The British Masters: a travelling championship

The story behind the championship

The British Masters began as the Dunlop Masters in 1946 and has been won by many of the central figures in British, Irish and European golf. Its story moves between famous links, inland clubs and modern resort venues, with Woburn and The Belfry providing two of its most recognisable homes.

An opening title shared at Stoneham

The first Dunlop Masters was held at Stoneham in Hampshire in 1946. Bobby Locke and Jimmy Adams shared the title. That joint result is the right starting point for a complete champions list: the tournament began with two champions, rather than a single winner decided by a play-off.

The small inaugural field belonged to a professional game rebuilding after the Second World War. The event soon established a pattern of moving between clubs, bringing a significant professional competition to different parts of Britain and, on two occasions in its early history, Ireland.

For modern readers, the original name helps make sense of the tournament's development. Sponsorship has changed, and the British Masters wording became its familiar identity, but the Dunlop Masters is part of the same history. Searching only for the current title can hide the early champions and the venues where they won.

A championship with a wide travel map

The early competition visited courses that now carry many different golfing associations. Sunningdale, Little Aston, St Andrews, Royal Liverpool, Wentworth and Prestwick all appear in the champions list. Portmarnock hosted editions in 1959 and 1965, before the later British Masters name became the usual shorthand.

This geography is one of the reasons the championship makes an engaging subject for a visitor guide. Its history does not lead to a single site. A favourite champion can send the reader towards an Open venue, a heathland course, a Midlands club or an Irish links.

The changing hosts also distinguish the British Masters from competitions associated with one permanent course. The tournament carried its reputation from venue to venue. A modern visit to one of those clubs may therefore reveal a British Masters chapter alongside a more familiar Open or Ryder Cup connection.

The accompanying table keeps each champion beside the relevant venue. That combination is especially important in the pre-tour years, when a list of names alone gives little sense of how widely the championship travelled.

Tony Jacklin's televised moment

Jacklin won the 1967 Dunlop Masters at Royal St George's. His closing 64 included a hole-in-one at the 16th, which the European Tour identifies as the first ace shown live on British television. The achievement connects a tournament victory with an important moment in how the public experienced golf.

It is a particularly good story to remember when visiting Sandwich. The hole exists within the longer history of Royal St George's, but its British Masters connection reaches beyond the championship's own roll of honour. A shot played in a non-major event became part of television golf's history.

The victory also came before Jacklin won The Open and the US Open. Looking at the British Masters chronologically therefore shows a player on the way towards his most famous achievements. The tournament was a significant competitive stage in its own right, as well as a place where future major champions made their names.

The first European Tour years

Bob Charles won the 1972 edition at Northumberland, placing the British Masters within the first European Tour season. Jacklin won at St Pierre in 1973. Bernard Gallacher followed there in 1974 and retained the title at Ganton in 1975.

Those successive Gallacher victories are a useful example of repeated success across different courses. A successful defence did not mean returning to exactly the same setting. The champion had to carry his form from one venue to another, preserving the travelling tradition of the tournament.

Baldovino Dassù won at St Pierre in 1976. The Tour's retrospective identifies that success as the first European Tour victory by an Italian player. Guy Hunt won at Lindrick in 1977, and Tommy Horton won at St Pierre in 1978.

The sequence places Welsh, English and Scottish golfing settings within one championship story. St Pierre's repeated appearances gave the event a sustained Welsh chapter even while other clubs continued to host it. The British Masters was becoming a regular part of the new tour without losing its earlier habit of moving.

Woburn becomes a defining home

Graham Marsh won at Woburn in 1979. Greg Norman won there in 1981, with a second British Masters title following at St Pierre in 1982. Ian Woosnam won at St Pierre in 1983, and the tournament was not held in 1984.

When it returned in 1985, Lee Trevino won at Woburn. The Tour's account of that edition recalls his closing eagle and identifies the start of ten consecutive British Masters championships at the club. The repeated setting helped Woburn become one of the event's defining venues.

A long stay at one club creates a different relationship with spectators. The same landscape can carry memories of several champions, and returning visitors can compare years through familiar holes. Woburn acquired that continuity while retaining the character of an established inland golf destination.

For a traveller, this period is worth separating from the tournament's earlier touring years. Woburn was not simply another host on a long list. The length and quality of its association gave it a lasting place in the championship's public identity.

Seve, Faldo and a generation of champions

Ballesteros won at Woburn in 1986 and again in 1991. Mark McNulty, Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo and Mark James won the intervening editions. Christy O'Connor Jnr won in 1992, Peter Baker in 1993 and Woosnam in 1994.

Those names make the Woburn chapter an unusually concentrated introduction to European golf of the period. Some are remembered primarily for majors, others for Ryder Cups, and others for their tour careers. Their British Masters victories brought those different reputations to the same event.

