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In response to the reduction of the VAT tariff from 17.5% to 15%, announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his pre-budget report, The R&A has moved to pass the benefits of the cut onto spectators.
Those who purchase tickets from 1 December 2008 will receive food and beverage vouchers to reflect the 2.5% decrease in VAT. The vouchers will be redeemable at catering facilities across The Open Championship site at Turnberry.
“The R&A felt it absolutely necessary to incorporate the reduction in VAT for spectators visiting The Open Championship,” commented The R&A’s Director of Championships, David Hill. “The Championship has a very loyal spectator base and it is right that we pass this saving onto them.”
Click here to visit the ticket purchase website.
The R&A and ESPN have reached an eight-year agreement that will place all four rounds of The Open Championship live on ESPN beginning in 2010, it was announced by George Bodenheimer, President, ESPN, Inc., and ABC Sports and Peter Dawson, Chief Executive of The R&A.
The new deal will also provide broad and comprehensive rights for digital platforms; expanded television and digital media rights for ESPN International; and extensive same-day weekend highlights coverage on ABC.
ESPN will televise 34 live hours of Championship play over the four days and produce six hours of encore highlights coverage over the weekend, to be broadcast on ABC. The coverage on ABC will extend The R&A’s relationship with ABC beyond half a century.
Bodenheimer said: “One of the most venerable of all sporting events has embraced the 21st century worldwide media landscape, and we’re thrilled to showcase The Open Championship like never before. The scope of this deal and the enhancements we obtained offer us tremendous opportunities to serve The R&A and golf fans around the world through any device.”
Dawson said: “It is all important to The R&A that we preserve the traditions of The Open Championship while at the same time ensuring that golf fans are able to enjoy modern state-of-the-art coverage of the event. We know just how much ESPN respects The Open’s heritage and we are very excited by their many innovative plans to cover the Championship across the whole media spectrum, both in the United States and internationally. We look forward to a long and productive relationship.”
Alastair Johnston, IMG Vice Chairman, who led the negotiating team representing The R&A said, “We had to consider not only the financial terms but The R&A’s overall mission to promote and develop the game of golf to an evolving global audience. Envisaging the platforms where a younger generation could be positively influenced to experience The Open Championship over the next decade was a significant factor in assembling this arrangement with ESPN.”
The deal also includes exclusive US coverage of all rounds of The Senior Open Championship, which is governed jointly by The R&A and the PGA European Tour, and coverage of the next two Walker Cup matches when contested in the United Kingdom (2011 and 2015). In all, there will be 90-plus television hours and 40-plus hours of live coverage on ESPN360.com and ESPN Mobile TV. ESPN will provide unprecedented live coverage of the Championships, including the first and second rounds of The Open Championship, which will begin at 5 a.m. ET.
The wide-ranging agreement will cover multiple businesses around the world through ESPN’s various platforms — ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN International, ESPN.com, ESPN360.com, ESPNDeportes.com and ESPN Mobile Properties, interactive television, ESPN in Latin America/Caribbean, TSN and RDS in Canada, ESPN Star Sports in Asia, and ESPN360 services in Mexico, Chile and Brazil.
ESPN extended and broadened its rights in Canada (TSN and RDS), Asia, Israel and Latin America territories as well as English language rights in China (ESPN Sports Star Sports). The deal also includes digital rights in all territories (excluding China) including live streaming of all events, expansive multiplatform highlight rights (e.g. online, broadband, and wireless); television and digital VOD; interactive television and mobile TV.
Advance tickets are on sale now for next year’s Open Championship, with The R&A maintaining ticket prices at this year’s level.
Speaking at Turnberry, David Hill, The R&A’s Director of Championships explained the decision to hold 2008 ticket prices at next year’s event and emphasised that substantial discounts are again available to spectators who choose to purchase their season tickets before the end of January 2009.
“Given the current economic climate, The R&A has elected to maintain ticket prices for 2009. We continue to make season tickets available for just £180 giving people who want to experience a wonderful week of golf the opportunity to make a substantial saving.”
The Championship will see Padraig Harrington attempting to become the first player to win three consecutive Open Championships since Peter Thomson in 1956 and a large number of Irish spectators are expected to make the short trip across the Irish Sea to Turnberry to support him.
“I’m sure that Padraig will receive big support from Ireland as he chases an historic third consecutive Open,” said Hill. “We are looking forward to welcoming a large and enthusiastic crowd from all over the world to one of The Open’s most iconic venues.”
The Ayrshire Resort is making every effort to ensure that the Ailsa Course is in perfect condition for Harrington and the rest of the field and, consequently, the Course will be closed from now until the start of The Championship. Stewart Selbie, General Manager of the Turnberry Hotel, justified the decision to stop play on the links. “We want to give Turnberry the best opportunity to provide the best golf course that The Open has ever seen.”
