ESPN takes Open Championship Claret Jug on a magical mystery tour

In the 1960s, the Beatles sang about a Magical Mystery Tour, and it’s fitting that more than 40 years later, another iconic symbol associated with England did its own magical — and sometimes mysterious — tour of the United States.

One of the sporting world’s oldest and most revered trophies, the Claret Jug, is presented each year to the winner of the Open Championship, one of the four “majors” in professional golf and the only one contested outside of the United States. This year’s event will be July 19-22 at Royal Lytham & St Annes in Lancashire, England, and all four rounds will air live across ESPN platforms.

As part of its trip across the Big Pond, the trophy visited various sites in New York, Los Angeles and Bristol, Conn., on its tour before heading back to the U.K.

Some of the visits were totally unplanned.

“The idea of the trip was to take the Jug to places it had never been and expose it to as many people as possible,” said Nick Smith, ESPN marketing coordinator, who traveled with the trophy to Los Angeles.

“When I landed in L.A., like many of us on the East Coast, I had to stop at In N’ Out for a burger,” he said.

“Remembering that the Jug was in the back seat, I realized that this was probably the first time it’s ever been to an In ‘N Out. I figured I’d snap a picture and capture the moment.” (See photos in gallery above.)

Editor’s Note: Being a prim and proper silver Claret Jug, it refrained from indulging in an Animal Style burger.

And as could be expected, the sight of the Jug caused lots of double takes and a few stirs along the way.

“We were at the top of Rockefeller Center to take some photos of it with New York in the background,” said David Zane, ESPN associate director, sports marketing.

“We met a British tourist who was just in awe of the fact that we had the Claret Jug. He was like ‘Can I hold it? Can I take a picture with it?.’”

“It was great to see the genuine respect and admiration for the trophy,” Smith said.