Turnberry and Muirfield face long wait for Open

Muirfield is in danger of being left out in the cold for long spells and Turnberry looks under serious threat after it emerged that 200,000 now seems to be the R&A’s optimum attendance figure for the Open Championship.

Henrik Stenson on his way to Open glory at Royal Troon in 2016

Once almost guaranteed to stage the Claret Jug event in a 10-year period, the position has now changed for some of the venues as the St Andrews-based body attempts to keep growing the event and, in the process, squeeze every penny it can from it to invest back into the game.

A five-year cycle had already been put in place for the Old Course at St Andrews and it now appears that the nine other courses currently used for the game’s oldest major have been split into two separate categories. Due to being big crowd-pullers, Royal Birkdale, Royal Liverpool, Royal Portrush and Royal St George’s, which hosts this year’s event, can all expect to host the tournament on a fairly regular basis in the future.

The sames goes for Royal Troon after it was announced to host the world’s top players in 2023 – just six years after Henrik Stenson beat Phil Mickelson in a thrilling title battle to become the first Scandinavian to win a men’s major.

Where Carnoustie sits in the R&A’s eyes remains to be seen, but it certainly seems as though Muirfield, Royal Lytham and Turnberry are now in a category that could see them staging the tournament just once every 15 or 20 years.

Having been overlooked for the 2023 event, Muirfield, where the event was last held in 2013, will now probably have to wait until 2026 at the earliest to welcome it back. Turnberry, meanwhile, last hosted the tournament in 2009.

In short, it’s all down to attendance figures. When Phil Mickelson emerged as a popular winner at Muirfield seven years ago, the total crowd was a disappointing 142,036 – more than 19,000 lower than it had been in 2002. It was just 123,000 last time around at Donald Trump-owned Turnberry, while, by comparison, at Royal Portrush last summer it was the second-highest figure ever at 237,750.

“We are looking at The Open. It’s growing,” said Martin Slumbers, the R&A’s chief executive, during an annual sitdown with members of the golf media in St Andrews. “The size of crowds is growing. We’re heading to Royal St George’s in just five months now. The previous record of crowd attendance at Royal St George’s was 183,000, and we will be through 200,000 come July. We’re fully sold out from the Saturday, Friday, and Thursday is getting pretty full, as well. So we are looking where we can get larger crowds.

“We internally have this desire for The Open to be one of the world’s greatest sporting events, and I have said a number of times that I think that a big-time sport event needs a big-time crowd.”

An attendance of 173,134 at Troon in 2016 was marginally down on 2004 figure at the Ayrshire venue. “Royal Troon was a learning point for me in 2016,” added Slumbers. “’17 was a record; ‘18 was a record; ‘19 was very special, coming in as the No 2, and we will beat the Royal St George’s record.

“At The Open last year, I was asked the question, is the ever-increasing pressure on prize-money putting pressure on our ability to invest in the game. And I thought that was a very perceptive question. I thought it was a very thoughtful question. There is no doubt that we have great aspirations for the game. We think the R&A need to continue to invest more and more into our sport. We have committed in this decade doubling what we invested in the previous decade. The game needs investment at the amateur level.

“We talk about money in golf, but most of that is of the one per cent professional game, and we are one of the largest providers of it. So there is an absolute demand for us to be able to invest more.

“At the same time, we wish to grow the Women’s Open. AIG are a terrific new partner for us. This will be the first year that we are in complete control of the AIG Women’s Open (which is being held for the first time at Royal Troon in August), and I’m excited about that, and you’re going to see some stuff on how we’re going to do that. But that takes money, and the prize-money in The Open will only go one direction. All of this is putting pressure on making sure that we drive up the revenues of The Open.”

The quick return to Troon is to mark the 100th anniversary of its first visit there, when Arthur Havers pipped Walter Hagen. “We like to try and celebrate those important pieces of history,” said Slumbers.

As for when the event might be back at Muirfield, he added: “I’m not going to comment beyond 2023, but we’re spending a lot of our time in looking at how to get 200,000 people around Muirfield. How do we get Muirfield to be Edinburgh’s Open? How do we get Edinburgh city to embrace it and do that?”