An Open Championship daily ticket on the four Championship days (16-19 July 2009) costs £55. Under-16’s will continue to be admitted free of charge and concessions are available.
Click here to visit the ticket purchase website.
New entry criteria are being introduced for next year’s Open at Turnberry to guarantee places in the Championship for the top 30 players from both the European and PGA Tour.
Previously, the exemptions were limited to the top 20 from the European Tour Order of Merit and the PGA Tour’s money list from the previous season. Under the new rules, however, all 30 players who qualify for the Tour Championship in the United States will earn places, as will the top 30 from the European Tour’s Order of Merit following the season-ending Volvo Masters in November.
“The R&A continues to monitor the ever changing golfing world and our Championship Committee aims to reflect this in the exemptions into The Open Championship,” said Peter Dawson, Chief Executive of The R&A.
A number of other changes have been made to the exemption categories; IFQ — Europe will have a smaller field with 96 players playing for 10 places in the Championship; the field for IFQ — America will be 78 with 8 places available; IFQ Australasia and IFQ Africa will each have 3 places available.
The dates and locations for International Final Qualifying have now been announced for all events except IFQ — Asia. They are as follows:
IFQ — Africa: 3-4 February 2009 at Royal Durban Golf Club, Durban, South Africa
IFQ — Australasia: 10 February 2009, Kingston Heath Golf Club, Melbourne, Australia
IFQ — America: 25 May 2009 at Gleneagles Country Club, Plano, Texas, USA
IFQ — Europe: 8 June 2009 at Sunningdale Golf Club, Surrey, England
IFQ — Asia will be held at Sentosa Golf Club, Singapore, on a date as yet to be confirmed.
The amendments to qualification criteria are as follows:
Players exempt from Regional, Local Final and International Final Qualifying:
- The first 30 in the PGA European Tour Final Order of Merit for 2008
- The starting field (of 30) of THE TOUR Championship of 2008
- First and anyone tying for 1st place on the Order of Merit of the Tour of Australasia for 2008
- The exemption for the Canadian Open Champion will no longer apply.
Players gaining direct exemption to Local Final Qualifying stage:
- The 2008 English, Scottish and Welsh Amateur Champions
- The 2009 Irish Amateur Champion. Blank entry will be made for this category
- The runner-up in each of the 2008 US Amateur Championship, the 2008 European Amateur Championship and the 2009 Amateur Championship, for whom a blank entry will be made
- The exemption for the British Mid-Amateur Champion is removed.
R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson has stated the case for golf’s inclusion in the Olympic Games in an interview at the World Amateur Team Championships. Click here to watch the complete interview.
“I think it will enhance the Olympics,” Dawson said of the proposal to include golf at the 2016 Games, “and on the other hand, the Olympics will bring great benefits to the game of golf.”
Dawson went on to point out that the high level of worldwide participation in golf — roughly 60 million players in 120 countries — makes it the most popular participation sport not currently included in the Olympic programme. And with 10 different nationalities being represented within the top-20 of the men’s Official World Golf Ranking, it’s evident that the game’s best players as well as grassroots players come from across the world.
The International Golf Federation is currently preparing a bid for golf’s inclusion in the 2016 Olympics, a bid which will be decided upon in Copenhagen next October during the same IOC meeting that will decide the host city for 2016. Golf will compete against baseball, softball, karate, rugby sevens, squash and roller sports for two vacant slots in the Olympic programme.
One potential problem that critics of golf’s Olympic credentials have brought up is the issue of scheduling a further tournament in to a busy summer. The R&A’s Chief Executive explained, however, that the organisers of all the game’s top golf Tours and Major Championships are all fully committed to the Olympic bid, and with a seven-year notice period fixing any scheduling problems would be very straightforward.
In addition, Dawson believes that the lure of winning a gold medal for their country would attract the game’s best players to any Olympic Golf tournament.
“It would mean a great deal, not just for the top players but for the way it will help us grow the game in countries where it is just starting,” he added. “Golf would continue to grow at a faster pace as a result, and that’s what I really want to see.”
Clitheroe, East Sussex National and The London Club will all host Open Championship Regional Qualifying for the first time in 2010, as the three clubs join the roster of 16 venues chosen for that 150th anniversary Open at St Andrews.
Clitheroe, in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley, is a parkland course that was first laid out in 1932 by five-time Open winner James Braid. The course’s hilltop setting gives spectacular views across the surrounding countryside — although with a place in the world’s greatest golf contest at stake, the competitors will be keeping their focus firmly on the course itself.
