Rónán MacNamara in Portrush
R&A CEO Mark Darbon hopes by the end of the year he will have a clearer knowledge on Portmarnock’s chances of hosting the Open and AIG Women’s Open Championships in the future while the hopes of Turnberry and Muirfield remain up in the air.
Darbon, had previously said in April that the R&A was “really optimistic” about the prospect of hosting The Open on the Dublin links and he reaffirmed that they are working very hard on the feasibility of Portmarnock as an Open venue which would see the Claret Jug hosted on a capital city course for the first time.
“Yes, we are thinking about Portmarnock,” said Darbon on the eve of the 153rd Open Championship. “We think it’s a wonderful links golf course, and we’ve been really encouraged by the support that we’ve had in principle from the Irish government to work with us to understand whether we can stage an Open Championship there in the future.
“We’re knee-deep in the feasibility work to help us answer that question fully. We expect to have a clearer picture by the back end of this year.”
The Open will return to Royal Birkdale next year and St Andrews in 2027 while an announcement on the 2028 venue will be made next year.
The Open hasn’t been played at Turnberry since 2009 while Muirfield hasn’t hosted since Phil Mickelson lifted the Claret Jug in 2013. Darbon maintains that it’s not just Trump’s influence that remains a stumbling block, with certain logistical issues needed to overcome to adapt to a modern Open Championship.
“I think we’ve been extremely clear on our position, as in respect of Turnbury,” Darbon explained. “We love the golf course, but we’ve got some big logistical challenges there. You see the scale of the setup here, and we’ve some work to do on the road, rail, and accommodation structure around Turnberry, and we’ve explicitly not taken it out of our pool of venues.
“But we need to address those logistical challenges.”
Without getting into too much detail, Darbon also explained that there are logistical issues with Muirfield as well, specifically the practice ground at the golf course.
“We love the golf course at Muirfield,” he said. “We’re in a discussion with the venue right now.
“There’s some things that we need to evolve at Muirfield — the practice ground, in particular, is a challenge for us to host the modern Open, and this is work we need to do, and if they need to facilitate some of the infrastructure that we require decent cabling to enable the scale of the production that we have these days.
“But it’s good dialogue, and we’d love to be back here in the future. As I’ve said, no, it’s not just about a number of fans, but there are some other things that go into staging the championships, practice ground and the wider infrastructure.”
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