being dropped on the floor."
Not that drinking a few “Buds” from the famous trophy is considered that outrageous these days. Each new champion has his own favourite celebratory drink – from Tiger Woods' Dom Perignon in 2000, to Darren Clarke’s whisky and Guinness in 2012. Add to the list Diet Coke (John Daly, 1995) and Rum and Blackcurrant (Ernie Els, 2002) and the only liquid that has rarely been drunk from the Claret Jug is claret.
Yet even the most celebratory of winners would baulk at the idea of tangy barbecue sauce which is what Stewart Cink poured into it during a Fourth of July Celebration in 2009. “It made a great condiment holder,” said Cink. “Then I noticed that some of it was still in the Jug when I was about to hand it back in 2010. That was some panic as we scrubbed it hard to get it all out. It was the claret jug after all…”
No doubt 14 decades of claret jug history would agree with him ...
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