Women's Open Championship: How to watch, TV channel, course details and more

The best female golfers in the world will assemble this week for the Women’s Open Championship, the final women’s Major of the year, which will take place at the iconic venue of St Andrews.

A total of 144 players will battle to get their hands on the trophy, which was last played for at the home of golf in 2013, and there are a whole host of performers capable of succeeding Lilia Vu, who won at Walton Heath last year.

How to watch the Women’s Open and TV channel

The Women’s Open will be televised on Sky Sports Golf for all four days of the tournament, which will see the champion crowned on Sunday.

Women’s Open dates and times

The Women’s Open will take place between Thursday 22nd August and Sunday 25th August and play is expected to start at 06:30 BST with the final first-round group likely to start their first round at about 15:30 BST.

Play on the third and fourth day is likely to start at around 08:00 BST after the cut has been made. The top 70 players and ties will qualify for the final two rounds with the remainder being eliminated.

Women’s Open course details and venue

The Women’s Open will take place at the Old Course at St Andrews, where the game has been played since the early 15th century.

There are few trees on the course which contains plenty of hill and hollows and much of its defence is provided by 112 bunkers that are littered over the track, which will not be watered for the tournament, so the weather, including potential high winds, can be a telling factor, as it is on any links course.

Where it differs from many layouts is the number of double greens - the first, ninth, 17th and 18th are the only holes that have their own putting surfaces - and the signature hole is the 17th, the Road hole, which is one of the most famous in the sport.

The men’s Open Championship has been held 30 times at St Andrews with Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods among the game’s greats who have triumphed there.

It has hosted the Women’s Open twice with Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa winning in 2007 and Stacy Lewis winning in 2013.

Women’s Open stats and past winners

The Women’s Open was first held in 1976 and unlike the men’s tournament, it is not played solely on links courses.

Laura Davies won the tournament in 1986 but with the growth of the competition and its Major status, international stars have dominated and home successes have been scarce.

Georgia Hall’s win at Royal Lytham & St Annes in 2018 was the last British win and Karen Stupples in 2004 and Catriona Matthew in 2009 have been the only other home winners this century.

The tournament has been held twice before at St Andrews, with American Stacy Lewis winning by two shots with a total of 280 in 2013, while Mexico’s Lorena Ochoa went wire to wire in 2007 to claim a four-shot win.

Women’s Open 2024 notable players

American Nelly Korda is at the head of the market and will be hard to catch if she recaptures the form she demonstrated at the start of the year when she won six of seven tournaments.

However, she has gone off the boil, missing three of her last five cuts, including the Women’s US Open and the Women’s PGA Championship.

Japan’s Ayaka Furue heads to St Andrews at the top of her game having won last month’s Evian Championship and finishing third at last week’s Scottish Open at Dundonald.

However, she has not finished higher than 20th in her three previous Women’s Opens.

South Korea’s Jin Young Ko will fancy her chances after she was sixth last week and tied for second at the Women’s PGA, and she will hope to put in the sort of links performance she did on her debut at Turnberry in 2015 when she finished second.

Defending champion Lilia Vu will also think that she can get into the mix after winning the LPGA Classic in June and also finishing second at the PGA.

Read the latest tips, predictions and odds for the Women's Open Championship.