Scotland could bid for another Ryder Cup as early as 2026 due to the success of this year’s event at Gleneagles, according to the country’s tourism chief.
VisitScotland chairman Dr Mike Cantlay said there was already “a lot of chat” about bidding again in 12 years.
Speaking as the Scottish Government, European Tour and sponsors Aberdeen Asset Management confirmed a deal to secure the Scottish Open until 2020, Dr Cantlay said that deal and the success of events in 2014 “opens other doors”.
“We have the confidence that comes from hosting the Ryder Cup and the Commonwealth Games so successfully, and that people around the world know Scotland is capable of staging such events,” he said.
“As you know we’re looking at the Solheim Cup in 2019, but then there’s the Ryder Cup again. A lot people have said we won’t see another one here in our lifetimes, but with the activity, the success of this year as a whole and this commitment today to golf in Scotland in the future, that might come round sooner than anticipated.”
The matches are in France in 2018, bidding has begun for 2022, with Germany or Sweden thought to be the favourites, but although it was thought the event would not return to the British Isles until 2030 at the earliest, there is talk already of bidding for 2026.
George O’Grady, outgoing chief executive of the European Tour, at Bute House in Edinburgh to confirm the Scottish Open deal, said a return to Scotland in that timescale was “not out of the question”.
“There are a lot of people pushing for it,” he said. “It would have to be an exceptionally good bid for us to not to ask why we don’t go to Italy or someone else who hasn’t had it before. But you’d never rule anything out for Scotland because this year was such a good Ryder Cup, from all quarters.
“The American representatives from Hazeltine (the next venue in 2016) were there, and their general reaction was ‘wow!’
“You don’t have to do the Ryder Cup the way it was at Gleneagles.
“That was right for the British market at that stage, not just the Scottish market.
“To be honest, I didn’t really think we could have done as well as it was done.”
Meanwhile, First Minister Alex Salmond made good on his promise that he would have the deal securing the Scottish Open “signed off” prior to him leaving office at the end of this month, and praised both O’Grady and Aberdeen Asset chief executive Martin Gilbert for their foresight in backing the plan.
The ambition was now to turn the Scottish into the biggest tournament on the European Tour outwith the Open, he said, just three years on from when only Aberdeen Asset of 12 companies he approached were willing to put money in.
“We were close to losing it,” Mr Salmond said, referring to Barclays’ pull out in 2011.
“I was in negotiations about an engineering contract with the company we were most likely to lose it to, Alstom (who back the Open de France).
“They wanted the pre-Open Championship slot in the schedule because they were building to their Ryder Cup in Paris. I approached a large number of top Scottish companies who I thought should be interested in this tournament, but Martin Gilbert was the only one who was.
“I think if I did that same exercise today and phoned the same dozen top level companies, I bet 10 out of 12 would now want to do it.
“In 2011, it was different times, a different world, but that was the test.
“Martin Gilbert and Aberdeen Asset were people who saw opportunity not problems.
“Now this slot is guaranteed until 2020, and it will be so big by then they won’t be able to take it off us.
“To me this is the prime sponsorship of the European Tour.
“I believe, absolutely, by 2020 this will be acknowledged as the second biggest tournament after the Open and the second greatest links tournament in the world.”
The tournament will have a minimum prize fund of £4 million going forward, and it’s expected that another venue somewhere in the west of Scotland will be confirmed to bring the “rota” up to four.
The decision has been made that it will not be any course that is on the current Open Championship rota, which rules out Turnberry, recently acquired by Donald Trump, as a Scottish Open venue.