R&A chief on Open rota: 'We're not taking venues off the rotation because they're smaller than others'
Mark Darbon, the chief executive of the R&A, answered a few questions about the future playing sites of the Open Championship at a press conference ahead of the 154th edition at Royal Birkdale on Wednesday.
Video Transcript
At the moment, there's only one, venue in the South of England, it's obviously Royal St George's.
In the last year or so, you hear sort of the odd rumor and whisper about Prince's.
It's getting the Walker Cup soon.
In 2032, it will be 100 years since Gene Sarazen won the Open there.
Is there any consideration or, yeah, consideration for Prince's perhaps one day being on the Open rota?
It's not under consideration at the moment.
As you say, we're taking the Walker Cup there.
It's a great venue.
I think some of the, the work that they've done over recent years down at Prince's has been spectacular.
But we're really happy with the, with the rotation that we've got at the, at the moment.
As you, as you know, it's been well documented, we are in a discussion with Portmarnock, around the potential for an Open championship in the future.
No, no plans beyond that at this stage.
Okay, I think we've got three questions at the moment we may have to finish with.
Doug, w- we'll, we'll go with you first.
I want to revisit the idea of adding a, a new hole to a century-old links.
When, when you talk about the members, driving the change, do they, do they want the change, or do they want it because the R&A couldn't guarantee they'd come back if they didn't?
I mean, the, the decisions were made before my time, but at, but at no stage, ah, would we, would we threaten a non-return to a, to a venue on that basis.
We've held This, this is our most visited venue outside of, St Andrews, so we found a way to work with this venue operationally really seamlessly in the, in the past.
So there would be certainly no threats on that front.
As the members considered some changes to their golf course, as I said earlier, you know, they invited us into that process.
It's a process that we would be very keen to be part of, and so I think we've struck the right balance with evolving, this golf course, and, you know, the feedback that we hear from the membership base is very, very positive indeed.
In, in this, in this movement for, for bigness, which has been several years now, has there been any consideration to have a smaller footprint once every odd years just because it's the right place to go?
Yeah, I mean, I would, I would push back certainly on the terminology a movement for, for bigness.
I- That a word.
I'd, I'd say a couple of things.
I'd say, look, we are delighted by the demand that we have for the Open championship.
It's, it's an event that's clearly resonating, w- with people, all around the world, including those that want to attend and watch this wonderful championship live.
And so if we're able to facilitate, you know, spectator volumes on site, we'll always consider that.
But it's not the primary driver for us.
And, and I'll give you an example.
We're going back to, to Lytham in a couple of years' time.
Lytham has a much tighter, smaller footprint.
There's absolutely no way we'll be anywhere near the volume of spectators at Lytham that we have, here this week.
And so our choices first and foremost start with, you know, the u- underlying principle for us, which is we want to take the Open championship to venues that will offer a true test of links golf.
And so we're not taking venues off the rotation because they're smaller than others, but there's a balance to be struck, too.
And, you know, we think we're getting that right.
In the front here, please.
All right, can I just ask you about Portmarnock?
What sort of needs to happen, and do you have a, a realistic timeline on it now?
Yeah, I, look, I think we're getting pretty close.
So it's a complicated venue because of the scale of the Open championship, and so there's been a, a lot of great feasibility work with, the golf club themselves, with the local authority, with, government.
We've undertaken a big feasibility study.
That work is pretty much done.
We've, we've confirmed that we believe we can take an Open championship there.
What we're looking to do is to build a model that opens up opportunities for the AIG Women's Open and the Open for many, many years to, to come.
And so that's the dialogue we're in right now with the Irish government, and we're optimistic that, those discussions are heading in the right direction.
T- time frame, I, I, I Look, this, in the spirit of transparency, it's taken a bit longer than, than I think I, I, and we thought it may, but it, there's, it's complicated doing all of that feasibility work.
We're hoping to have a pretty clear view by the end of the, by the end of the year, for sure
