R&A Blame The Weather for Poor Attendance

£75 gets you access to the whole week at the BMW PGA. Obviously it's not a major but it's top level golf and I know where I'd spend my £75.

But even there up to a couple of years ago the practise days and Pro am, were free, as were parking on those days. Now you pay every day!
 
Re Trade Stands, it's a few years since the R&A changed their policy on this. Don't know why they did it. Perhaps a time to reconsider that one too ;)

Mind you, if they are skinning us for £75 entry, I wonder what the cost is per square metre of floor space in a prime location in the tented village ;)
 
Oh, I fully intend to go to the women's open which I think is around £25. However.... I won't go if the weather is lousy. I'll be delighted if it's as nice as it was this weekend!
 
I think £75 is okay as it keeps out the section of the golfing public who like to shout "mashed potato" or "geddinthehole".

If you make the tickets cheap then you will have the golfing underclass in en masse and that won't be fitting for the occasion. It will be football shirts, spitting, taking photos, using phones, cheap and nasty tattoos everywhere. etc etc.

It would ruin if for the normal punters and damage our GDP as it would show the world what the country is coming to...
 
I went Saturday with HID.

Cost for the day? Total cost once car was parked, a cuppa was bought,fuel taken into account was £100 each and that was with a rucksack full of sarnies,water etc to save further costs.

I loved every minute of it and see it as ok value as I was in at 8am and left at 8pm but it is on the brink of being too expensive for me now.

I would loved to have gone again yesterday but I could not justify a further hundred quid each.I will however be at St Andrews in 2015 for the week as I always do when the Open is at the Home of Golf but dear knows what a ticket for the week will be by then!!!

I am with Tommo,the R&A appear to be losing sight.

It is still the greatest Championship in golf but they are in danger of making their own Championship the one thing I utterly hate in golf and that is only affordable and accessible to the Elite.
 
£75 isn't bad for a whole day's entertainment when you compare it to Football matches

But

You have to add in getting there and, unless you take your own picnic - which still costs - the price rockets.
Add in Hotel accomodation unless you live close by and it becomes a damn expensive day out....

..and yet again we go back to the 'value for money' and 'affordability' arguement (see elsewhere in respect of such as the cost of tyour club's Open 4BBB comp). I didn't realise it was £75 but most certainly wouldn't pay that for watching a day's golf - no matter how that compares with X,Y ort Z. It's just too much money. Event organisers have got to realise that 'value for money' comes a long way second to 'affordabaility' for the majority of folk these days. Even if I was travelleing from Glasgow, were I to go with my son I would be looking at forking out >£250 - nope - just not affordable.
 
I think £75 is okay as it keeps out the section of the golfing public who like to shout "mashed potato" or "geddinthehole".

If you make the tickets cheap then you will have the golfing underclass in en masse and that won't be fitting for the occasion. It will be football shirts, spitting, taking photos, using phones, cheap and nasty tattoos everywhere. etc etc.

It would ruin if for the normal punters and damage our GDP as it would show the world what the country is coming to...

The R&A should be encouraging all punters by keeping it affordable to there ain folk rather than spouting rubbish about needing the money to spread the word across the globe - who on earth are they targetting - seems like funding nice overseas jollies for the R&A etc to the countries yet to have received the word. Conditions of entry, stewarding and others spectators can deal with the idiots.
 
But even there up to a couple of years ago the practise days and Pro am, were free, as were parking on those days. Now you pay every day!

Parking (either at venue for BMWs, or Park and Ride for others) was free every day. I think (not certain) Entry on Practice day(s) was still free. Pro-Am Entry cost this year - as it may have done in the past.

I think £75 is okay as it keeps out the section of the golfing public who like to shout "mashed potato" or "geddinthehole".

If you make the tickets cheap then you will have the golfing underclass in en masse and that won't be fitting for the occasion. It will be football shirts, spitting, taking photos, using phones, cheap and nasty tattoos everywhere. etc etc.

It would ruin if for the normal punters and damage our GDP as it would show the world what the country is coming to...

Snelly, That's just so much snobbish twaddle! Price doesn't keep the Mashed Potato loons out! Lack of alcohol might (though that doesn't happen), but there's generally none of that rubbish in UK events anyway!
 
As the title says, the R&A have issued a statement blaming the weather for the attendances being well down on the 2002 Open at Muirfield!!

So it seems hot sunny days are detrimental to people going to watch golf. Nothing to do with the £75 admission cost then :D

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport...lame-heatwave-for-open-crowds-fall.1374493013


£75 for a full days golf,watching the best players on the planet play imo is good value.
Its all the extras that push up the cost.
To be honest unless your pretty local it was always going to cost a lot to get there.
Honestly how many really would of went if it was £50,probably not many more.
I would say its more down to the economic climate we are in.
 
Price will be £80 for competition days next year at Hoylake which isn't the best of courses to watch on either.
Too much hospitality and not enough aimed at the proper golfer who wants to watch their favourite players and check out all the latest manufacturers gear.
 
£75 for a full days golf,watching the best players on the planet play imo is good value.
Its all the extras that push up the cost.
To be honest unless your pretty local it was always going to cost a lot to get there.
Honestly how many really would of went if it was £50,probably not many more.
I would say its more down to the economic climate we are in.

Fine - might well be good vfm - but for many it's just not affordable regardless of whether or not it's good vfm. And yes - these days £50 is unaffordable for your ordinary golfing bloke - perhaps more so in Scotland given the demographic of the Scots golfing community (i.e. across the board). So maybe we should let the unemployed in for £5 and the rest of us pay £75. Now that would be taking golf to the masses.
 
Fine - might well be good vfm - but for many it's just not affordable regardless of whether or not it's good vfm. And yes - these days £50 is unaffordable for your ordinary golfing bloke - perhaps more so in Scotland given the demographic of the Scots golfing community (i.e. across the board). So maybe we should let the unemployed in for £5 and the rest of us pay £75. Now that would be taking golf to the masses.

I know of a club not that far from me that offers a discounted rate of subs for the unemployed.
 
I priced up getting the train and staying for the weekend. Just over £350 return on the train (not first class) add in accommodation, food and tickets for me and HID and id rather spend the money on a cheep week abroad. Watching golf in the uk shouldn't cost more than a weeks holiday overseas.
 
Depends how you sum it up. Yeah compare it to football its worth the money. But you see everything at a football match you dont at the golf!!!

I was going to go up with the wife but 2 x admissions fuel and grub was taking me over the £200 mark for 1 days golf viewing.

Outrageous!
 
ITS RIP-OFF BRITAIN

We went yesterday and paid the going rate for the Open, just have we have for donkey's years.

However, we'll be at the Portuguese Masters in October at the princely sum of 11 Euro's a day.......
 
It is the transport and other costs that really put the Open out of my range. How about the R&A use some of the profits to put on some regional subsidised transport from golf clubs to lessen the cost. Not often I can use football as a good example but Stoke are using some of the increase in TV revenue to pay for free coaches to all away games. In rugby my local club puts on subsidised coaches to the villages who are not on good public transport routes. If you want more people to attend help people get there without it costing the earth.
 
Top