Faldo's winning total in 1989 was 267; Baker lowered it to 266 in 1993. The numbers belong to specific tournament conditions, but they help explain why these performances remain prominent in the event's retrospective accounts. Baker's championship was decided by seven strokes, a substantial margin within a competition often settled much more closely.

A visitor interested in a particular player can begin with these years and follow the wider links. Ballesteros leads towards his Opens and Ryder Cups; Lyle towards Scottish major history; O'Connor towards Irish golf; Faldo towards his repeated success at the highest level. Woburn connects those strands without requiring them to become the same story.

The championship moves again

Sam Torrance won at Collingtree Park in 1995 and Robert Allenby followed there in 1996. Greg Turner and Colin Montgomerie won at the Forest of Arden in 1997 and 1998. The event then returned to Woburn, where Bob May, Gary Orr, Thomas Levet and Justin Rose won from 1999 to 2002.

Levet's 2001 victory came through a four-player play-off. The Tour's retrospective remembers the celebrations after his success, placing an emotional finish alongside the numerical result. Rose's 2002 victory over fellow Englishman Ian Poulter added another memorable Woburn contest the following year.

The Forest of Arden hosted the next three winners: Greg Owen in 2003, Barry Lane in 2004 and Thomas Bjørn in 2005. The championship then moved to The Belfry, where Johan Edfors, Lee Westwood and Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño won the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions.

These changes show that the tournament's travelling identity had not disappeared during its Woburn years. It could establish a strong association with one venue and still move again. The changing settings created new local audiences and fresh chapters in the champions list.

An absence and a return in 2015

The British Masters was not played between 2009 and 2014. Its return in 2015 at Woburn, won by Matt Fitzpatrick, restored a familiar title to the tour and connected it with one of its best-known hosts.

The revived competition used prominent player hosts. The Tour's accounts identify Luke Donald at The Grove in 2016, Justin Rose at Walton Heath in 2018, Tommy Fleetwood at Hillside in 2019 and Danny Willett at The Belfry in 2021 and 2022. The host relationship gave each venue change a recognisable personal connection.

The winners across the first revived editions were Fitzpatrick, Alex Noren, Paul Dunne, Eddie Pepperell, Marcus Kinhult and Renato Paratore. Dunne's 2017 success came at Close House, while Paratore won there in 2020. The latter championship was played during the pandemic and belongs in the results table, rather than being marked as cancelled.

The return also demonstrates the value of the tournament's older identity. A competition with a long roll of respected winners could reappear with immediate meaning for spectators. Its history helped make the revival a continuation rather than the launch of an unrelated event.

The Belfry and the latest champions

Richard Bland won at The Belfry in 2021, followed by Thorbjørn Olesen in 2022, Daniel Hillier in 2023, Niklas Nørgaard in 2024 and Noren in 2025. Noren's win made him a two-time British Masters champion, adding to his 2016 victory at The Grove.

Joe Dean won the 2026 edition with a closing 63 and a 14-under-par total. His three-stroke victory came after a disrupted tournament week in which he completed twenty-four holes on the final day. That finish added a new champion to an event whose recent winners include both established tour players and first-time title winners.

The Belfry chapter gives current visitors an immediate link between the British Masters and the venue's wider professional history. The resort's Ryder Cups are an obvious reference point, but the annual tournament now adds its own sequence of champions and decisive Sundays.

For spectators, that combination is valuable. The same visit can explore team-golf memories and follow a present-day individual championship. The British Masters supplies the current competition while the course surroundings carry several generations of professional golf.

What the champions table reveals

Read the list by venue as well as by player. A run of Woburn editions shows one kind of continuity; Gallacher winning successive titles at different courses shows another. The shared inaugural title and the missing seasons deserve just as much clarity as the familiar modern names. Keeping those details visible helps the reader understand how the championship actually developed. The British Masters has survived interruptions, moved repeatedly and returned to earlier homes. Its history is a sequence of changing relationships between players, courses and spectators, with each edition adding a specific result to that larger story.

Visit the British Masters today

Read the British Masters event hub, the Belfry venue guide and the relevant accommodation guides before building a tournament trip. The course-history section links the British Masters with the resort's four Ryder Cups.

Our suggestion is to choose accommodation around the journey you will make on each tournament morning. Historical interest can fill the extra day: Woburn, a former host near your route or another championship course can add a separate chapter. Keep that additional visit realistic, leaving enough time to enjoy the live tournament rather than turning the trip into a succession of hurried transfers.

Early champions

Early editions are listed separately from the modern tour results. The source links beside each British Masters History and Champions entry lead to the organiser material and independent history.

Champions and years not held

Sources and useful official links

• Reported: Independent championship results

Useful reading for your visit

• British Masters 2027 at The Belfry
• Where to stay for the British Masters: Sutton Coldfield and Birmingham
• Golf history, where it happened

Visit today

• The Belfry visitor guide
• British Masters 2027 at The Belfry
• Where to stay for the British Masters: Sutton Coldfield and Birmingham

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