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Future hosts of the Open Championship were a hot topic during Wednesday’s press conference at Royal Portrush, with new R&A CEO Mark Darbon addressing numerous options, from Trump Turnberry’s possible return to the feasibility of a groundbreaking edition at Portmarnock Golf Club in Ireland.
Darbon, named last July as the successor to previous R&A chief Martin Slumbers, also revealed during his first Open press conference at the helm that he met recently with Eric Trump, the son of President Donald Trump, to discuss the potential for Turnberry in Scotland to welcome back the Open Championship. He said the R&A “loved the golf course” and emphasised it had never officially been taken off the championship rota.
“We love the golf course, but we’ve got some big logistical challenges there,” Darbon said. “We’ve explicitly not taken it out of our pool of venues, but we’d need to address [several] logistical challenges should we return.”
Since the last Open at Turnberry in 2009, President Trump’s company purchased the property in 2014 and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars renovating the hotel and redesigning the course. After two restorations by celebrated architect Martin Ebert–who also redesigned Portrush–Trump Turnberry is talked about as among the finest links in the U.K.
An aerial view of the Alisa Course at Trump Turnberry. David Cannon
Darbon recently discussed the course with Eric Trump, the executive vice president of the Trump Organisation who manages its global real estate portfolio, and others among the company’s leadership. “We had a really good discussion,” Darbon said. “I think they understand clearly where we’re coming from. We talked through some of the challenges that we have so we’ve got a good dialogue with them.”
Turnberry, a four-time Open host, was the site of the iconic 1977 “Duel in the Sun” Open won by Tom Watson, as well as seeing victories by Greg Norman (1986) and Nick Price (1994). Most recently, it was the 2009 venue where Watson almost repeated his ’77 efforts as a 59-year-old, losing a playoff to Stewart Cink.
Since 2009, the Open has increased in its sheer scale and attendance, with the 2023 edition at Royal Liverpool welcoming a record crowd over 261,000, with most modern Opens hosting more than 240,000 for the tournament. There were 120,000 at the 2009 Open.
Darbon said the transportation around Turnberry would need enhancing before the Open could return.
“You see the scale of their setup here [Royal Portrush] and we’ve got some work to do on the road, rail and accommodation infrastructure around Turnberry,” Darbon said.
The 2027 Open is set to go back to St. Andrews following Cam Smith’s victory in 2022 but there is no venue announced for 2028.
Meanwhile, there is also growing speculation that the Open and the AIG Women’s British Open will each head to north Dublin to the iconic, seaside links at Portmarnock GC. The Open has never been held in the Republic of Ireland.
That idea has Irish government support and in April the R&A said it was “really optimistic.” On Wednesday, Darbon reiterated that enthusiasm and hoped to know more by the end of 2025.
Golfers play the Portmarnock Golf Links. Ramsey Cardy
“Yes, we are thinking about Portmarnock,” he said. “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 could stage an Open Championship there in the future. We’re knee deep in feasibility work to help us answer that question fully. We expect to have a clearer picture by the back end of this year.”
As for Muirfield? It hasn’t staged the Open since Phil Mickelson triumphed in 2013 and it, too, has logistical hurdles, but Darbon was adamant discussions with the Gullane club.
“We love the golf course at Muirfield,” Darbon 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.”
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Main Image: Richard Heathcote
