The cavalcade will include Tiger Woods, the golfer who revolutionised the sport and created multi-millionaire tournament players; in the pre-Woods era only 10 golfers earned over $7m (€6-2m) — by 2017, over 150 golfers had minimum career earnings of $10m (€8.8m). It was all so different on the last occasion the championship was staged in Royal Portrush, in July 1951. Golf at the time was a sport played by rich men rather than a sport that enabled men to become incredibly rich.

The life of a professional golfer revolved around caring for the needs of these wealthy individuals and was dedicated to making their game better. Professional tournament golf was in its infancy, purses and audiences were tiny and the professional golfer in Britain and Ireland earned a living by selling and repairing clubs and giving lessons. Competitions were concluded on a Friday to enable the club professional return to his weekend club duties.

This was a time when the clubhouse was strictly off-limits to the club professional and caddies slept in sheds when they reported for tournament duty. A total prize fund of £1,700 (€1,889) was on offer for the 157 golfers from 14 countries including 36 from Ireland who competed and who played qualifying rounds on the Portrush and Portstewart courses on the Monday and Tuesday of the Open week.

Only three golfers from the USA answered the starter’s call, and none of the leading American golfers who entered travelled to Portrush or provided any indication that they were withdrawing. The fourth major, the USPGA Championship concluded on the Tuesday of Open week. A professional circuit was developing in the USA and with the complications associated with trans-Atlantic travel, the vagaries of the British weather and the paltry prize money involved competing in the Open wasn’t worth the effort.

Appreciation of the traditions and wonders of the great British golf links was at least a decade into the future. American golfers still operated on the principle espoused by Sam Snead, the winner of the first post-war Open in 1946 at St Andrews: “Anytime you leave the USA, you’re just camping out,” the legendary golfer from the backwoods of Virginia informed the newspaper men.

Frank Stranahan was the only high-profile American golfer in the field. A fitness fanatic (he is the one who introduced Gary Player to the importance of physical fitness to the golfer) and the world’s leading amateur player, he dipped into his family’s Champion Spark Plug fortune to play tournament golf all over the world. The money was rarely squandered and on this occasion, Stranahan finished as leading amateur.

The opening qualifying rounds played on Monday, July 3, saw new course records established at Portrush, where ‘a small quiet man’ Arthur Lees shot a 69, and at Portstewart, where Norman von Nida ‘a grim tight-lipped bundle of Australian whipcord’ and Tom Haliburton returned 68s.

Conditions were kinder on the second day and in the space of 30 minutes the course record at Portrush was equalled and reconfigured. Peter Allis, began the attack when he returned another 69.

Minutes later, defending champion Bobby Locke signed for a 67 and he was still greenside when Jack Hargreaves finished his day’s work with a 66. Course records weren’t the only source of excitement on the second day. An enterprising bookmaker accompanied by two clerks set up his stall on the edge of the 18th fairway before he was promptly escorted off the course by officials.

Argentinean player Antonio Cerda led the qualifiers with a combined score of 138 over the two courses and earned a prize of £9 (€10) for his efforts. The 98 players who scored 155 and better qualified for the championship proper and included 21 Irish golfers, five of whom were amateurs.

Fred Daly, the first Irish winner of the Open in 1947 made it safely through as did Harry Bradshaw, who lost out in a 1949 play-off to Bobby Locke for the title after he was involved in the famous ball in the bottle episode in the second round.

Norman von Nida’s form held and at the end of the first day’s play he shared the lead with Jimmy Adams with rounds of 68. Another Open debutant and future five-times champions Peter Thompson and Dai Rees were next on 70.

The wind and rain arrived on Thursday (July 5) and Fred Daly, playing in his home town and on a course where he began caddying as a nine-year-old, defied the elements and shot a superb 70 to become a contender. His aggregate total of 144 placed him in joint third three shots behind the leader at the halfway stage, Max Faulkner on 141, who held a two-stroke advantage over Norman Sutton.

An opening round of 80 looked to have ended Harry Bradshaw’s 1951 chances but he recovered well and he was amongst the 46 golfers who survived the half-way cut. John McKenna, JB Carr, Cecil Beamish, Christy O’Connor, and Christy Kane also and made it through to the final day. At the age of 26, Christy O’Connor, the greenkeeper-professional at Tuam Golf Club made his professional tournament debut at Royal Portrush.

O’Connor at the time augmented his earnings by travelling to clubs that didn’t have their own professional, such as Claremorris, Castlerea, Roscommon and Ballinasloe to give lessons. Tiger Woods, at the same age had 34 tournament victories to his credit including eight Major titles and had earned in excess of $32m (€28.4m) in prize money.

The members of the Tuam club collected £70 (€77.80) to finance Christy’s journey to Portrush. O’Connor served notice of his potential when he shot 32 on the back nine of his opening pre-qualifying round at Portstewart after an unimpressive front nine of 39. The opening round in the Open proper was even more nightmarish for O’Connor as a front nine of 45 tested his resilience to the last. He survived and returned in 34 for a respectable 79 in the circumstances. He eventually finished in 19th place and earned £19 (€21) for his efforts promoting The Irish Times to wonder if “Apart from the actual winner, did anyone earn more credit from the championship than young Christy O’Connor of Tuam?”

Fred Daly too emerged with his reputation enhanced as his fourth place completed a sequence of first, second and third place finishes since 1947.

The two final rounds were played on Friday July 6 and at the end of the third round Max Faulkner had stretched his lead to six shots and it is part of the folklore associated with the event that he signed autographs as the Open Champion prior to starting his final round. Faulkner held his nerve and a final round of 74 for a grand total of 285 secured the famous Claret Jug trophy and a first prize cheque of £300 (€333).

In the manner of a later day Payne Stewart, Faulkner brought flamboyance and colour to the golf world of the day. He played the final round ‘clad in screaming canary yellow pants and a blue and white horizontally striped shirt’ and told the assembled pressmen that he would ‘prefer to be at work on my farm or out fishing’.

Faulkner, a physical training instructor in the RAF during the war, was an unattached professional at the time of his victory and spent his time on his farm when he was not playing golf. Links golf is designed to torture the golfer and on this occassion Norman von Nida was the one who experienced a meltdown.

On the 11th hole in the final round, he ripped up his card after shooting a 43 on the front nine. “I’m completely whipped,” he told his playing partners and announced his retirement from the game. Peter Allis provides the enduring link with 1951 and the 2019 staging of the Open.

He made his Open debut in Royal Portrush where rounds of 79 and 80 saw him fail to make the half-way cut and a playing career that included 21 wins, eight Ryder Cup and 10 World Cup appearances was launched.

“And my total winnings were just under £30,000,” he told us last week in Lahinch.

The player who became the ‘Voice of Golf’ will provide his own inimitable commentary from the BBC studio one more time from Royal Portrush completing an extraordinary record of association with the tournament popularly known as the British Open.

Tom Hunt is an author and historian