The future of the Open: can golf survive in the modern era? | Sean Ingle | Sport

The future of the Open: can golf survive in the modern era? | Sean Ingle | Sport

Padraig Harrington stands on the 17th fairway at Royal Birkdale, a five wood and the destiny of the 2008 Open in his hands. He strides towards his ball, checks, and then stares intently at the pin. The process is repeated a second time, then a third. Given the high stakes â€" ripping a 272-yard shot over a praetorian guard of bunkers and on to the narrowest of greens would be dicey enough without the pressure of leading by two shots on the penultimate hole â€" he needs to be sure.

But as he sets his stance, the BBC’s commentary team fear Harrington’s boldness is veering into recklessness, especially in the 40mph winds lassoing at his trousers.

“Perhaps he doesn’t know where he is?” suggests Ken Brown. “He’s two ahead. This is a bit of a risk into this wind, don’t you think?”

Then Peter Alliss pipes up. “I would have thought so. He is aiming into the grandstand virtually on the left,” he says. “Two shots ahead …”

Another former pro, Wayne Grady, spots a further problem: “There’s danger here on the right too.”

But Harrington knows his playing partner Greg Norman, who is three behind, has a chance of an eagle on the par-five 17th. Understandably he wants to win this thing himself, not leave it on the clubs of others.

He sets. He strikes. The contact is perfect â€" so perfect his caddie shouts “great shot” while the ball is in the air, something he does once in a blue moon â€" and as it lands off the bank and rolls tenderly to within four feet of the flag, Birkdale bellows its approval.

Meanwhile in the living room of Harrington’s coach, Bob Torrance, the phone starts to ring. “Dad,” says his son Sam, the former Ryder Cup player and captain. “I have just seen the best golf shot of my life.”

Nine years on, Harrington remembers every microsecond like it happened yesterday. “I was facing all the trouble in the world on that shot but I was feeling bulletproof,” he says. “I had played well all day, I had swung the club well. And the five wood was my favourite club so I was extremely confident.”

The rest is history. Harrington sank his eagle putt and his rivals’ hopes, to claim his second successive Claret Jug, four shots clear of Ian Poulter in second.

Padraig Harrington with the Claret Jug in 2008. Photograph: Andrew Redington/Getty Images

This week Birkdale hosts the Open for the first time since Harrington’s glorious triumph. Yet in the intervening years the landscape for golf has changed, at least in Britain. The way viewers consume all sports â€" frequently on the go rather than on the sofa â€" is shorter and snappier. Participation levels and viewing figures for golf in the UK are on the slide. Even those in charge accept they need to attract a younger, more diverse audience and find a way to retain people whose work and family commitments mean they are not able to spend four hours on a course.

The question, as the world’s best golfers head to Merseyside, is how?

‘You didn’t tell anyone you played golf’

There is a story about Harrington that few outside Ireland will know. As a five-year-old he helped his father and his father’s colleagues in the police build a golf course in the foothills of the Dublin mountains. Years of diligent practice on that Stackstown course helped Harrington become the golfer â€" and the man â€" he is today.

“My dad was a policeman and he realised that for the young Garda coming to the city there were no facilities,” he says. “And, to be honest, back in the early 70s they weren’t considered the right people for golf. So he and others helped build Stackstown.”

Harrington Jr, along with other members of his family, was a willing helper. “There were two quarries on the course so a lot of stones had to be cleared,” he says, wryly. “I remember myself as a five-year-old being out there levelling sand on the greens â€" and anyone who knows Stackstown knows there is plenty of slope on the greens so we didn’t do that good a job!”

Between them Harrington and Rory McIlroy have helped make golf in Ireland popular and cool but he knows it was not always that way. “These days the courses in Ireland are very busy and full of juniors,” Harrington says, “but when I was growing up you didn’t tell anyone you played golf. You’d get bullied for that at school. Nowadays the kids love it.”

