Who decides the Open Championship pairings..

The pairings for this 142nd Open Championship at Muirfield are out and as always there are some fascinating groups.

Before that, I have been asked many times how the pairings are decided, and I brought that question up on my show (www.nextsportstar.com ) this morning with Lorne Rubenstein and we both agreed that it is not an exact formula. However several factors come into play..

TV rights are expensive and you know the suits at NBC, ABC, BBC all want Tiger in their prime slots, then they want Phil, Rory and any other compelling story, like for example Ernie Els the defending champion returning to Muirfield where he won in 2002...

Lorne mentioned that the R&A by their nature are not as involved with pairings as say the PGA Tour would be for a regular event, but the governing bodies also have their say, for example Tom Watson has been paired with Sir Nick Faldo (twice a winner at Muirfield) and Fred Couples (defending British Senior Open ) for a nice bit of nostalgia..

Sometimes it's by nationality, sometimes the world's best amateur plays with the defending champion, sometimes it's 3 young guns..

Several times this year Tiger has been paired with Rory so most of the gallery is bunched there, other times depending on the course and coverage times they will set the pairings to spread the galleries out..

Generally rookies with little status, get the worst of the draw, early in the day or late in the afternoon in the first two rounds before their actual position on the leaderboard takes over for the last two.

All in all TV, the governing body and the main sponsor, and not necessarily in that order decide the pairings... it is not a matter of throwing 156 names in a hat..


Tiger Woods, will play alongside fellow major champions Graeme McDowell and Louis Oosthuizen for the first two rounds. The three will start at 9:45 a.m. ET on Thursday, then come back Friday morning at 4:44 a.m. .

Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson are paired together early Thursday and late Friday and will play alongside Japanese sensation Hideki Matsuyama, who was the Asian Amateur champion in 2010 and 2011, and has two Japan Tour wins in eight starts this year. They start opposite Woods at 4:44 a.m. Thursday and 9:45 a.m. Friday, likely a TV request...

Defending champion Ernie Els, who also won in 2002 the last time Muirfield hosted the Open Championship, plays with U.S. Open champ Justin Rose and Brandt Snedeker.


For the pairings and live scoring click here  http://scores.theopen.com/en/Leaderboard.aspx



Bryan Angus