Despite its name, the London Club is actually in the countryside of Kent, a few miles away from the town of Sevenoaks. Since it was built in the early 1990s, the Jack Nicklaus-designed courses have welcomed several important championships, and the club is currently the host venue for the European Open. This year’s tournament was won by Ross Fisher after the Englishman held off a spirited last-day challenge by Sergio Garcia.
East Sussex National, just outside Uckfield, has much in common with The London Club: both were built during the boom in golf course construction in the early 1990s, and both have played host to the European Open, with East Sussex’s East course having hosted the event in 1993 and 1994.
11 of the other 13 clubs selected for Regional Qualifying in 2010 have been used in the past, while Abridge and Mere will both host Open qualifying for the first time in 2009. The full list is as follows:
Abridge
Berwick upon Tweed
Clitheroe
Coventry
East Sussex National
Effingham
Enville
Ferndown
The Gog Magog
Lindrick
The London Club
Mere
The Musselburgh
Old Fold Manor
Pannal
Royal Dublin
No player could have showed more sporting spirit than Padraig Harrington in his two major victories this season, making it all the more fitting that the double Open champion is the star of The R&A’s video guide to golf etiquette, available to download or view online at The R&A website. Harrington, who heads to next week’s Ryder Cup as indisputably the best player in the world this year, presents the 10-minute film, which brings the etiquette section of The R&A rule book to life.
The film is presented in three chapters: consideration for other players, pace of play and care of the course. As well as being presented by the three-time Major winner, the film also features contributions from several other European Tour professionals including Nick Dougherty, Lee Westwood and Paul Casey, as well as archive material from The Open, The Ryder Cup and the Women’s British Open Championship.
“Good etiquette promotes enjoyment of the game for all players,” said Harrington of his reasons for getting involved with the project. “I am very pleased to play a part in the education process for new golfers, young and old alike.”
Entitled “The Etiquette of Golf”, the film is available as a free download from The R&A website, and will be promoted to national golfing bodies around the world as a teaching aid. Click here to go to the download page at The R&A website.
“Padraig is a role model for good behaviour, on and around the golf course,” said David Rickman, R&A Director of Rules and Equipment Standards. “This film will help new players to understand the true meaning of sportsmanship in golf.”
The 2009 Open Championship will be played at Turnberry, one of the most spectacular golf courses in Britain. It will be the fourth time that the event is played at the Ayrshire links, and if the dramatic tournaments in 1977, 1986 and 1994 are anything to go by then next year’s Open will be unmissable. Find out more about Turnberry.
Tickets will be on sale from late October, and as always discounts will be available for early purchasers. Sign up to the Opengolf.com Newsletter and you’ll receive an email alert when tickets are available, as well as all the latest news from The Open Championship throughout the year.
A range of hospitality packages is available from the Official Open Championship Hospitality website.
2008 Open Champion reflects in this interview on his second Open victory, his goals for the future and the talents that got him where he is.
Winning for the first time was a real high, and was slightly unexpected in the way it happened. This time around, it was more of a determined effort, more satisfying, and in many ways more rewarding. To have done it back-to-back is very special. To have two majors is very special. But I think most of it is going out in the last group and performing when I needed to. Playing the golf in the final round of a Major is a nice feeling and a big confidence booster.
Fear has always been a motivator in my golf. I have spent some time talking with Bob Rotella about it, because it can be quite negative using emotions to push you on. I’m on my 12th year now on the Tour, and certainly for eight, nine years, every time I took my winter break, I was very anxious that I could come out and it would still be there. You can see from my results: they are always good at the start of the year because I’m anxious to get out there and prove myself again.
You’ve got to put your time in away from the golf course. That’s one of the things that has helped me. I spend a lot of time working on my game, and over the last couple of years I’ve developed a better routine in making sure that I do as much of that work as I can away from the tournament. In past years I would turn up and nearly always work on my game for the following week; now I’m trying to play each week I turn up rather than play for the following week.
Winning the first Major last year was, well, incredible. The reflection after that was, yeah, guys have won one Major; let’s try and set yourself apart and win two. Now that I’ve got two I’ve now got to think, well, I’m in a different club now, what’s the next club? What’s the next grouping of players? I think I will have time to reflect on that over the next week and set some new goals.
There are some very exclusive clubs in golf. Somewhere along the line, I’m going to have to look at those and try to focus on joining those clubs. Three Majors I suppose is first, and obviously to win a different Major is another category.
I’m really realistic enough to believe that the paths to success and failure are always a hair’s breadth away. The difference between a putt going in and not going in, and the consequences of that, is amazing. You could look at the fourth round at Birkdale and maybe if Greg got up and down on the first and I didn’t, would he have had the momentum to carry on? Instead I had it. We’ll never fully know that. But in Sergio’s case at Carnoustie last year we do have an answer, because if his putt dropped he would have won The Open. But my putt dropped and I won The Open.
