Is it OK for the Open champion to drink out of the Claret Jug?
It happens every year. The Open champion fills the Claret Jug with their tipple of choice and then gets hammered – pun intended – on social media for drinking out of it.
This year, Collin Morikawa was in the Prince’s Lodge enjoying a Birra Moretti out of golf’s most famous trophy – and the club share these fantastic pictures on Twitter…
It’s all a bit of fun though, isn’t it? We think so.
‘The clue is in the name: Claret Jug’
Claret being red wine, and a jug being a receptacle.
Granted, writes Dan Murphy, it’s slightly more stylish than your average carafe but that is, after all, what it was originally designed for.
I have my doubts, back in the 1870s after Young Tom Morris had claimed for good the leather belt that used to be presented to the Champions Golfer of the Year, whether anyone could ever have envisaged a premium brand of Italian lager being decanted into the jug, but that’s another story.
It should be noted, though, that Birra Moretti does date back to 1859, the year before the first Open so perhaps there is something in it.
Nevertheless, it is the winner’s prerogative to enjoy the spoils of victory and you would only have to listen to some of the stories that surround the immediate aftermath of Darran Clarke’s Open win 10 years ago to understand that the Claret Jug has had more traumatic experiences than being filled with beer for Collin Morikawa and his entourage to enjoy.
‘Imagine being such a bore that you would get upset by this’
Having said that, writes Alex Perry, I wouldn’t drink out of it myself. My main concern, should I ever become the Champion Golfer of the Year, is purely for my health.
I’m a raving germaphobe at the best of times and who knows how many hundreds of pairs of lips have wrapped around it? Shuddering just thinking about it.
I’m far more offended by Morikawa’s other revelation that he chowed down on the lovely Lodge Burger at Prince’s each night of his victory.
Now, I’ve had the Lodge Burger and, as delicious as it is, I could barely walk afterwards. How on earth did he eat four and still manage to win an actual major championship?
Forget winning The Open at the first attempt, this is arguably Morikawa’s most impressive achievement from Royal St George’s.
It’s not disrespectful to drink from a golf trophy, is it? Let us know in the comments below, or you can tweet us.
