The Open Championship “rota” although the R&A always say there is no such thing currently includes nine of Great Britain’s greatest links courses. Why not more?
They may need a 10th venue shortly. After the furore regarding membership of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers at last year’s championship at Muirfield, there now seems to be a sizeable stubborn constituency in the club (and they’re a pretty stubborn bunch to start with) quite prepared to say to the R&A “stuff your Open”.
That’s a scenario that chief executive Peter Dawson views with horror and not a little contempt. But there’s a strong case that the R&A should be expanding the rota anyway.
Recent tradition has St Andrews as a quinquennial venue but the 150th Open is due in 2021 and one surmises the R&A would quite like that anniversary to be marked at the Old Course – which leaves a gap.
The usual reasons for not expanding the rota are that potential candidates fall down on logisitical reasons, usually lack of infrastructure space, hotel accommodation, or access.
Just this winter the R&A went on a field trip to Wales’ greatest course, Royal Porthcawl, to talk with the club and the Welsh Assembly. On the face of it, Porthcawl certainly has all the usual disqualifiers for an Open venue.
But the starting points for considering a course for the championship should only be that it is a traditional links course of some historical standing somewhere in the British Isles and that it should be playable for modern golf. Almost everything else is usually manageable.
Take the four relatively recent additions or re-additions to the rota. Turnberry in 1977 was the first completely new venue in 24 years. Royal St George’s returned in 1981 after a 32-year gap, Carnoustie in 1999 after a mere 24 and Hoylake in 2006 after 39 years.
All four had issues. At Sandwich and Carnoustie it was (and remains) access. Hoylake and Turnberry are tight on space. None of the four had really adequate hotel accommodation close by and Turnberry, with the one, lavishly priced hotel on site, still doesn’t.
Yet the R&A got around these problems at those venues and they could get around them at Porthcawl, Royal Portrush and Royal Aberdeen if they were of a mind.
At Porthcawl, access is tricky and tight. Space at the course itself for the tented village and the championship’s infrastructure isn’t the best. There’s clearly not enough space around the 18th green for grandstands, and into the bargain you hit your opening tee shot over the 18th fairway.
But interestingly, all these problems are almost exactly those Hoylake had prior to 2006. There, the R&A helped the club buy a parcel of neighbouring land that allowed for a tented village. A traffic management system was incorporated around the entire North Wirral area and it flowed fairly freely.
Finally, they changed the course’s historical routing to allow the long 16th to become the 18th it was a much better finishing hole to boot – allowing space for the famous Open grandstands to be built.
At Porthcawl, neighbouring farmers are keen to lend their fields, the M4 is less than two miles away and a new direct access road is proposed by the Welsh Assembly. They’re already changing the routing of the course to make the 17th the final hole when the Senior Open comes to Porthcawl next year.
As for hotel accommodation, it’s not really an issue anywhere anymore in the modern world. Park and ride, trains and helicopters can bring in the punters and the VIPs alike from miles away. Players don’t expect to fall out of bed and on to the practice ground anymore.
In truth, as the USGA proved at Merion last year, a little imaginative thinking and you can fit in a major championship just about anywhere. The will of the host club and the local authorities is vital, and they’ll certainly have that in South Wales, where there’s an eagerness to move heaven, earth and anything else to get the Open there.
Add to that Jim McArthur, the current R&A championship committee chairman, saying publicly at Muirfield this year that if the R&A could find an extra venue, they’d quite like it to be in the untapped South West.
Porthcawl has maybe edged ahead of Portrush in the running to join the rota, specifically as there is no competition for police time in Wales in mid-July, which is marching season in Ulster. Royal Aberdeen, where access is admittedly super-tight, gets a trial run of sorts with this year’s Scottish Open.
As it’s never been the “British” Open, and the R&A administer to Great Britain and Ireland together, I’ve never heard a decent, unparochial reason why the great Irish courses of the south, specifically Portmarnock, aren’t considered.
As they have proved in the past, when the R&A has the will, there’s usually a way. Here’s hoping they have the will to go further afield.