The Open Championship will belatedly return to Royal Troon in 2016 but probably earlier than its traditional time slot due to golf’s readmission to the Olympics that year.
The championship will be staged at the Ayrshire links for the first time since 2004 although no firm date has been set and R&A chief executive Peter Dawson confirmed it could move from the usual spot in the third week of July.
The Olympics will be staged in Rio de Janeiro from August 5 that year, which is likely to force a date change for the PGA Championship as the governing bodies of golf have pledged that no major golf event, men’s or women’s, will clash with the games.
But, as Dawson said, this could have an effect on the entire golf schedule.
”The Open will definitely take place before the Olympics, as it normally would be,” he said. ”With the juggling that has to go on in August to keep the pledge, we’re still in discussion of the knock-on effect.
”The Open will definitely be in July but it might be a week earlier. We’ll have to wait and see.”
The 12-year wait to return to Troon despite it being one of the R&A’s all-round strongest venues is also a result of clashes with other sporting events, Dawson said.
He added: ”The Commonwealth Games and Ryder Cup at Gleneagles in 2014 have affected the sequencing of the rota.”
Royal Troon has had some minor alterations as part of the R&A’s improvement project to all their Open venues but the course is still very much as it has always been, he continued.
”The back nine here in the prevailing wind is one of the toughest of any venue,” he said. ”The 11th hole is one of the toughest and people will be delighted that we have no plans to change the (short eighth) Postage Stamp.”
Championships director Johnnie Cole-Hamilton said Troon is one of the R&A’s strongest venues in terms of logistics with plenty of space for car parking and infrastructure, as well as strong transport links.
American Todd Hamilton defeated Ernie Els in a playoff in 2004 to win the last Open at Royal Troon.
After this year’s championship at Royal Lytham and St Annes, the Open will visit Muirfield (2013), Hoylake (2014), and the Old Course at St Andrews (2015).