Wait to host The Open goes on for iconic Scottish venue

“We’re going back to Muirfield,” insisted departing R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers at last year’s Open.

It has long been a matter of when, not if, the Open will return to the famed East Lothian links, but Muirfield has been kept waiting a little longer after it was confirmed the 2027 Championship will go to St Andrews.

Mark Darbon, Slumbers’ successor, confirmed that after renewals at Royal Portrush in 2025 and Royal Birkdale in 2026, the 155th Open will return to the Old Course. It maintains the five-year cycle of the Open at St Andrews, with just one exception since 1990.

• Which courses are on the Open rota?

• Future Open venues: Which course wil host next

Muirfield, meanwhile, will now have to wait a minimum of 15 years to stage golf’s oldest major, with the 2028 venue yet to be announced. Phil Mickelson was the last Muirfield champion in 2013 and the course has serious Open pedigree having staged the battle for the Claret Jug on 15 other occasions.

Muirfield had been briefly struck from the rota in May 2016 after a vote by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers to allow women to become members failed, but was restored by the R&A ten months later when the same proposal was belatedly passed.

Yet while the AIG Women’s Open visited Muirfield in 2022, we’re still not exactly sure when the world’s best male players will next descend on the Gullane links.

• Padraig Harrington: Why can’t we have The Open in Australia?

• Martin Slumbers issues Open update on Turnberry

One complication has been the Genesis Scottish Open, which has been played at the neighbouring Renaissance Club the week prior to The Open since 2019.

“I’ll have a little conversation with Mr. Kinnings about maybe moving the Scottish Open from the Renaissance,” Slumbers said at his final Open address at Royal Troon.

That, of course, being Guy Kinnings, the DP World Tour chief executive. The Renaissance Club is scheduled to host the Scottish Open until 2026, but any future change in location would presumably also require input from the PGA Tour given the US-based circuit now co-sanctions the event.

It is unclear whether those conversations have taken place, or indeed whether Muirfield is next in line in the mind of new boss Darbon. But it does seem almost inconceivable that the third most used Open venue after St Andrews and Prestwick won’t make its return – at least before the decade is out.

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.