Open Golf Champion Andrew Strath (1836 - 1868) has been honoured with a memorial plaque near his burial place in the Auld Kirk burial ground in Prestwick.Strath was the only player to challenge the early dominance of Willie Park and Old & Young Tom Morris in The Open Championship, winning the belt in 1865 to become the only person other than Park or the Morris's to have hisname on the belt, before Young Tom made it his property ,with three successive wins, in 1870.
Strath also finished second in The Open Championship in 1864, third in 1860 and fourth in 1863 & 1867.
When Tom Morris left Prestwick to return to St. Andrews in 1865, Andrew Strath succeeded him as keeper of the green at Prestwick, where he died of tuberculosis in 1868, aged 32, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the burial ground of the Auld Kirk, overlooking the present first green of the Prestwick course.
The Prestwick club, having recently became aware that Strath was buried in Prestwick and there was no memorial to mark his grave, commissioned a memorial plaque to be placed, with the agreement of South Ayrshire Council, within the cemetery grounds.
The plaque (pictured right), which is situated near to the entrance to the burial ground lists Strath's achievements and is a fitting memorial to an early Open Champion with lasting Prestwick connections.
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