Winning ugly: the most unusual trophies in sport

G-Mac will fill his mantlepiece with a few trophies this year. Yesterday’s prize is amongst the more unusual however.

WHEN GRAEME MCDOWELL beat out Tiger Woods at the Chevron World Challenge last night, he was awarded an unusual, dioramic trophy.

It’s not the weirdest one we’ve ever seen though.

Winning ugly: the most unusual trophies in sport

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Warne-Muralitharan 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, famed Sri Lanka tweaker Muttiah Muralidaran and a couple of match balls. Unlike Munster football however, you can’t fill it with Heineken in Spirals afterwards.
The Auld Mug
You could however, sip from the Auld Mug (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.
LPGA Long Drugs Challenge
What the what? Who signed off on this one? The female winners of this tournament are awarded a decidedly phallic prize. Just think it through before you email the trophy shop, guys.
The Borg-Warner Trophy
If you race America’s most revered motor race – 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. Sure why not?
Trophy for the Dubai Desert Classic golf tournament
When Holywood man 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. Presumably his mantle-piece isn't large enough. Like a massive gravy boat, Miguel Angel Jimenez, pictured, looked happy enough to pay the excess baggage charge on the way home to Madrid.
The Ashes Urn
Such a fuss over something so small. England and Australia are currently locked in the second Test of the current series in Adelaide. 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.
Stanley Cup
If the cricketing world produce a dainty, elegant trophy that betrays their toff sensibilities than hirsute lumberjacks who smash each others' 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.
John Deere Classic
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 also makes a great paper-weight.