The picture in Britain is not as rosy. It is a statement of fact not prophesy that fewer people will watch the Open at Birkdale than the 4.7 million who were transfixed by Harrington’s 2008 triumph. Last year Sky got 1.1 million viewers for its Bafta-winning coverage of the shootout between Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson at Troon â€" highly impressive for a subscription TV channel but still an inevitable decline. The BBC will show the US PGA Championship this year but for golf to prosper, it needs to be shown on terrestrial television more regularly.

The consequences of the almost full retreat from terrestrial TV coverage will probably only reveal themselves slowly but it is safe to assume that no matter how polished Sky’s presentation, or deep its pockets, (they are rumoured to be paying £15m a year for the rights) fewer fly-by viewers will watch in future. And that will have knock-on effects on the numbers lured into the sport.

Yet how many converts to golf arrived in that steamy summer of 1976, when a 19-year-old Seve Ballesteros, oozing dash and dare, led the Open at Birkdale after 54 holes before slipping back by shooting seven over par in the first 12 holes on his final round? Almost anyone else would have faded away in shame; instead Ballesteros enthralled a new generation with three birdies and an eagle on the final six holes to tie with Jack Nicklaus for second, behind Johnny Miller.

The peerless Seve Ballesteros at Royal Birkdale. Photograph: John Leatherbarrow/Getty Images

The same could be said in 1998, when a 17-year-old Justin Rose became an overnight star by finishing tied for fourth in his first Open at Birkdale, helped in no small measure by holing his pitch on the final hole.

And then there was Laura Davies inspiring a generation of female golfers to take up the sport when she won the Women’s Open at Birkdale in 1986. “It’s so long ago that I have pictures of me on the 18th green in my pink shirt and that’s pretty much all I can remember about it,” Davies says. “But it’s lovely when people tell you that my win encouraged them to try golf â€" and that they have loved it ever since.”

At Birkdale this week, many eyes will be on the local hero Tommy Fleetwood, who finished fourth in the US Open. Certainly the 26-year-old from Southport has the game to be a household star, having won £3m this year to lead the European Order of Merit. Who would not also be charmed by his story of how he snuck on to Birkdale as a kid and hit some shots when the members were not looking? Yet if he is in the running on the final day his performance will not crash through into the mainstream like in the past.

No quick fix

But golf’s challenges run deeper than exposure on television, with fading participation also a concern during the past decade: 1.54 million people played golf at least once a month in 2007-08, the first year Sport England tracked figures. Its latest report suggests that figure is now down to 1.31 million.

Unsurprisingly there are caveats and counter surveys. Another recent study found there were 95,000 adult female golfers and 40,000 juniors in England, among the highest numbers in Europe â€" and campaigns like This Girl Golfs were undoubtedly successful. Yet other nations tend to have higher percentages of female and youth players. Just 14% of UK golf club members are women, while in other parts of the world it’s above 30%.

There are what may be politely called golf’s heritage problems â€" the widespread perception the sport is flooded with conservative people, who look down their plus fours at women and juniors. That perception can be unfair. A wide demographic of people play and love the sport. Just ask Fleetwood. And many clubs are friendly and open too. Yet when a championship course such as Muirfield only allows women to become members in 2017, not 1917, it reinforces the impression of a sport that is not so much traditional as archaic.

When Henni Goya, the youngest woman to join the European Tour as an amateur and now a Sky Sports presenter, is asked how the sport can modernise and become more diverse she admits there is no quick fix. “It’s going to be one of those things that’s a slow burn because golf is such an old-fashioned game,” she says. “And if you look at a committee at an average club there is no one below 50 and there are not many women.

“On the plus side we have got Jason Day, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy in the men’s game, as well as Lexi Thompson and Charley Hull in the women’s. These are all people I can relate to because of the way they play and act. But let’s say I am a youngster and I see Rory or Lexi on TV and I think: ‘This is awesome. Where do I go?’ Then you have a problem. Because the answer is usually a golf club. And too many clubs have the Argyle sweatshirts and pleated trousers brigade basically saying: ‘You can’t wear what Rickie Fowler or Jason Day wears on TV’. I don’t feel comfortable in such places either.”

