Open in fine health as sales buck recession

FROM THE SCOTSMAN NEWSPAPER
By Martin Dempster
With ticket sales ahead of levels from five years ago and corporate hospitality having also picked up quite a bit since the start of the year, the R & A is confident the economic benefit of this year's Open Championship – the 28th to be staged at St Andrews – will exceed the £72 million it generated in 2005.
Due to the recession, David Hill, the R & A's Director of Championships, was "unsure" earlier in the year about what to expect regarding ticket sales for the event in July and admitted he was also "pretty concerned" about the hospitality side of the game's oldest major this time around.
However, at a press briefing yesterday ahead of the 150th anniversary of the Open Championship, he revealed things were now looking positive on both counts and says the event, which will provide record grandstand seating of more than 21,000 seats around the Old Course, is gearing up to be a resounding success.
"While we knew that Turnberry, where we had a crowd of 123,000, would be our lowest attendance, I was unsure at the start of this year what the crowd size might be here," admitted Hill.
"What would be the effect of the recession? And would the Americans come? I am pleased to say that ticket sales are ahead of 2005 and we are anticipating a crowd of well in excess of 200,000. "What is particularly encouraging is that the Americans are coming to The Open again. All the tour operators have full plane loads coming over.
"As for hospitality, at the start of the year we were pretty concerned about that but I am pleased to report corporate sales have picked up and they are running well ahead of Turnberry last year. I don't know if it is the St Andrews factor or the recession being over – it is hard to say.
"On the accommodation front, as per usual at a St Andrews Open, every single bed in the town and also over in Dundee seems to have gone and people are having to look at now extending out towards Perth and down into south Fife towards Edinburgh.
"We are confident that the economic benefit of the event will exceed the £72 million of 2005. Since 1997, more than 250,000 juveniles under-16 have gained free admission to The Open. Through golf clubs, we are hoping to encourage families and youngsters to come to St Andrews through this scheme and it will coincide with the running of The Junior Open down at Lundin Links earlier in the week," added Hill.
The "tried and tested" road routes used for the event in 2005 will be in operation once again – the R & A, together with St Andrews Links Trust and Fife Council, has invested more than £1m in upgrading the whole of the West Sands which is used for parking during the event – while more than 50,000 are expected to use the Golflink service, which will see spectators arrive from around the country at nearby Leuchars train station before being transported to the course by a fleet of coaches.
In total, the grandstand capacity around the Old Course will be 21,500 – the highest number erected for an Open Championship. Almost 4,000 of those will be at the side of the 17th green, with another completely new stand just outside the Jigger Inn holding a further 600 or 700. While players and fans alike won't encounter as many TV cables as in the past at Open venues due to the fact the R & A has invested around £1m in putting in a fibre optic network that stretches for about five miles underground, the merchandise pavilion will once again lack a presence of the leading golf club manufacturers.
According to Hill, that's due to the fact it would cost them a total of between £50,000-£60,000 by the time they forked out for wages and accommodation, while Peter Dawson, the R & A's Chief Executive, insists changes made in the tented village in recent years have been necessary to safeguard the event's long-term future.
"The current merchandise operation came in at Royal Lytham in 2001," he said. "The Open Championship has competition from the other major golf events and the Ryder Cup. The Open Championship, therefore, has a need to be commercially successful. We need to reinvest in the championship and make sure it stays at the forefront of golfing events. You don't do that commercially the way The Open used to be, you do it the way we are doing it now.
"I understand certain things have been lost in that process but we can't give our opposition a lead by not doing merchandising in a commercial way because that will eventually reflect on the amount of money we are able to invest in the championship and it will go into decline."
While the prize-money for this year's event has not yet been revealed, the R & A won't be following in Wimbledon's footsteps, not yet anyway, by handing out a £1 million cheque to the winner.
"Our winner last year received £750,000, so I suppose the £1m is in sight," said Dawson.
In another celebration of the 150th anniversary, this year's Open champion will be presented with a replica of the event's original trophy, a Moroccan leather belt. Young Tom Morris kept that after winning the event three times in a row, culminating in 1870, with the Claret Jug being presented to the winner for the first time in 1872.
The R&A has also published a pictorial history of the Open Championship and, after a foreword from Arnold Palmer, it contains over 300 pages of images from all of the 14 venues used to stage the event.
+The full article above appears in The Scotsman newspaper today.