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<\/p>\nOrganisers of this week’s Open currently have no plans to alter Sunday\u2019s schedule should England reach the World Cup final.<\/p>\n
R&A chiefs are planning for a 6.40pm finish at Royal Birkdale \u2013 should there be no need for a play-off \u2013 and believe that would allow sufficient time before the 8pm kick-off.<\/p>\n
However, they say they will make a final decision once the outcome of England\u2019s semi-final against Argentina is known.<\/p>\n
R&A chief executive Mark Darbon said: “I\u2019m an England football fan, so it would be a great problem to have.<\/p>\n
“But I guess also, because I\u2019m an England football fan, we should also wait to see how the semi-final goes before we get too far ahead.<\/p>\n
“Of course in the background, we\u2019ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. Our final putt is currently scheduled for around 6.40pm on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“We think that, even if we go to a three-hole play-off, we\u2019ve got time to complete the championship.<\/p>\n
“So at this stage, no plans to alter anything, but we\u2019ll maintain that under review and finalise our position after the semi-final.”<\/p>\n
Around 300,000 spectators are anticipated at the Merseyside links throughout the week, which includes four practice days as well as the championship, which starts on Thursday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Incidents at last autumn\u2019s Ryder Cup and June\u2019s US Open have highlighted concerns over spectator behaviour in golf, prompting the R&A to introduce a new code of conduct.<\/p>\n
Darbon said the organisation is generally “very proud of the way our spectators behave” at the Open but trouble-makers would be ejected.<\/p>\n
He said: “We feel it\u2019s within our gift, if someone does step over the line, to ask them to leave the venue.”<\/p>\n
Players are also being made aware of the standards of behaviour expected of them.<\/p>\n
Darbon said: “We believe that we have a responsibility to play a leadership role, to ensure that fans watching see appropriate behaviour from the world\u2019s best players as they participate in our championship.”<\/p>\n
Birkdale has undergone significant course changes, arranged in collaboration with the R&A, to host this week\u2019s Open, but other venues on the rota \u2013 notably Muirfield \u2013 have been more reluctant to make similar alterations.<\/p>\n
Darbon said changes are a matter for each course, with “a lot of the decision-making driven by” their members, with no ultimatums from the R&A.<\/p>\n
“At no stage would we threaten a non-return to a venue on that basis,” he said.<\/p>\n
Muirfield has not hosted the Open since 2013 and there will not be another opportunity until 2029 at the earliest.<\/p>\n
Darbon said the East Lothian links “requires a few tweaks” both around the golf course and across the site, but there was “good dialogue” with the host club.<\/p>\n
Darbon also confirmed discussions to add Portmarnock, near Dublin, to the rota were ongoing but there were presently “no plans beyond that”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Organisers of this week’s Open currently have no plans to alter Sunday\u2019s schedule should England reach the World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-551080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}