Is the British Open Field Weaker Than The Masters?

The British Open is one of the best championships in all of sports. However, that doesn’t mean the field is particularly strong. In fact, it may be the weakest of all the majors.

Typically, the Masters has been considered the easiest of the majors to win because it has a short field. A short field means less than 144 or 156 top quality golfers. That translates to less competition, particularly when a goodly number are past champions that have no chance to win. But, the Masters may not actually have the weakest field of the majors. That distinction should go to the British Open instead.

Taking a bit of a Sherlock Holmes looking-glass inspection of it, both tournaments allow past champions to play. Everybody likes that because it gives people a chance to see golfers they know from the past play for at least two days. Then it’s time for the big dogs to fight it out. This year, 20 past champs qualified for both events, and about half of them have or had no shot at victory. That’s ok. They earned the right by winning.

Both the Masters and the British Open make room for the winners in the past five years of each other’s events, plus the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship. The Players, they still consider a stepchild, even though it has a better field than any of the rest. The Players champ gets exemptions for the last three years.

A spot is offered to those who finished in the top 10 of the British Open or top 12 of the Masters of the previous year’s events, respectively.

For reasons that don’t make sense, the British Open also has a category for champs in the last ten years, which basically is half of the previous champions category. Really, what are they thinking?

Both events have five or six amateurs in the field and recognize the amateur champs from each other’s countries. The British Open takes in its Senior Open champ and the U.S. Open takes its Senior Open champ. The do not reciprocate for each other’s senior champs.

They both have the top 50 in World Rankings from the previous season and up to a certain cut-off date in the current year as well as the top 30 in FedEx points from the end of the previous year. The British Open throws in the top five in Race to Dubai points, which is sensible.

More from Pro Golf Now

The British Open has a slug of qualifiers, which the Masters does not have. They both have some international open champions, such as those from Argentina and Japan, and/or Order of Merit ( money list) winners from Asia, Africa, Australia and Japan.

The British Open includes the team members from the previous season’s Presidents Cup, but they do not include the team members of the previous Ryder Cup team. ( At least not in 2017.) Realistically, most of those players probably qualified in another category anyway.

Up to now, you’ll note, it’s all quite similar. However, there’s one place where the Masters separates itself from the British Open in terms of field strength: It invites all winners of PGA Tour events that are regular field events from the previous year starting with the last playing of the Masters and up to the tournament held the week prior to the Masters.

Events that are opposite the World Golf Championships are not included. The way they distinguish it in their categories is in number of FedEx points awarded to the winner. In regular events on the PGA Tour, winner gets 500 points. The WGC event winners are awarded 550 points. Majors, 600 points. The opposite field events, however, only have 300 points for the winner.

So, because the Masters invites PGA Tour winners, its field is definitely stronger than the British Open, no matter how smashing the accents of the people from the R&A sound. Even though the British Open includes the world, is the oldest and is played on the most aesthetically interesting courses with bunkers that have incredible names and weather that is unpredictable, the field at the British Open makes it the weakest major of all.

Next: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson prepare for $10 million match

It doesn’t make it any less interesting or important. Just by comparison, it’s not as good a field as the Masters, which for years has been called out for having a weaker field than other majors. It’s time we stopped thinking that.

Home/British Open News