Winning ugly

When Michael Jonzon, above, closed out the Castello Masters in Spain last month with an 18-foot birdie, the title secured his European Tour card. But he also won a more tangible trophy. The pictures in the newspapers on Monday morning showed the Swede kissing an oak-coloured sculpture of a man with a ball on his head and smile on his face. And this, these days, is not the weirdest prize in sports today.

The Warne-Muralidaran Trophy
If Cork and Kerry took the lead of the Australians and Sri Lankans, the Munster football final would be played for a replication of Pat Spillane and Billy Morgan’s hands most years. The Warne-Muralitharan Trophy is a cast of the right hands of Aussie Test legend Shane Warne and famed Sri Lanka tweaker Muttiah Muralidaran and a couple of match balls. Unlike Munster football however, you can’t fill it with Carlsberg in Spirals afterwards.

Trophy for the LPGA Long Drugs Challenge
This is a lesson to event organisers. Just think it through before you email the trophy shop the next time.
The female winners of this tournament are award a decidely phallic prize.

The Auld Mug
You could however, sip from the Auld Mug – and that’s not a euphemism. The world’s best sailors compete for the oldest trophy in the world in the prestigious America’s Cup. A five foot sterling silver pitcher, it has been dropped, lost and wrongly engraved in it’s 150-year existence.

The Borg-Warner Trophy
If you race America’s most revered motor race – in the Indy 500 – and win it, you expect a brash, heavy trophy to bring back to the ranch. The Borg-Warner Trophy, a sterling silver, 5-foot high and 45kg statement, is certainly that. The piece is topped by a naked man waving a chequered flag which causes most red-state drivers to insist they are photographed from below to preserve his dignity and theirs.

Trophy for the Dubai Desert Classic golf tournament
When Rory McIlroy won this lucrative tournament in the middle east, he admitted he didn’t know what he was going to do with the typically ostentatious trophy.

Like a massive gravy boat, one wonders how you’re expected to get it over the threshold in Holywood.

The Ashes Urn
Such a fuss every two years or so, over something so small. England and Australia of course face off biennially for the Ashes. The urn is said to contain the charred remains of a piece of cricket paraphernalia – stumps most likely – after a group of Melbourne women presented the urn to the touring English.
The urn has never been officially adopted as the actual trophy and in fact since 1999 a glass representation of the diminutive award has been produced by Waterford Crystal. So at least the Deise had a hand in one victory last summer.

Stanley Cup
If the cricketing world produce a dainty, elegant trophy that betrays their toff sensibilities than hirsute lumberjacks who smash each other’s faces into glass walls for baying fans are gonna want a bigger prize. Meet the Stanley Cup. It’s well over a metre tall with a silver bowl on top, from which the winning side drink champagne on the rink. Amazingly, each player gets to take it for a day; try getting this into the back of the car.

John Deere Classics
If they played golf at the ploughing championships, they might be inspired to reproduce this rustic, agricultural looking piece of art. The PGA event, hosted by the tractor producers in their rural background of Illinois would have looked great on Michelle Wie’s mantelpiece if she had taken advantage of her recent exemption to compete.

This feature first appeared in the Irish Examiner on Saturday, November 7, 2009.