Open champ Shane Lowry, like others before him, dings the claret jug

A rare bright spot, at least for Shane Lowry, from last year’s cancellation of The Open Championship was that the 2019 champion was able to keep the claret jug for an extra few months.

“I had the claret jug with me at the Race to Dubai at the end of 2019 and I was wheeling it through the hotel and this guy was there and he stopped me and he’s like, ‘Is that the claret jug?’” Lowry said. “He begged me could he see it, so I opened up the box and I showed him and he started to cry because he was holding the claret jug.”

Although the extra year gave him a chance to enjoy the claret jug, Lowry admitted there were some tense moments with the game’s oldest trophy.

“I noticed on the airport scanner that it was a little bit of a bend in it,” Lowry laughed. “It’s not just me. I did talk to Zach Johnson about this and he told me that he bent it, as well, so it’s not only me.”

R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers confirmed that Johnson, who won the 2015 Open, apologized for denting the claret jug and that it wasn’t the first time.

“[Johnson] said he did have to take it to be repaired. But as he took it into the shop in Florida, the silversmith who was behind the counter said, ‘Oh, I’ve seen this twice before,’” Slumbers said.