The Open returns to Royal Birkdale from 16 to 19 July 2026 — the 154th playing of golf's oldest major, and the eleventh time the Southport links has hosted it. Four days of championship golf, the Claret Jug on the line, and for UK viewers the live coverage sits with Sky Sports.
For British expats, second-home owners and travellers, that's where watching from abroad gets tricky. Unlike Wimbledon or the World Cup on the BBC, The Open's live UK coverage is a paid Sky service — and taking that service overseas brings its own set of problems.
The good news: with the right setup in place before the first tee shot, your Sky coverage works abroad exactly as it does at home — on your actual TV, in full quality, with no buffering.
In the UK, live coverage of The Open 2026 is exclusive to Sky Sports, available through:
The BBC holds free-to-air highlights rather than live play, so to follow the championship as it happens you'll need Sky. And the catch with all of these services is the same: they're geo-blocked the moment you're outside the UK.
If you already pay for Sky, you might expect to simply log in from your holiday home or while travelling. But Sky Stream, Sky Go and Now all check your connection to confirm you're in the UK — and overseas, access is blocked. Since Brexit ended EU portability, even the old "watch on a short trip" allowance no longer applies, so a quick golfing break leaves you locked out of coverage you're already paying for.
The obvious fix — a VPN app — usually disappoints. The big-name providers like ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark route you through commercial data-centre servers that UK streaming services recognise and block on sight. Worse, many struggle with the bandwidth a live sports stream demands, so you get buffering at the worst possible moment — like the closing holes on Sunday. We explain why these providers fail in our guide on why ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark are blocked by UK streaming.
The most reliable way to watch The Open abroad is a VPN router with a UK residential IP address.
A residential IP is the same kind of connection a real UK household uses. To Sky Stream, Sky Go and Now, you simply look like a viewer sitting at home in Britain — no flags, no blocks. Because the router handles the connection at network level, every device behind it gets the UK connection automatically, with nothing to install or reconfigure on each screen.
This setup works reliably for watching The Open 2026 from:
A major like The Open deserves the big screen, not a phone propped on a table. With a residential-IP router, your existing Sky coverage plays in full quality on Smart TVs, Apple TV, Firestick and other streaming boxes — and on a Sky Stream puck too.
A quick but important word on Sky Stream pucks. They work with our VPN routers — you connect your existing puck and it behaves as it would at home. There's one thing to know: Sky's "used out of home" fee. The simplest way to avoid it is to keep your puck connected to one of our VPN routers at all times, even in the UK, so Sky always sees the same consistent connection and you can move the puck freely. Our full guide to watching Sky Stream abroad explains exactly how this works.
For shorter trips and holiday homes, Sky Go is the easier route: it's app-based, so there's no puck to move and nothing to unplug at home. And if you'd rather not use a Sky account abroad at all, the Now-on-PLEIO option below sidesteps the issue entirely.
You don't need a full Sky package to follow The Open. Now — Sky's streaming service — sells day and monthly passes that include Sky Sports, and the Netgem PLEIO Freely TV box can run the Now app directly. That makes the PLEIO a genuinely flexible way in: live Sky Sports coverage of The Open through a single Now pass, with no long-term subscription.
The PLEIO brings Freely and the popular UK services together in one Android-based interface, with Google Play on the device — so alongside your Now pass you also get BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 in one place. Paired with a residential-IP router, it all works abroad just as it would at home.
Because a Now pass isn't tied to your home Sky account or broadband, it's the simplest, fee-free way to watch The Open abroad — no pucks to relocate, no "used out of home" charges to worry about.
At Stream UK TV Abroad, we supply Netgem PLEIO and Manhattan Aero Freely TV boxes alongside our pre-configured VPN routers, giving you a complete setup for watching UK TV abroad. For The Open specifically, the PLEIO is the one to choose if you want live coverage without a Sky subscription, since it runs the Now app; the Aero is a great Freely box for everyday UK channels and BBC highlights, but doesn't carry Now.
Most UK retailers won't ship Freely boxes internationally — here's how we get one to you wherever you are: Buy a Freely TV Box Abroad. If you'd like to compare the two boxes, our Manhattan Aero vs Netgem PLEIO guide breaks down the differences.
A typical setup looks like this:
Once set up, you can watch every round of The Open 2026 live, just as if you were in the UK.
Interest in UK TV abroad spikes sharply ahead of every major event — and that's exactly the wrong time to start solving streaming problems, when detection is most aggressive and demand is highest.
The Open 2026 begins on 16 July, the week after Wimbledon's finals weekend — capping off a packed British sporting summer. To be watching from the opening tee shot, order your router and any Freely box now. That allows time for international delivery and a simple plug-in setup, so everything is tested and working well before play begins.
Following the rest of the summer too? See our guides to watching Wimbledon 2026 abroad and the World Cup 2026 abroad.
The Open 2026 at Royal Birkdale is one of the highlights of the British sporting summer, and there's no reason to miss a moment of it from abroad.
Whether you're an existing Sky customer or prefer a flexible Now pass on a Netgem PLEIO, the most reliable approach is the same: a UK residential IP router that makes your UK services work overseas exactly as they do at home. One setup, your full Sky coverage, live from the first round to the Claret Jug presentation — wherever you are in the world.