She contrasts how stuffy some clubs are with the more relaxed attitude at Topgolf, which is a target-based game widely successful in the US. “Sadly it is going to take a while for golf to change. Hopefully it will happen before the sport completely disappears and clubs start shutting down.”

At least the R&A recognises there is work to do. As Neil Armit, its chief commercial officer, says: “All of us who work in golf have a responsibility to encourage more people, and young people in particular, to take up the sport. Now, more than ever before, it’s important that golf is able to change and adapt to stay relevant in the modern era.”

‘I don’t want to see the game dumbed down’

Some in the sport believe drastic measures are needed to live up to that pledge to stay relevant. Recently Keith Pelley, the chief executive of the European Tour, suggested there were too many 72-hole tournaments and that there was a “desperate need for something else that can attract a different demographic, a new energy and a different time commitment to the game”. His solution is GolfSixes, a six-hole competition that can be completed in little more than an hour.

It is certainly different. In the inaugural competition, played between 16 teams of pairs in St Albans this spring, the third hole had a long drive competition while the fourth had a 40-second shot clock. It was generally well received but to say it is not for everyone is an understatement. As Harrington says: “I don’t want to see the game I play dumbed down.”

Some, at least, are prepared to praise Pelley for trying. “I watched it and thought it went very well but it can’t sustain top-level tour golf,” Davies says. “But a six-hole format would be great for youngsters, or people to play with their mates. That way they are going to be on the course for one hour not four.”

Davies agrees with Pelley that the 18-hole game takes too long. However she advocates a different solution. “Top-level pro golf has to speed up,” she says. “That to me is killing the interest. I don’t want to stand around and watch myself wait five minutes to hit a shot into a green. Somehow the powers that be have to clamp down on slow play. Severe five-shot penalties or whatever you have got to do, because it is ruining the spectacle. I think anything over four hours is way too long. I can get round in a couple of hours when I practice myself.”

The Golf Sixes tournament attempted to make golf attractive to a new audience. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian

In Iceland they recently experimented with a third way â€" playing professional tournaments on courses of fewer than 18 holes, without gimmicks. It may sound unusual but the golf architect Edwin Roald, who worked with the Golf Union of Iceland when it removed its 18-hole requirement from its championship criteria, insists it can work. He points to the country’s recent national matchplay event, the KPMG Cup, played on 13 holes of the 18-hole Westman Islands course, as an example.

“We simply put together a chain of the best holes without worrying about the number,” he says. “The GUI came under heavy criticism but the event was a success and produced worthy champions in Gudrun Bra Bjorgvinsdottir and Egill Ragnar Gunnarsson after 26-hole semi-finals and finals.”

But Roald’s primary focus is on getting more ordinary people to play the sport he loves. As he points out, the traditional 18-hole game has two major problems: it takes too long to play and costs too much. And given the trend for rising land values across the world, it is not easy for courses to be built. So, he argues, why not transform existing courses or create new ones with fewer holes and frequent loops back to the clubhouse?

He stresses that such thinking is hardly radical. Going back in history, Montrose had 25 holes, Prestwick had 12, Musselburgh had seven â€" yet the reason we play 18 holes today is because of the elimination of four holes on the Old Course at St Andrews in 1764 from 22 to 18.

There is another way Roald believes clubs can save space â€" by scrapping driving ranges and replacing them with what he calls the SmartRange, which uses new software with launch monitors and golf simulators to give golfers access to more reliable shot data when warming-up and practicing indoors. Such thinking also could allow newer golf clubs to spring up without spending a fortune, or for existing clubs to sell off some land and replenish their finances or improve their facilities.

Certainly there is support among the public for a more flexible approach. A Golf World survey found 72% of its readers wanted more six and 12-hole courses as well as courses that were less intimidating for beginners and more child friendly.

