Imagine you are a youngster making your way to The Open for the first time. You have been waiting for this weekend all year, desperate to see your heroes up close. You have been dreaming of seeing Tiger in red, Rory crushing driver, and Aberg fizzing iron shots.
Imagine being a sponsor of The Open. Let’s say Mastercard. You have spent a sizeable chunk of your marketing budget to align with the game’s oldest championship.
You have a hospitality pavilion for the whole week. You have saved the weekend invites for your very best customer, that is the denouement of the tournament, and everyone wants to be there at the end, right?
But in 2024, so many of the game’s biggest names were not there at the end. Rory, Tiger, Aberg, Bryson, Cam Smith, Viktor Hovland, Tony Finau, Tyrrell. Major winners, Ryder Cuppers, legends. All gone.
So what? You might say that’s golf. Yes, but there are factors here that increase the chances of the good and great falling early.
The Open field is huge, and almost all the available daylight is taken up on the first two days. Qualification is a broad church of exemptions earned on professional tours, those by world rankings, the traditional local qualifying and the more recently established international qualifying. Then, of course, there are past champions – 17, in last year’s renewal.
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This bloated field exacerbates the luck of the draw. A global TV audience dictates that most box office players are in gluts early and late, so there may be five hours between the start time of a Rory and a Rahm. At any Open venue, this time difference can lead to dramatically different playing conditions.
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The R&A, rights holders of The Open, would like to grow the game around the world and international qualifiers are key to this. They are also keen to retain a connection with the best traditions of the sport, past champions speak to this and the use of links courses is non-negotiable and therefore so is the changeable weather.
After all, this is all we want as sports fans. The jeopardy of a cut, the luck of the draw, the survival of the mentally and physically toughest. It is why we love sport, it is why we love The Open.
But in this populist age, is it helping the sports appeal? I am into the back stories, I love seeing different names at the top of leaderboards. I like that we see the bad weather specialists of Shane Lowry and Padraig Harrington come to the fore and god, I love The Open as it is.
But… what if LIV Golf and the PGA Tour’s elevated events have a point? If I am the guy from Mastercard, I want to know what I am buying. I want to know what players my biggest customers are going to see when I bring them for the weekend play. If I can’t, then there is a real risk that I will take my hospitality dollars elsewhere, to a sport where I know what I am buying.
If I am taking my kids along to The Open for the first time, I want them to be able to get excited about seeing Rory, not to have to try and explain something as arcane as the cut.
The past champions outrage early in the week of the 2025 Open made me think of the LIV Golf teams. They have been roundly criticised for recruiting has-beens. But knowledge moves slowly for the sporting layman and the enduring appeal of a John Daly or a Phil Mickelson is beyond question.
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What about a LIV event around The Open, or an event without a cut that means the stars aren’t missed? A links course could be the battleground where the teams had honorary captains all picked from a list of Open Champions.
I would watch that. Perhaps then, what we have learned most of all this week is that The Open Championship and the no-cut events of LIV Golf and the PGA Tour are miles apart in terms of how and to whom they appeal.
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