How to stream The Open on Thursday, and a few things to know about the field

The Open Championship starts Thursday. You can watch or stream it on Golf Channel, beginning at 1:30 a.m. ET and running through 4 p.m. ET.

This year marks the 147th playing of the championship. For the eighth time, the venue is Carnoustie, the Scottish links that last hosted for Padraig Harrington’s 2007 win.

The Open is a special week of golf. There are few better moments for American fans of the sport than getting to stay up really late or wake up really early to watch a major (and to do it from the comfort of home, while players brave conditions that are often terrible).

An evergreen statement that’s true again this year: The Open should be great. The world’s best players and biggest names are all in the field. This is probably the best shot on the calendar for a Tiger Woods major win, given his historic savvy on links courses, the softer greens at Open courses, and older players’ comparatively high success rate in The Open.

Other juicy storylines abound. World No. 10 Tommy Fleetwood has played great golf lately, including a solo second-place finish at the U.S. Open in June. Fleetwood shot a course-record 63 at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Carnoustie in 2017, and he’s one of the many European players in the field who grew up playing courses kind of like this one.

Fellow Briton Justin Rose is playing brilliantly and has reached the highest world ranking of his career at No. 3. He and Fleetwood are first-tier contenders and give the United Kingdom a decent shot to claim the Claret Jug for the first time since Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke won in 2011 at Royal St. George’s. Rose or Fleetwood would be the first Englishman to take the jug since Nick Faldo won the last of his three Open titles in 1992.

The field’s wide-open, but in the Best Players Who Haven’t Yet Won a Major Department, Rickie Fowler’s an interesting guy to watch this weekend. He played the Scottish Open last weekend and tied for sixth there while getting his bearings in the country. Since a missed cut at The Players Championship in May, he’s posted five straight top-20s. He’s acquitted himself fine in eight Open starts, all since 2010, with a couple of top-fives and just one missed cut. The biggest wrench in the idea of a Fowler victory is that he’s missed a lot of fairways this year, and high Open rough doesn’t jibe well with missed fairways.

At any rate, The Open will be a blast. It always is. Let’s get it started.

1:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. — Golf Channel

1:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. — Golf Channel broadcast simulcast stream

1:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. — “Spotlight” coverage

4 a.m. to 3 p.m. — 3-hole stream focusing on Nos. 8 to 10

Marquee groups stream

2 a.m. to 3 p.m. -- Sirius XM PGA Tour Radio (Ch. 92/208)