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SOUTHPORT, England — With a new-look PGA Tour on the horizon, the fate and significance of national Opens is a topic that eventually will have to be addressed.
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There don’t appear to be easy answers for events such the RBC Canadian Open or the elevated Scottish Open as the PGA Tour looks to streamline its tournaments and have full control over field sizes and eligibility. At the moment, it’s not clear how a national open with open qualifying can fit into this projected new system.
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Colin Montgomerie is a board member on the DP World Tour and told the Toronto Sun on Friday at Royal Birkdale that there should be a place for these important tournaments.
“We want an Open,” the famous Scotsman said bluntly when asked about his own national open. “We want to try to get the Scottish Open from 120-odd players to 156. And if it is an Open, have qualifying. The same with the Canadian Open. Make them Opens.”
He agrees that the limited Fall International Series for players in the expected new top-tier Championship Series could be a good place to put national opens.
“Yes, absolutely,” he said, before re-iterating his position on the matter in his role on the DP World Tour board.
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“We want to concentrate on national Opens,” he said. “We want the Hong Kong Open back. We want the Singapore Open back. We want to make the Scottish Open big.”
“With the Canadian Open, you want to make it as big as you possibly can,” he said with a nod to the nationality of his interviewer.
Nationals Open should be a big deal
Montgomerie, who is at Royal Birkdale this week in his role as a Loch Lomond Whiskies Ambassador, says he has been following the PGA Tour’s proposed two-tier plan and has many of the same questions as other observers.
“If you have 20-odd first-tier events, or special events, they’re not that special anymore if there are so many of them,” he said of the tour’s hope of making the proposed Championship Series big-event television.
“I don’t know how it is going to work, and I feel for the second tier,” he added. “There’s not going to be much draw if there is a so called special event opposite it. But it’s something new. We have to think about golf with no LIV, really. They’re looking for investors, but if the Saudis have found that they can’t afford it, who the hell is going to?”
The conversation drifted back to national opens and his view on why it’s important they don’t get lost in the shuffle in whatever men’s professional golf evolves into in coming years.
“There are sponsored tournaments, but there is nothing like the Canadian Open or Australian Open,” he said. “(Jack) Nicklaus was asking for the Australian Open to be a major for donkey’s years, wasn’t he? It will be interesting to see how it figures out.”
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