The R&A has opened the door to taking the Open Championship back to the Trump Turnberry golf club for the first time since 2009.
“Turnberry is a wonderful golf course, and I think some of the recent improvements there have made it even better,” R&A CEO Mark Darbon said Tuesday. “It’s a course we’d love to return to at some point.”
The R&A is the governing body for golf outside the U.S. and Mexico, and also operates the Open Championship (also known as the British Open), which is one of the four major championships of the golf calendar each year. Darbon was speaking Tuesday during a press conference previewing this July’s major at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland.
His comments about Turnberry are a big change from the R&A’s previous stance on the Scottish course, which the Trump Organization purchased in 2014 for $60 million.
In February, Darbon told The Telegraph that “it’s not quite as simple as just saying ‘would we go back?’ There’s a chunk of work that’s required to investigate.” In November, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump was re-elected, former R&A CEO Martin Slumbers told Golf Channel: “We will not be taking any events there until we are comfortable that the whole dialogue will be about golf. That situation is something we’re still not comfortable with at the moment, but that could evolve in the coming years.”
Those comments were mostly in line with the R&A’s statement following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. “We had no plans to stage any of our championships at Turnberry and will not do so in the foreseeable future,” Slumbers said in a statement released Jan. 11, 2021. “We will not return until we are convinced that the focus will be on the championship, the players and the course itself and we do not believe that is achievable in the current circumstances.”
Turnberry has hosted four editions of the tournament (1977, 1986, 1994, and 2009), informally known as the British Open, but none since the Trump Organization took over ownership. At one point, Turnberry was seen as a favorite to land the 2020 Open, but that was ultimately awarded to Royal St George’s Golf Club, and then cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the English course hosted the 2021 tournament.
The Senior Open Championship was last held at Turnberry in 2012, and the Women’s British Open was last played there in 2015.
Since purchasing Turnberry in 2014, the Trump Organization invested $200 million in making improvements to the property. But the R&A has repeatedly cited the venue’s capacity limits as a major factor in not playing the Open there.
On Tuesday, Darbon reiterated that Turnberry has logistical and commercial challenges when considering it for future Open Championship hosting duties, since the tournament now annually surpasses 250,000 fans at its other stops. “I think the last time we were there in 2009, we had just over 120,000 people. We just said we’re going to have close to 280,000 here this summer,” he said.
Despite the challenges, Darbon cited the R&A’s relationship with Trump while appearing more optimistic about returning to Turnberry.
“The road, rail, and accommodation infrastructure presents some challenges if we wish to scale our operation there,” he said. “We’ve got a good dial-up with the ownership group, and we’ll continue to look at feasibility as we move forward. We’d love to return at some stage.”
The Open will be played at Royal Birkdale in England in 2026, and the Old Course at St Andrews in 2027. Host sites for 2028 and beyond have not yet been announced.
