The Open For The Ages


The Open For The Ages is a special made-for-television fictional edition of The Open Championship tournament of golf. Utilizing data analysis, a fan vote and 50 years of Open archive footage, it features 21 famous golfers including previous Open champions from various eras at the peak of their careers competing on the Old Course at St Andrews for the Claret Jug and the title of Champion Golfer. The event aired from 16-19 July 2020 – the same dates that the 2020 Open Championship was supposed to be held at Royal St George's Golf Club before being canceled by the global COVID-19 pandemic, which further led the tournament organizers to create the event.
Nick Dougherty, Ewen Murray and Iona Stephen provided commentary, with highlight videos being released for the first three rounds and the full final round being broadcast on Sunday, including on Sky Sports in the United Kingdom and the Golf Channel on NBC in the United States.

Entrants

The 21 players chosen were all major champions, with all but two having been named Champion Golfer of the Year at least once. Between them, they had won 107 major championships including 43 Open Championships in seven different decades. They represented nine countries between them and included the major championship victory record holder in Jack Nicklaus and the last man to hold all four major championships at once in Tiger Woods, as well as three career Grand Slam winners in Gary Player, Nicklaus and Woods.
In chronological order of first achieving best Open Championship result
PlayerCountryBest Open Finish Total Majors
Peter Thomson5 wins 5
Gary Player3 wins 9
Arnold Palmer2 wins 7
Jack Nicklaus3 wins 18
Lee Trevino2 wins 6
Tom Watson5 wins 8
Seve Ballesteros3 wins 5
Greg Norman2 wins 2
Nick Faldo3 wins 6
Fred Couples2 3rd places 1
José María Olazábal2 3rd places 2
Nick Price1 win 3
John Daly1 win 2
Tiger Woods3 wins 15
Ernie Els2 wins 4
Pádraig Harrington2 wins 3
Louis Oosthuizen1 win 1
Rory McIlroy1 win 4
Zach Johnson1 win 2
Henrik Stenson1 win 1
Jordan Spieth1 win 3

Final leaderboard

The winner was determined by a fan vote registering more than 10,000 responses, and a data model developed in partnership with regular Open Championship sponsor NTT Data utilizing the fan vote along with player career statistics and historical data from The Open to calculate who would win the Claret Jug during this dream event. Added weight was given to performance at St Andrews.
Jack Nicklaus, who was judged the Champion Golfer over runner-up Tiger Woods by a single shot, said,
Asked about how such a clash of eras might be in real life with each player at his best, he said,
The final leaderboard ran thus:
PlacePlayerCountryFinal RoundTotal ScoreTotal To Par
1Jack Nicklaus68272-16
2Tiger Woods69273-15
3Seve Ballesteros69274-14
T4Tom Watson70275-13
T4Nick Faldo70275-13
T6Rory McIlroy63276-12
T6Louis Oosthuizen70276-12
8Jordan Spieth71277-11
9John Daly72278-10
T10Ernie Els66279-9
T10Zach Johnson66279-9
12Greg Norman67281-7
13Henrik Stenson69282-6
T14Lee Trevino69283-5
T14Pádraig Harrington70283-5
T16Nick Price71284-4
T16José María Olazábal69284-4
T18Peter Thomson71285-3
T18Fred Couples70285-3
T18Gary Player71285-3
21Arnold Palmer71286-2