Henni Goya feels Charley Hull, pictured, is relatable because of the way she plays and acts. Photograph: Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Changing the layout of courses is one thing. Changing the instincts of golf’s more stubbornly traditional clubs quite another. Goya is a passionate advocate for her sport but admits she gets frustrated by the way it sometimes shoots itself in the foot. “Many golf clubs need to modernise because you have young people wanting to give it a go, and they see the reality of it and it is a slap in the face. All clubs need to become fun and inclusive places to be. Places that you can just rock down to after work â€" and you don’t have to buy a whole new wardrobe or feel you are going to be told off for disobeying 10 million rules and regulations.”

Davies agrees with much of this analysis â€" to a point. “We don’t want people turning up in board shorts and skateboarding to the course with the clubs strapped on to their backs,” she says. “You have to have some sort of code. But give kids a little bit of leeway. To not allow jeans in clubhouse is so archaic it is ridiculous. And even to this day I am not allowed to wear jeans to go and register for a tournament golf course on the European Tour. It is ludicrous.”

Davies also believes clubs should do more to encourage junior members, including lending equipment to get them started. “I’m sure there are loads of different ways to encourage kids and make them feel welcome. I was intimidated even when I was a junior, I had two lovely clubs I was a member at but it was still intimidating for a 14-year-old going in there.”

‘Golf is a surprisingly broad family’

The R&A has also belatedly recognised it needs to be in the places that younger people hang out online â€" especially social media sites such as Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook Live â€" in order to sell the game to the next generation. But as Richard Ayers, the CEO of the digital media consultancy Seven League, who is helping the R&A, stresses, it is not only about where you go but how you talk. Content, tone and the degree you interact with your audience to tell stories around golf are vital.

Ayers, whose clients include the All England Club, the Premier League, Barcelona and the UFC, admits some of the R&A’s fresh ideas for Open week, such as using memes and gifs, will have “some of the hardcore raising their eyebrows” but insists that is not necessarily a bad thing. “There is a general problem in sport about defining fans all too narrowly,” he says. “Often those in charge of sports focus on the hardcore supporters because they are the noisy ones who will shout loudest if you do something they think is outrageous â€" even if it is only slightly different to what you have tried to do previously. So we try to educate our clients to think about audiences as multiple different types of fans â€" and cater to all of them.”

‘The reason we play 18 holes today is because of the elimination of four holes on the Old Course at St Andrews in 1764 from 22 to 18.’ Photograph: Paul Childs/Reuters

There is something else Ayers wants to stress: golf is not nearly as male or conservative as most of us think. “Golf is a surprisingly broad family but it has a singular stereotype,” he says. “We work across multiple sports and I can tell you for a fact the Open’s social media profile is 10% more female than the other sports we deal with â€" including football.

“The age demographic is also surprisingly wide,” he adds. “There are an awful lot of kids who come to the Open, and when they come they are absolutely thrilled to get their picture with the Claret Jug or watch the players. It’s just about making sure there’s more of them arriving in the future.”

Finding the next Rory

This week, Harrington will smile and cast his mind back to the memories of the Birkdale roar. “I tell people it’s exactly how you would dream of winning an Open when you are 15,” he says. “I was in the last group. I hit all the shots. I hit a spectacular second on the 71st hole. And, to cap it all, probably when I was 15 I would have been dreaming of beating Greg Norman too.” The genial Irishman certainly has plenty of optimism for the game’s future and believes golf will find a way to attract the next bunch of youngsters who will crowd the barricades, and dream of being the next Rory or Padraig â€" just as Harrington once yearned to be the next Bernhard Langer.

“I certainly meet a lot of kids who play golf,” he says. “And you can see it in their faces. They love it, they love the game, they are keen on it, far more so than when I was a junior.”

And while Goya accepts participation numbers for the 18-hole game are falling in Britain, she insists the fact that Topgolf is such a resounding success shows there remains an enormous appetite for the enduring thrill of hitting a stationary ball with a steel club.

“Any time I go to Topgolf I see queues of two hours, with young people and young women with ripped jeans just enjoying themselves with their boyfriends and girlfriends, whoever,” she says, her enthusiasm evident in every syllable. “For me it shows that in essence people still love golf â€" or at least they find the act of hitting a ball with a stick really fun. We just have to find better ways to capitalise on that fact.”

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