Sometimes you forget we have access to 24/7 up to the second information. A guy makes a putt on the final hole of a major championship to win? Internet immediately explodes, your phone blows up with notifications if you’re a fan. But when you read the papers from 100 years ago, you’re quickly reminded that has not always been the case.

A guy isn’t quite done with his round, but you hope he doesn’t come back to win so that you can go to print with the paper anyway?

Your Honor, I move to admit Exhibit A into evidence.

One hundred years ago today, Bobby Jones was the “likely” champion of the 1926 British Open. And to this paper’s credit, they did say “likely,” and outlined what Walter Hagen needed to do to actually win (which, shooting 35or 36 on the back nine would not have been totally crazy).

Not like some other papers, who likely just said he won but didn’t really know for sure yet. We’ll never know, because he ended up winning anyway.

Before we get to the golf, the venue has its own charming story that almost nobody outside Lancashire would have known at the time.

This was the first Open Championship ever played on a course in Lancashire (northwest England). The Royal and Ancient had spent decades rotating the tournament between Scottish links and a handful of trusted English grounds, and Royal Lytham St. Annes simply wasn't in that club yet.

It had only been called "Royal" for a few weeks. The Guardian's preview, published two days before the first round, noted the title had been "granted only a few weeks ago," which means the club was, in the most literal sense, still getting used to its own new name when the best golfers in the world showed up to play on it.

The club itself had started small. Nineteen members, formed at a meeting in February 1886 by three men, two brothers and a cousin, all sharing the surname Fair. The first money ever paid out at St. Annes, at the club's first professional tournament four years after it opened, was eight pounds, to a player named Willie Fernie, who beat the field by five strokes.

By 1926, the Open's winner's purse was a good deal more than that, though the Guardian noted dryly that it would still be "considerably less" than what recent winners at other courses had taken home. Golf was getting more lucrative, just not evenly.

There's also a small bit of crowd-control history buried in the same preview. This was the first Open where organizers tried charging admission specifically to keep spectator numbers manageable, after the experiment at Muirfield's Amateur Championship had gone badly because of the train situation.

Lytham, with its bigger population and better rail access, was supposed to be where they finally got it right. I don't know yet whether they did. But it's a nice reminder that "too many fans showing up and ruining the event" is not a problem the modern world invented.

Jones came into the final round two strokes behind the leader, Al Watrous, an American professional who'd quietly shot a 69 in the third round to take control of the tournament.

Jones and Watrous were paired together for the last round, which meant they spent the entire afternoon watching each other play the same holes in real time. A dream matchup for any golf tournament.

Jones and Watrous went shot for shot on the front nine, both shooting 36, and by the 14th hole, Jones was still 2 shots back.

Jones gained a stroke on both 14, and 15, and by hole 17, they were all tied.

But the momentum ended there for Jones. His tee shot on 17 was wildly left, laying to rest in the “plantation” portion of the course. Sand, long fescue, and generally as golfers call it, “jail.”

Watrous was safe down the middle, and hit his approach to fifteen feet. It looked, for a moment, like he had regained momentum, and was in control of the tournament again, as he had been to start the day.

But Jones was just getting ready to begin cementing his legend status, that would live on for the next century. He played a recovery shot out of the dunes that was so good, there is a plaque there now.

They say he had about 175 yards to the green, and had little to no chance even to make it there given the lie. But his shot sent up a burst of sand and dust, and the crowd watched as his ball finished inside Watrous’ on the green.

According to the papers, Watrous was so unsettled by what he'd just watched, that he three-putted. Jones took the lead by one, and bettered Watrous again on the 18th by another, and won by two, 291 to 293.

Walter Hagen, the best professional golfer in the world at the time and the closest thing 1926 had to a sure thing, was playing well behind Jones and Watrous. When Jones posted his 291, Hagen had just made the turn in 36. He needed a 71 total to win outright, which meant he needed just a 36 to tie Jones. Not crazy, right?

Well, he shot 40, and proved the papers right to go to print early.

And then there's Archie Compston, who deserves his own section here (and I’d argue a plaque of his own on #12). Because what he did is, frankly, an incredible way to lose.

Compston was tied for 7th after two rounds and considered one of the few British players with a real shot at the title. On the 12th hole of the third round, his approach sailed way over the green and into a small stand of trees. A woman marker, warned him the ball looked out of bounds. Compston disagreed out loud, apparently, and on the record: "I am going to play here."

He played it, and made a 5 on the hole.

Under the rules, that was automatic disqualification. There was a quick gathering of officials and they deemed him disqualified. The moment he played a ball ruled out of bounds instead of taking the penalty and replaying it, he was done.

But rather than going home early, he just kept playing. He finished the third round, shot 78, and came back the next day and played a fourth round. He shot the low score of the day 71, and ended with 299.

He and the papers called it a "moral victory," which is a wonderfully British way of saying he wanted to prove a point to absolutely nobody but himself.

Jones would win this same tournament two more times, and won the grand slam (all four majors in one year) in 1930, before walking away from competitive golf entirely at 28. That part of the story is well known. What isn't as well known, at least to me until this week, is how unsettled the actual day felt while it was happening.

A new "Royal" club nobody outside England had heard of. A leader who lost by three strokes in the final five holes. A favorite who needed the best nine of his life and shot his worst instead. And a man who got disqualified, shrugged, and kept playing anyway, just because it was 1926 and he could.

A hundred years later, the only thing that's actually certain about that afternoon is the final score. And even that I keep checking and rechecking because each paper is a little different.

See you tomorrow.

– Chris