The Open Championship is underway this morning at Royal Lytham on the North East English coast but the prospects of the event coming to Northern Ireland in the foreseeable future were dashed yesterday with a warning from the sport’s governing body that Royal Portrush should not “expect anything imminent” on its hopes of staging the Championship.
Hopes had been raised of a return for the first time since 1951 after a successful staging of this year’s Irish Open which sold out on all four days of competition for the first time ever at a regular European Tour event.
Peter Dawson, Chief Executive of the R&A which runs the sport internationally outside the United States recognised the Irish Open had been a success, but dampened expectations of a bigger prize by stressing yesterday that a lot of hard work and a huge amount of money still needs to be spent on bridging the gap between staging a regular European Tour event and a major championship.
Grandstand seating and tented village accommodation would need to be increased by a factor of ten and he also raised issues of needing to rearrange the course to provide a ‘grandstand’ 18th hole, new practice grounds and improved access routes.
“It’s going to take some time to come to a view, and the view may be no,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait and see. It’s always been to an extent on our radar and our championship committee will, I’m sure, continue to evaluate it. But don’t expect anything imminent, that’s for sure.”
The Open Championship currently circulates between nine courses in England and Scotland  – St Andrews, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Troon, Turnberry, Royal Lytham, Royal Birkdale, Hoylake and Sandwich.
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