Senior Open Championship: Phil Price ready for 'one of the best fields' at Royal Porthcawl
- Published
Senior Open ‘probably my favourite tournament’
Phil Price says this week's Senior Open Championship at Royal Porthcawl will feature one of the strongest fields in the tournament's history.
Defending champion Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington and four-time winner Bernhard Langer are among the star names heading to Wales.
Wales' Price will lead the home challenge alongside Ian Woosnam, Stephen Dodd and Bradley Dredge.
"All the players love coming," said former Ryder Cup winner Price.
"All the Americans rave about the course. I think we'll probably have one of the best fields that we have ever had. It's great for Welsh golf."
The Senior Open, which runs from Thursday, 27 July to Sunday, 30 July, will be staged in Wales for a third time, having previously come to Royal Porthcawl in 2014 and 2017.
Former world number one Langer, 65, triumphed on both those occasions and has won a record 12 senior majors overall.
The German is one of six European former Ryder Cup captains in the field, alongside Clarke - who won the Senior Open at Gleneagles in 2022 - Harrington, Woosnam, Jose Maria Olazabal and Colin Montgomerie.
Miguel Angel Jimenez, Vijay Singh, Paul Lawrie and Rich Beem are among the other well-known players heading to the south Wales coast, though Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Thomas Bjorn have withdrawn.
"There is something special about seeing these champions who can still play terrific golf on this wonderful strip of land," said former Wales and British and Irish Lions rugby union scrum-half Sir Gareth Edwards, a member at Porthcawl for more than four decades.
"The wonderful thing about Porthcawl is the way the weather dictates the way you are able to play. One minute it's blowing a hoolie, as they would say across the water - it might be raining in the morning and then it's glorious in the afternoon.
"It's rarely benign. And in actual fact when it is, it's almost as difficult because you are so used to the wind. It's a very demanding course, no question about that."
Price, who famously beat Phil Mickelson in the 2002 Ryder Cup, feels the Senior Open offers his best chance of success in a senior major.
He knows Royal Porthcawl well and finished sixth in 2017, five shots behind Langer.
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"I probably didn't have a chance to win [then] but the course is quite favourable for me I think," added Price, 56.
"They have made a few changes, which I have been watching.
"There are a lot of run-offs, which means chipping - proper chipping off fairway-cut grass, not the American thick rough.
"I think probably you have got a lot of people who don't like links golf because it's quite different, with the wind, the bounces - it can be tricky. I do like it."