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Golf history

The Great Triumvirate: Vardon, Braid and Taylor

Between 1894 and 1914, Harry Vardon, James Braid and J.H.

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The story and its setting

Between 1894 and 1914, Harry Vardon, James Braid and J.H. Taylor won sixteen of the twenty-one Opens played. The phrase Great Triumvirate describes that shared dominance, but it should not turn three competitors into a single character. Taylor was the first to win the championship, Braid became the first to reach five victories, and Vardon eventually raised the total to six. Their careers overlapped through close contests, emphatic victories and long intervals between titles. Read together, they show the championship developing beyond its earliest Scottish circuit into a wider professional sporting world.

Their combined record also gives a visitor a useful map. St Andrews, Muirfield and Prestwick sit beside Sandwich, Deal and Hoylake. These are not simply six places attached to an honours list: the changing venues affected the championship each man had to win. The complete champions list supplies every edition, including the five in this period won by somebody outside the trio.

Taylor opens the sequence in England

John Henry Taylor won the 1894 Open at Royal St George’s, the first edition staged outside Scotland. His total was 326, five strokes ahead of Douglas Rolland. That aggregate belongs to the conditions and equipment of the championship being played, not to a modern scoring comparison made without context. The organiser records a field of 94 starters and the effort to encourage Scottish professionals to travel south. The expansion of the rota was a practical undertaking as well as a geographical milestone.

Taylor defended the title at St Andrews in 1895, but the manner of the victory was different. An opening 86 left him well back, and Sandy Herd remained ahead before the final round. Taylor’s closing 78, played as the wind and rain worsened, delivered a four-stroke win. The contrast is instructive: one championship established him at a new English host; the next required a recovery on the Old Course. His early success was not tied to one venue or one pattern of leading throughout.

Vardon interrupts the defence

Vardon won his first Open at Muirfield in 1896 after tying Taylor over the championship’s four rounds. His opening 83 had left him eleven strokes behind Herd. He recovered with two rounds of 78 and a closing 77. Taylor also finished on 316, sending the contest into a thirty-six-hole play-off. Vardon won that additional contest by four strokes. It was a direct confrontation between two members of the future trio, rather than a label bestowed on competitors who never meaningfully met.

Vardon added Prestwick in 1898 and Royal St George’s in 1899. The Prestwick result was close: Willie Park Jnr missed a putt at the final hole that would have tied Vardon’s total, and the winning margin was one stroke. At Sandwich the following year, Vardon led or shared the lead after every round. The sequence therefore contained both a pursuit of a leader and a championship controlled from the front. His six titles would eventually be spread across Muirfield, Prestwick and Royal St George’s.

Taylor’s Old Course answer

Taylor responded at St Andrews in 1900 with an eight-stroke victory over Vardon. Braid finished third, another five strokes behind. Taylor totalled 309 and returned four rounds below 80, a significant scoring achievement on the Old Course at that point in the championship’s history. His rounds of 79, 77, 78 and 75 show the competitive advantage accumulating rather than appearing through one exceptional finish.

It was Taylor’s second Open victory at St Andrews. For a reader accustomed to the later association between the Old Course and international champions, those two titles establish his own place in the venue’s history. They also complicate a simple picture of Vardon as permanently ascendant after his first breakthrough. The two men repeatedly changed the balance between them. Braid had been finishing close to the leading positions, but his championship victories had still to begin.

Braid makes the group complete

Braid’s first title came at Muirfield in 1901. He defeated Vardon by three strokes and Taylor by four, putting the three names at the top of the results together. The final round included a memorable mechanical failure: the shaft of the club used for his approach to the last hole splintered, but the ball still reached the green. It is a vivid detail recorded by the championship archive, rather than a reason to imply that equipment failure was a planned part of the victory.

The Open’s Braid profile records that he finished inside the top ten every year from his debut in 1894 through 1912. His breakthrough was consequently the conversion of sustained contention into a title, not the sudden appearance of an unknown golfer. He went on to win five Opens in ten editions from 1901 to 1910. That concentrated achievement makes his place beside Taylor and Vardon understandable even though he had been the last of the three to win.

Braid at St Andrews, Muirfield and Prestwick

Braid won at St Andrews in 1905 and returned to Muirfield to retain the title in 1906. His four rounds at Muirfield improved successively: 77, 76, 74 and 73. The aggregate of 300 left Taylor four strokes behind and Vardon five behind. Once again the three occupied the leading positions, but Braid was the champion. It was his second victory at Muirfield, a venue where a later double winner would be Nick Faldo.

At Prestwick in 1908, Braid produced an eight-stroke winning margin over Tom Ball and a total of 291. A difficult third-round passage, including an eight at the third hole, did not remove his advantage. The championship’s account records his recovery rather than presenting the winning score as evidence of an entirely trouble-free performance. He then took his fifth title at St Andrews in 1910. His two wins there and two at Muirfield make his relationship with those venues particularly distinctive.

Taylor and Vardon are not finished

Taylor won the first Open at Royal Cinque Ports in 1909, finishing six strokes ahead of Braid and Tom Ball. Deal added another English venue to the trio’s winning geography. Taylor’s rounds of 74, 73, 74 and 74 made 295, giving the victory a remarkably consistent scoring pattern. His fifth title came at Royal Liverpool in 1913, nineteen years after his first. Ted Ray, the defending champion, finished eight strokes behind.

Vardon’s fifth victory came at Royal St George’s in 1911, after a play-off with Arnaud Massy. The two had tied on 303 over the championship, but Vardon established a commanding advantage in the scheduled thirty-six-hole decider and Massy conceded before it was completed. In 1914, all three men arrived at Prestwick with five titles. Taylor led Vardon by two strokes before the last round, but Vardon reversed the position to win by three. His sixth title remains the individual Open benchmark.

Professional golf beyond their Open totals

Their influence was not confined to the championship scoreboards. Vardon won the 1900 US Open and, with Ted Ray, lost the 1913 US Open play-off to amateur Francis Ouimet. The USGA’s account places that defeat within the development of the American game. Taylor was an important figure in the creation of the Professional Golfers’ Association, and later captained Great Britain to its 1933 Ryder Cup victory at Southport & Ainsdale. These were different contributions: playing abroad, organising a profession and leading a team.

Braid’s lasting course associations include Walton Heath, where he became professional when it opened in 1904, and the King’s and Queen’s courses at Gleneagles. Carnoustie’s official history also records his 1926 work before its first Open in 1931. Those connections explain why a course-history journey need not be limited to the places where he lifted the Claret Jug. His architectural work created a continuing presence beyond the years of his competitive dominance.

To follow the trio on a manageable visit, choose one area: the Old Course and Muirfield for their Scottish championships, or Royal St George’s and Royal Cinque Ports for the Kent connection. The Hoylake history adds Taylor’s final victory. The existing Open history explains the wider tournament; this story belongs to three careers whose rivalry gave that tournament a sustained period of exceptional competition.

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