I agree with my esteemed colleagues in the golf writers community, Mark Cannizzaro and John Hawkins, who do the very informative and entertaining "19th Hole" on the Golf Channel. This week, from Royal Birkdale, they disagreed with their channel's philosophy, insisting that American viewers know this major as the British Open, not the Open Championship.
The Golf Channel insists on calling it the latter. Perhaps the people there want to ingratiate themselves with the European golf community. Maybe they just want to sound important. Maybe they want it to sound "In" to the golf cognoscenti. I say nonsense to all of it.
Americans know there are other Opens, notably the U.S. Open, which is not ashamed of its first name. Come on, if a Golf Channel staffer sees a "civilian" in a supermarket in late June, does he or she say, "I'm going to the Open Championship?" No way. To the average person, it's the British Open. Always has been and always will be. Harrumph.
Comments (2)
The British Open is known as the "The Open Championship" because it was the first. This is the same reason that Wimbledon has always been called 'The Championships".
One more note, why isn't the 'World Series' called the 'North American Series' or the 'Super Bowl' the 'North American Bowl'? There is no involvement by any counties outside North America for either of these.