The South African Open championship is one of the oldest in world golf. First played in 1893, albeit as an exhibition event, it predates even the United States Open, which began two years later in 1895. The championship took the form of an exhibition for a handful of professional golfers right up until 1903, when it became open to everyone. Only in that year did amateurs and professionals contest the Open together for the first time on a strokeplay basis.

Before that they had played separately at the same venue, with the amateurs solely involved in the older SA Amateur championship, begun in 1892. There are no scores for the first eight Open champions between 1893 and 1902 (there was no championship in 1900 and 1901 because of the South African War), only the name of a winner.

It was won six times in that period by Walter Day, a British professional who had come out to the Cape in 1893 to serve the Cape Golf Club, South Africa's first club which had been formed in 1885. The first Open in 1893 was played at the Port Elizabeth Golf Club, which had been founded in 1890, and the Eastern Cape held the first six championships, before Kimberley was given a turn in 1899.

The real start of the Open championship is considered by historians to be in 1903, again in Port Elizabeth. For the first time there was an open competition over 36 holes strokeplay, in which both amateurs and pros participated. The professionals led the way, with Laurie Waters, the pro at Johannesburg GC, taking the title on a score of 163, three shots ahead of J W Stewart (Cape). The Open continued to be played over 36 holes until 1908, when it was expanded to 72 holes for the first time, falling in line with the British and US Opens, which had changed in the 1890s. Again, Port Elizabeth was the venue. This was the beginning of the Fotheringham era. George Fotheringham won the Open five times in the next seven years, before leaving for the United States at the onset of the First World War, and was runner-up to his brother Jack on another occasion.

Jimmy Prentice became the first amateur to win the title at Kimberley in 1913. He was killed in action at Flanders in 1915, but his name has subsequently become famous in South African golf through the Prentice Memorial competitions for juniors. Prentice left a sum of 60 pounds sterling in his will for "the encouragement of golf among the youth of South Africa." The SA Golf Union was formed in 1910, and from thereon that body took over the running of the championship.

The Open resumed again in 1919, and the period between the world wars belonged to three players, Sid and Jock Brews, and Bobby Locke. Between them, they were to win the Open 15 times from 1921 to 1940. The championship moved around the country to an increasing number of new courses as the game started to gain popularity in South Africa. Durban Country Club held the first of its 14 Opens in 1924, and other new clubs such as Maccauvlei, Mowbray and Humewood joined the championship roster.

The Brews brothers virtually owned the Open trophy until 1935, when a 17-year-old amateur by the name of Locke burst on to the scene and triumphed at Parkview. He was not present to defend the title the next year, when another fine amateur, Clarence Olander, took the Open at Royal Cape, but Locke then won four times in a row before war again brought a halt to the championship, for the third time this century. Locke resumed his dominance by winning a fifth successive title in 1946, but thereafter he did not always compete in the Open, because of overseas travels, and the next 12 years was a great period for the amateurs. Between 1947 and 1959, an amateur won the championship six times. They were all different players = Ronnie Glennie, Mickey Janks, Jimmy Boyd, Reg Taylor, Arthur Stewart and Denis Hutchinson.

Locke won another three times, never losing in the Open until he was beaten by a shot by Stewart at Bloemfontein Golf Club in 1958. Sid Brews, who had not won the Open since 1934, came to light again at an elderly age, triumphing twice, the second time in 1952 at the age of 53. In 1956 at Durban Country Club, a new 20-year-old champion emerged who was to have a lasting impact on the SA Open. He was Gary Player. Player was to win the British Open before he won his second SA Open, but the "Black Knight" took off in the mid-60s when he won five straight Opens from 1965 to 1969, matching Locke's record. Player easily shattered Locke's other record of nine Open victories, and went on to post 13 in all, the last of those in 1981.

After Player's era had ended, the 1980s saw a succession of different winners, more than at any time in the history of the championship. There were eight different winners in eight years from 1983 to 1990, before Wayne Westner broke the sequence by capturing his second Open title at Durban CC in 1991.

In the 1990s the championship has mainly belonged to Ernie Els. He won in 1992, 1996 and 1998, and was the runner-up on two other occasions, in 1993 and 1995.