Golfers Who Won British Amateur and British Open Championships

The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews (the R&A) stages both The Amateur Championship and The Open Championship, also known as the British Amateur and British Open. These are the two biggest R&A titles for amateur golfers and professional golfers, respectively. How many golfers have won them both?

The British Open dates to 1860, and the British Amateur to 1885. That's a lot of years through which golfers have had the chance to win both titles.

But, so far, only three golfers — yes, just three — have managed to win both The Amateur and The Open. And no new name has appeared on the following list since 1930.

Won Both the British Amateur and Open

John Ball

John Ball holds the record for most wins in The Amateur Championship with eight. His first was in 1888, his last in 1912, and in-between he also won in 1890, 1892, 1894, 1899, 1907 and 1910.

And in the 1890 Open, Ball became that tournament's first amateur winner. An Englishman, he was also the first golfer not from Scotland to win The Open. He was the first to achieve the Amateur-Open double, and he won the both in the same year (1890). Only Bobby Jones also won the British Amateur and British Open in the same year.

Harold Hilton

Harold Hilton, playing as an amateur, won two British Opens in the 1890s (1892, 1897), then won four British Amateurs in the 1900s (1900, 1901, 1911, 1913).

The same year he won his first Open, 1892, he also reached the championship match of the Amateur. But there he lost to ... Ball. As great as Hilton's list of achievements was, he was probably just the second-best golfer as his club. Hilton and Ball were both Royal Liverpool members.

Bobby Jones

The third, and so far last, golfer to achieve the Amateur-Open double was Bobby Jones, who joined this list during his 1930 Grand Slam year. That year, Jones became the second of two golfers (after Ball) to win them both in the same year.

That was Jones' only win in the British Amateur. But he had already won the British Open twice, in 1926 and 1927.

Since Jones became the third golfer on this list in 1930, there hasn't even been a runner-up in the British Amateur who went on to win The Open. Achieving this double definitely appears more difficult than winning both the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open, or winning both the British Amateur and U.S. Amateur, or winning both the U.S. Open and British Opens. All of those doubles have been achieved by more than just three golfers.