It’s about averages. Get yourself into position enough times and it will fall on the right side for you some of the time and on the wrong side other times. But the key is to continue to get yourself into position. Over the years I’ve played great in tournaments and through no fault of my own I’ve finished second, and I’ve messed up and finished second. It really is the case of averages. Just keep yourself in those positions and one day you’ll hole that 10-footer on the last to get into the play-off. The next day it won’t go in and you lose the tournament. You can’t control everything in golf. You control getting yourself in position, but you can’t control all of the breaks. You have to realise that some days things go for you and you’re the champion, and other days, you’ll fight as hard as you can and it just won’t happen.
I’ve never looked like I’ve had the sort of surface talent that many players have. A lot of people take the first look and they start to go, oh, well, he’s getting up and down a lot and that’s going to fall apart eventually; or it looks like he’s working awfully hard to do that score and he’s getting the most out of it, that won’t last. But I’ve seen that as my advantage and worked on some of the other areas of the game to build a more complete model. I’ve learned over the years that it’s actually more important what’s underneath the surface; under the surface talent is far more important than what’s on top.
You can always learn the ability to hit a golf ball. The ability to think and adapt, to work your way forward to handle the off days, to get through the slow periods, to have that mental strength is far more of a talent. If you start off and you get on a hot streak and you have a look back, it’s always great to think hitting a golf ball is the easiest thing in the word. But when that breaks down, it’s hard to come back. The guys who have a bit of a work ethic and have always had to work through their game at times are the ones to maybe last a little longer.
I’m going to cherish the Claret Jug again this year. I’ve got to say it was great having it for a year. It was tough giving it back. I know now what it feels like to give it back, so I’ll enjoy it even more this year. The breakfast table is looking for it back: it’s got a little spot worn on the table and I think it will go very nicely there for another year.
| Pos | Name | Nationality | Total | Prize Money |
| 1 | HARRINGTON, Padraig | IRL | 283 | £750,000.00 |
| 2 | POULTER, Ian | ENG | 287 | £450,000.00 |
| T3 | STENSON, Henrik | SWE | 289 | £255,000.00 |
| T3 | NORMAN, Greg | AUS | 289 | £255,000.00 |
| T5 | FURYK, Jim | USA | 290 | £180,000.00 |
| T5 | WOOD, Chris (am) | ENG | 290 | £0.00 |
| T7 | HOWELL, David | ENG | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T7 | KARLSSON, Robert | SWE | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T7 | ELS, Ernie | RSA | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T7 | CASEY, Paul | ENG | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T7 | AMES, Stephen | CAN | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T7 | STRICKER, Steve | USA | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T7 | ALLENBY, Robert | AUS | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T7 | KIM, Anthony | USA | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T7 | CURTIS, Ben | USA | 292 | £96,944.45 |
| T16 | SCOTT, Adam | AUS | 293 | £53,166.67 |
| T16 | LEONARD, Justin | USA | 293 | £53,166.67 |
| T16 | CHOI, KJ | KOR | 293 | £53,166.67 |
| T19 | VAN DE VELDE, Jean | FRA | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | HAVRET, Gregory | FRA | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | WARING, Paul | ENG | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | MICKELSON, Phil | USA | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | McDOWELL, Graeme | NIR | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | JACOBSON, Fredrik | SWE | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | SHERREARD, Thomas (am) | ENG | 294 | £0.00 |
| T19 | IMMELMAN, Trevor | RSA | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | HANSEN, Anders | DEN | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | LOVE III, Davis | USA | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | MEDIATE, Rocco | USA | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | NOREN, Alexander | SWE | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T19 | WAKEFIELD, Simon | ENG | 294 | £37,770.83 |
| T32 | GREEN, Richard | AUS | 295 | £25,035.71 |
| T32 | ROMERO, Andres | ARG | 295 | £25,035.71 |
| T32 | O’HERN, Nick | AUS | 295 | £25,035.71 |
| T32 | SLOCUM, Heath | USA | 295 | £25,035.71 |
| T32 | LEHMAN, Tom | USA | 295 | £25,035.71 |
| T32 | HAMILTON, Todd | USA | 295 | £25,035.71 |
| T32 | GOOSEN, Retief | RSA | 295 | £25,035.71 |
| T39 | AIKEN, Thomas | RSA | 296 | £16,645.83 |
| T39 | DUVAL, David | USA | 296 | £16,645.83 |
| T39 | CANETE, Ariel | ARG | 296 | £16,645.83 |
| T39 | BOURDY, Gregory | FRA | 296 | £16,645.83 |
| T39 | WILLIAMSON, Jay | USA | 296 | £16,645.83 |
| T39 | AUSTIN, Woody | USA | 296 | £16,645.83 |
| T39 | BRYANT, Bart | USA | 296 | £16,645.83 |