[Mark Bourgeois]

For my viewing pleasure the Scottish Open has zoomed to second place after the US Open. The decision to move from Loch Lomond to links courses has made for more interesting architecture and better fields. (I should qualify my comments by noting Scotland isn't a nation.  )

I still have the US Open at the top but the gap to the Scottish isn't all that big. The real gap is after those two. I suppose the Canadian Open is third followed by either the Australian Open or the South African Open. Oz has the best potential for improvement given the relatively strong fields. But the venues are too often disappointing. Perhaps the same can be said for ZA.

Probably throw in the Japan Open at fifth? Would be nice if there was better coverage of it in the US. Heck, is there any coverage? Every now and then it gets to venues I'd love to see (Hirono, Tokyo, Kasumigaseki). Maybe the lack of coverage DQ's it from this list. If a golfer wins a tournament and there's nobody around to see it...

I would guess consensus puts the above in the top five. Here's a question: which opens come next and why? Irish? French? Swedish? For that matter, disagree with my top five? Why?

[Ronald Montesano]

Doesn't there need to be an accounting of the evolution of those events? The more evolved, and perhaps less corporate-dependent a tournament gets, the more likely it is to be held on a classic-quality golf course.

Younger and smaller national opens (sounds oxymoronic, doncha know?) need the largesse of corporations that take their events to corporate-friendly locales.

I would suggest that the most stunning turnabout was the decision by the RCGA to move away from its 23-year prison cell home base of Glen Abbey and take its show on the road. It reaches across from Montreal to Vancouver. Now we have Hamilton (Ancaster), St. George's, Shaughnessy, Royal Montreal and hopefully others in the rotation. If it ever decides to go to Nova Scotia, it will be akin to the Scottish Open going to Dornoch, or the Oz Open playing itself in Tasmania.

My ranking:
US Open and British Open (not a national open but no other category will have it)
Canadian Open and Aussie Open (good clubs balanced with clunkers)
Scottish and Irish (at least they move around a bit)
Japanese (potential to hit Colt every now and then)

The lurker will be the China Open, if it ever gets to some of those new builds by guys we love.

[Mark Bourgeois]

I see how 'prestige', history, et al could be the criteria used if one were looking to rank on 'greatness'. But I'm just looking at it purely from the perspective of viewing pleasure. For me that comes down to strength of field and quality of venue.

The Volvo China Open falls below the HSBC Champions event, for fields at least. It tends to pip HSBC on venues at least when they held it in Binhai, which looked kinda interesting on TV. And of course in both cases it's illustrative we are comparing Volvo to HSBC.  Well, if we were discussing 'prestige'.

[Tim_Weiman]

Mark,

The best national Open ever was the 2000 Irish Open at Ballybunion.

By far the best golf party ever!

[Sean_A]

This is an interesting question because it seems to me the importance of national opens has slowly deteriorated and the nail in the coffin was the creation of the world events.  I would like to see the national opens used as world events and hence breath some life back into these old tournaments.  So from this perspective I think the French, Dutch, Canadian, S African, Australian and maybe the Argentinean Opens should get top billing as world events.  The US Open is a major so it already has status above world events.  There are probably a few others we could chuck in.

Ciao

[Ronald Montesano]

Dear Ciao,

In that case, the national organizations would lose control over their national championships.

Arrivederci

[Sean_A]

Dear Ciao,

In that case, the national organizations would lose control over their national championships.

Arrivederci

Not necessarily.  More importantly, it would require the US power base to give up some power for the good of the professional game and the poor fans who watch the current drivel on tv every week.  But then, one has to admit the system is broken before good stuff can happen.  We aren' there yet, but all the talk about the crap ratings when Tiger doesn't play is a step in the right direction.

Ciao

 

[Matthew Mollica]

Australia is there on potential only. Brian S is right.

2002 saw the opening round of the tournament cancelled due to a ridiculous pin on 3, on very quick greens, on a perfect weather day.

Since then, the tournament has been held at Moonah Links twice (an ordinary TPC standard, modern "stadium" course touted as the home of Australian golf.) Blah. Every other staging has been at either Royal Sydney, The Australian, or The Lakes, with the once exception being the '09 tournament at New South Wales GC. Ten of the last twelve have been in Sydney, and the other two have been at a C grade course 90 minutes from Melbourne. Commercial requirements have detracted greatly from a tournament rich in heritage, and one which could otherwise be staged on some wonderful courses.

MM

[Michael Goldstein]

Golf has changed a lot since Peter Thomson used to travel the world trying to win as many national Opens as he could.

I definitely agree that the Scottish Open has a great week in the schedule and played on great courses (recently) is right up there.

The French Open generally has an OK field as it has the week before the Scottish Open. 

Other European Tour events require budget to attract star players and many struggle.

In terms of architecture I'd go with the Dutch Open as a favourite.  That said they probably only have a handful of top 50 ranked players in the field that week.   

Next year the Irish Open will be awesome viewing at RCD. 

The Australian Open has potential given it's status as a marquee event with extra world ranking points.  The good TV time into the US coupled with the PGA Tour outreach could see an interesting future. I enjoyed watching it at The Lakes but Sydney golf is by no means the sand belt.  .   

Hopefully one day the NZ Open will be part of this conversation. The coverage this summer from Queenstown may raise a few eyebrows. 

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()