Tigers Woods, Rory McIlroy, Seve Ballesteros or Jack Nicklaus - who wins the Open for the Ages?

Of course, right now we should be enjoying the world’s greatest players fight it out for the Claret Jug over Royal St George’s.

The coronavirus outbreak put a halt to that, but a creative and ground breaking replacement will go some way to making up for that disappointment.

The Open for the Ages will bring to life a reimagined championship featuring many of the best ever golfers.

This exclusive edition of The Open features 50 years of archive footage expertly edited and woven together with modern graphics and new commentary to create a tournament contested by the greatest names in golf including Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson, Sir Nick Faldo and Rory McIlroy.

A significant investment was made in technology to ensure that the programme feels cohesive and the footage from five different decades created an authentic narrative.

More than 300 pieces of archive footage have been treated digitally to adjust grading and colour balance.

Hundreds of digital corrections have been made to clips including the removal of caddies and playing partners from original footage and the introduction and removal of golf balls on greens to ensure that the viewer feels what they are watching is actually happening.

The Open’s social media channels are already broadcasting clips of the opening few days’ play before a TV commentary team of Nick Dougherty, Butch Harmon, Ewen Murray and Iona Stephen describe events from the Old Course when it culminates in a compelling three-hour broadcast airing across TV, digital and social media channels this Sunday.

Sky Sports will broadcast the final day’s play from 11am.

“It fills me with a lot of pride to be involved with The Open For The Ages because it’s a really, really cool production,” said Dougherty, a European Tour winner at St Andrews.

“I think this is a thing that we’ve always dreamt of being able to do – to put the greats of the game over the course of history together against one another at the Old Course.

“It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

“To see them there and watch them in their prime and look at the comparison between the golf swings and how they evolved, it was a lot of fun.”

The winner of The Open For The Ages has been determined by a fan vote, which registered more than 10,000 responses, and a data model developed in partnership with NTT DATA that utilises this fan vote along with player career statistics and historical data from The Open to calculate the champion.

Visit TheOpen.com for more information about The Open For The Ages or follow The Open via Facebook, Instagram, twitter and YouTube.

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