R&A say price increase not to blame for missing fans
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Despite sun-kissed conditions, the crowds strangely haven’t exactly been flocking to Muirfield this week.
Attendances so far for the first two tournament days are down on the last time the Open was staged at the East Lothian links and significantly down on last year’s crowds which packed into Royal Lytham on the Lancashire coast.
Thursday’s crowd was 23,393 compared to 30,620 in 2002 and although yesterday’s attendance was bigger (29,144), that was still well short of the corresponding crowd of 34,479 11 years ago.
And with just two days to go it’s highly unlikely that the overall Muirfield attendance total will get anywhere near the 181,400 spectators who graced Royal Lytham last summer.
The R&A are obviously concerned about the situation but not too worried, a spokesman pointing out: “The Open Championship offers excellent value in line with other world class sporting events and 20,000 grandstand seats are free for any of the spectators on site and kids, under 16 years of age, get free entry when accompanied by an adult.”
The disappointing crowds are something of a mystery, specially considering the Open has been blessed with glorious weather all week.
It may have something to do with the pricing. After all, we are still stuck in a financial recession and the fact that an on-site day ticket now costs £75 – a £10 hike from two years ago – probably hasn’t helped although the R&A insists that the higher prices are not to blame for the drop in fans.
Admittedly, tickets could have been bought well in advance for £65, but this year there are no discount prices for the over-65s.
Another factor could be the adverse publicity which erupted at the start of the week surrounding Muirfield’s ‘men only’ members policy.
On a brighter note, at least there was an increase in the practice days numbers compared to 2002 (2013 – 31,320 & 2002 – 30,862 ) but then again fans only had to fork out £40 for that privilege.
May be fans have stayed at home and opted to stay cool by watching the action unfold on TV in the comfort of their own homes. Or may be they just simply popped down to the beach or decided to take an early holiday…
