Shooting the Claret Jug at St Andrews is Probably the best project that I’ve worked on so far for the Links Trust.

I flew up on the Monday and met with Kat from SALT at the Links Club house. She had in her possession a fair sized silver box which had a turn key locking system.

I asked is this it, Yep was her reply!

It’s a really funny sensation when you see the Claret Jug in all of it’s glory close up and personal.

In fact I will never forget the effect it has on people when they realise that this is the real thing, well all most.

Because it’s such an old trophy the original Claret Jug is safely locked up somewhere in the R&A building and hardly sees the light of day.

We were given the replica which is presented to the Open champion.

I was custodian for 2 days traveling around with it in the boot of my car. However I did return it Late Monday evening to the R&A as there was no way I would accept the responsibility of loosing or damaging this magnificent trophy. When I went to pick it up at 5am Tuesday morning security knew nothing about me collecting it and so I insisted that they made a few phone calls to insure it was all above board.

I was shooting the trophy at the home end as the sun was setting about 10.30 pm. Even at that time there were loads of people that were finishing off their supper and drinks in the Macdonald Rusacks Hotel.

A party of them came out with their cameras just to get a quick pic, such is the pull of the Open Trophy.