Royal Troon Golf Club looks likely to follow the lead of the R&A and ditch their historic male-only tradition after announcing yesterday that they will undergo a “comprehensive review” of their membership policy.
The club, which is the venue for the Open Championship next year, also made the historic announcement that it will share hosting duties in 2016 with the Troon Ladies Club, which also uses the Ayrshire links. It will be the first time in its 154-year history that the Open has been jointly hosted by two separate clubs.
The championship committee to organise the local aspects of preparation for the Open will contain members of both clubs.
Royal Troon captain Bob Martin said in a statement released on the club’s website: “Royal Troon Golf Club has hosted the Open on eight occasions since 1923 and in 2016 we will share this responsibility with The Ladies’ Golf Club, Troon as joint hosts of the 145th Open Championship.
“The clubs enjoy a close working relationship and we look forward to hosting a successful Open here in 2016.”
Sara-Ann Bottomley, captain of the Ladies club, added: “Both clubs take immense pride in the Old Course at Troon and we are delighted to share the honour of hosting the Open and the joint responsibility for delivering the event.”
Meanwhile Royal Troon’s own review of membership policies seems likely to ensure that women will be members of the historic club formed in 1878 – by the time the Open returns in July of next year.
Such a move will head off more adverse publicity as experienced when the Open was at Muirfield in 2013, when the club’s all-male policy came under increasing scrutiny and ministers of both UK and the Scottish Governments refused to attend in protest.
The move comes just a few months after the R&A confirmed that it had become a mixed club, ending a 250-year tradition of male-only membership. Although the first women members have still yet to join the St Andrews club, the change reflected growing unease among the golf world in general and particularly among the Open’s sponsors about the game’s male-only clubs.
Three clubs that regularly host the Op0en Championship remain all-male, with the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers at Muirfield currently in the midst of a membership review and Royal St George’s in Sandwich, Kent, thought likely to be gearing for a change in its policy with a vote later this year.
Royal Troon had previously argued that their relationship with the Ladies Club whose clubhouse lies 300 yards from the men’s adjacent to the 17th green of the Troon Old Course – made them “a special case” as the clubs both played on the links.
However it was made clear the Ladies’ Club had only restricted rights to play the Open course when local teenager Connie Jaffrey, a Great Britain and Ireland cap and Troon Ladies member, revealed she was only allowed to play the course twice a year and was not allowed to use the men’s practice putting green.
The Ladies Club was formed in 1882 and currently has around 370 members, while Royal Troon has around 800.