The Open 2026 Practice Rounds: Why They're Better Than the Championship Days

I attended the 2017 Open at Royal Birkdale as both a practice day visitor (Tuesday) and a championship day spectator (Friday). I have walked this course in both contexts. The honest assessment: if I had to choose one, I would choose the practice day. I am aware this is not a popular opinion. I will defend it.

What actually happens on practice days

Practice rounds at The Open are not the diluted warm-up they might sound like. The world's best players use practice days to prepare seriously: testing conditions, walking specific hole locations, calibrating their distance to the carries over the Birkdale bunkers. The golf itself is purposeful. But the difference is the access.

On a practice day at Birkdale, you can stand on the edge of the driving range and watch the best players in the world hitting balls from 10 feet away. You can stand by the 18th green and watch Rory McIlroy chipping from different angles while his caddie takes notes. You can follow a group for the full 18 holes without fighting through a crowd of 50,000 people or getting stuck behind a grandstand. The physical closeness is genuinely remarkable. Championship days don't give you that.

The driving range: the best hour in golf

If you do nothing else on your practice day, spend an hour at the driving range. You will be close enough to hear the ball compress. The contrast in swing sounds between a 25-handicapper and a professional: even on a practice swing: is something you cannot understand until you've stood next to it.

Arrive early. The range gets busy from 9am as groups begin their pre-round routines. Get there at 7:30–8am and you'll have the run of it for the first players warming up. By midday when groups have gone out, numbers thin again.

Following a group

You can follow any group in a practice round. There is no gallery management system sorting spectators onto specific holes. If you want to walk with Scottie Scheffler for 18 holes, start at the 1st tee, follow at a reasonable distance, and you're there for the whole round.

My recommendation: pick a group of two or three players you're interested in and follow them from the first tee. You'll learn more about how links golf is played at elite level by watching the same player manage 18 holes than by bouncing between holes trying to catch famous names.

Practical preparation

• →Wear comfortable shoes. Practice days involve significant walking. Not training shoes: proper waterproof walking shoes. The turf is firm but British weather is unpredictable.
• →Bring a light rucksack. Water, snacks, a lightweight waterproof. The food inside the venue is fine but queues are long.
• →Arrive by car before 7am or use the official shuttle buses: parking fills from 7am onwards. Birkdale train station is 12–15 minutes on foot and avoids the parking issue entirely.
• →Download the R&A Official app before you go. It has live hole-by-hole scoring, player tracker and course map. Useful on practice days to see who is where on the course.
• →Camera with a decent zoom: you're allowed cameras on practice days. This is the day to use it.

The atmosphere argument

Championship day crowds are electric. I'm not pretending otherwise. When a player makes birdie on 18 in the final round and 20,000 people erupt, there is nothing like it in sport. But if you want to understand links golf, understand how the world's best players approach a championship course, and stand close enough to see how they think: the practice day is the classroom and the championship day is the concert.

Practice round tickets for The Open 2026 at Royal Birkdale are available at theopen.com. At the time of writing they're still available. They will sell out. Buy them before they do.