WOBURN, England – Royal Porthcawl will host the 2021 AIG Women’s British Open, the R&A announced on Wednesday. Don’t be surprised if the Welsh club is a future venue for the men’s British Open somewhere down the line, despite what the R&A says.
In fact, the R&A should go out of its way to put Royal Porthcawl in its pool of Open Championship courses. Wales is now the only country in the United Kingdom that does not stage the Open Championship.
It’s high time it did.
It’s a fantastic links suitable of testing the top men and women.
TEE TIMES: AIG Women’s British Open
Porthcawl follows Royal Troon in 2020 in staging the AIG Women’s British Open, as the R&A seeks to stage its premier women’s tournament over the same sort of links the men play in the British Open. It would be an ironic twist if the top women golfers pave the way for the Open Championship to be staged in Wales for the first time since the tournament began in 1860.
R&A executive director Johnnie Cole-Hamilton stuck to the party line when quizzed about Wales’ top course staging the game’s oldest major.
“We have no plans to take the Open Championship to Royal Porthcawl,” Cole-Hamilton said. “We’re very happy with the 10 venues we have at the moment.”
Chief executive Martin Slumbers said exactly the same during the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Once upon a time the R&A also had no plans to go back to Northern Ireland. Previous R&A head Peter Dawson trotted out the same party line on Portrush. He denied Portrush was being considered as an Open venue even though his organzsation was actually looking into the feasibility of doing just that.
You can bet there are ongoing discussions within the R&A about how an Open Championship could work at Royal Porthcawl.
The members are certainly up for hosting the world’s top men.
“The club is very interested in the potential for bringing The Open to Royal Porthcawl,” club captain Rhys James said. “We all saw what a massive success the activities at Portrush have been in the last 10 days. I think working closely with the R&A, the Welsh government and other related organizations, it is certainly something we would like to consider.
“There are certainly adaptations that would be required to the course. I think, quite frankly, it’s a question of extent and degree and the detail of that.”
Guess what? Royal Portrush needed adaptions, too. The R&A oversaw the construction of two new holes to make this year’s championship a success. There is surely enough expertise within the R&A to stage a successful Open Championship at Royal Porthcawl?
Over to you Mr Slumbers.
