One of golf’s iconic and historic venues will host the best in senior golf in The Senior Open Championship presented by Rolex July 25-28 at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England. Two hours of live coverage of each of the four rounds of the championship will air on ESPN’s multimedia platforms.
ESPN2 and WatchESPN will air tournament action beginning Thursday, July 25, and continuing through the final day on Sunday, July 28, from noon until 2 p.m. ET each day. Royal Birkdale, located on England’s northwest coast, is hosting the Senior Open Championship for the first time but has been the site for nine Open Championships.
American Fred Couples won last year’s Senior Open Championship in his first time in the event. He will defend his title on a course he is very familiar with, having shot 64 at Royal Birkdale in the final round of The Open Championship in 1991 en route to finishing third.
Tom Watson, an eight-time major winner, will be playing on the same course where he won the 1983 Open Championship, the last of his three victories in golf’s oldest major.
They will face strong competition from fellow U.S. senior golfer Kenny Perry, winner of two straight senior majors, including the recent U.S. Senior Open. Among other Americans in the field will be former Ryder Cup captain Tom Lehman and Mark O’Meara, winner of the 1998 Open Championship held at Royal Birkdale. The sterling field of players also will include all-time standout European golfers Bernhard Langer and Colin Montgomerie.
Watson, Couples, Lehman and O’Meara are competing in The Open Championship in Scotland this week and will head to Royal Birkdale afterward.
Sean McDonough will host ESPN’s telecasts, joined for analysis by two-time U.S. Open champions Andy North and Curtis Strange. Bill Kratzert and two-time women’s major winner Dottie Pepper will report from the course.
All Senior Open Championship programming on ESPN2 is available on computers, smartphones, tablets, Xbox and Apple TV via WatchESPN, accessible to fans who receive their video subscription from an affiliate provider including Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks, Verizon FiOS TV, Comcast Xfinity TV, Midcontinent Communications, Cablevision, Cox, Charter Communications and AT&T U-verse (coming soon to NRTC members’ customers).
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Media Contact: Andy Hall, 386-492-2246 or [email protected]
