Royal Portrush could get the Open again within five years after the huge financial success of the first championship in Northern Ireland for nearly 70 years.
The long wait for the Open to return could be followed by a much shorter gap to the second visit. The R&A are understood to be considering 2024 as a possible quick return to the North Antrim coast after huge crowds and near unanimous acclaim for the staging of this Open.
Graeme McDowell, the former US Open champion and Portrush native, said he’d heard rumours about 2024 and backed any decision to get the championship back “much sooner rather than later”.
“I’ve heard the whispers as well that we could be back here as soon as five years from now,” he said. “I think with the financial commitment that Portrush have made for this, for it to get the recognition and then get back here soon, to keep that train rolling, it would be huge.
“If we have to wait another ten years, the icing might rub off between now and then. People might forget a little bit.
“Hopefully we can get back soon. It would be very, very special.”
The championship venues for the next three years have already been announced, with tickets for next year at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, Kent already on sale.
The 150th Open will be staged in 2021 at the Old Course, St Andrews, the home of the R&A, while earlier this year the club confirmed that Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake will host the 2022 championship.
It’s expected – although not entirely certain, after low crowds in 2013 – that Muirfield in Gullane, East Lothian will get the championship in 2023, after host club The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers finally admitted women members and were placed back among the “pool” of Open venues as a result.
That leaves 2024, when Royal Lytham & St Annes in Lancashire would be due to host for the first time since 2012, as the R&A are likely to go back to St Andrews in 2025 and would not hold the Open in Scotland for three successive years.
However the Lytham site is among the tightest for space on the Open rota and hemmed in by housing.
With ever increasing demands on infrastructure and larger crowds attending the championship, despite a famous history of hosting Opens won by Bobby Jones, Tony Jacklin, Severiano Ballesteros and Ernie Els, the club near Blackpool could be frozen out.
Portrush, which despite requiring all ticket sales to be made in advance – most Open venues accommodate “walk-up” spectators who can pay on the day – attracted the second highest crowd in Open history, some 237,500, just 1500 short of the all-time record held by the 2000 Open at St Andrews.
Such vast crowds guaranteed the Open would make money, and hospitality and merchandising sales have proved equally lucrative for the R&A, who re-invest all profits from the chanmpionship into developing the game of golf worldwide.
The management of traffic in the area and the co-operation of local authorities in hosting the event proved hugely successful, while fears of lack of accommodation have proved largely unfounded.
The Royal Portrush course has also proved massively popular with the top players, and it produced a native Irish champion in Shane Lowry.
It’s understood that the R&A signed a deal with the Northern Ireland Assembly to have three Opens at Royal Portrush over an unspecified period, although that deal would have contained opt-outs for both parties.
Given the success of this Open, however, it’s more than likely they will want to do it again as soon as they can.
