At £190, has The Open Championship crossed the line and become too expensive?

The ballot for tickets to the 2027 Open Championship at the Old Course at St Andrews will open on July 6, 2027.

It will run to July 24, so fans still have plenty of time to enter the ballot and live every golfer’s dream of walking the fairways at the home of golf, and watching the best players on the planet compete for the Claret Jug.

However, it has been revealed that to attend the final day next year, you’ll have to cough up £190, which is an increase of £40 from this year’s championship at Royal Birkdale, and a £60 increase from 2025, where the World No.1 Scottie Scheffler was victorious at Royal Portrush.

A ticket for Thursday is £150, and a ticket for moving day, Saturday, has gone up to £170. Practice days still remain at a reasonable rate of £50 on Monday, £60 on Tuesday, and £70 on Wednesday. All of these are adult rates too – Youth tickets are less expensive, and under-16s can attend every day for free.

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Prices for the 2027 Open Championship. In brackets are the prices from 2025

Have tickets for The Open crossed the line?

Like tickets to watch football, price hikes in sport are inevitable. Your pocket will certainly be burned if you also attend the Ryder Cup at Adare Manor two months after The Open at the Old Course – something you can read about here.

£190 to attend the final day is quite the figure, and might be especially tough for regular Open visitors who were once able to roll up to the gate on the day, buy a ticket with a smile, and walk on in – days that weren’t even too long ago.

For an event that is somewhat famously tricky to arrange accommodation and travel for, given the awkwardness of each host venue’s location, this larger figure might make you wince.

What is also hard to swallow is that in 2022, when the Old Course last held The Open, the cost of a championship day ticket was £95. But, it is the most famous golf course on the planet, and the most famous golfing town on the planet. People will want to be there, and my instinct is that £190 is approaching the threshold of being too expensive in the eyes of the public, but tolerable given how great The Open is to attend.

Similar to the Ryder Cup, The Open has become a financial juggernaut, and it is safe to say that the 2027 renewal will be a roaring success both inside the ropes, because it is St Andrews, and in the R&A’s accounts, because it is St Andrews.

At Portrush last year, there was a remarkable number of spectators, mostly following Rory McIlroy. There will be 300,000 people across the week at Birkdale this year, and there were 290,000 people in attendance in 2022 when Cameron Smith broke McIlroy’s heart and lifted the Claret Jug.

It is also worth considering that the 2028 Open will be held at Royal Lytham & St Annes. This is a grand old venue, steeped in history, with a world-class golf course. But, it hasn’t held The Open since 2012, with one of the main reasons for that being space.

It is likely the R&A won’t be able to welcome as many spectators to the Fylde coast that time around, which means fewer tickets sold. The prices hikes for 2027 would’ve happened regardless, but one ponders if both the expected attendance of the next two championships, plus significant admission fee increases, could offset the deficit of an Open at Lytham.

Anyway. If you are lucky enough to get pulled from the ballot and can withstand the £190 hit, I can’t imagine you’ll begrudgingly walk out of the gates, complaining of a bad time. The Open is one of the great events in sport, and barring a washout, the new ticket prices can still deliver value on a day where you can be there from dawn until dusk.

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