ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – This week marks only the third time the best female players in the world will compete over the Old Course for a major championship title, with Lorena Ochoa winning the first in 2007 and Stacy Lewis the second in 2013.
Before a competitive shot has even been struck at the 2024 AIG Women’s British Open, the question of when the women will return to the iconic venue is top of mind.
In all, 32 of the top 50 players in the Rolex Rankings have never played a competition at the Old Course. That list includes 2023 AIG champion Lilia Vu, Jin Young Ko, Rose Zhang, Hannah Green, Ruoning Yin, Minjee Lee, Yuka Saso, Brooke Henderson and a host of other top players.
An 11-year gap between stagings means many players will only get one crack at the iconic venue, if that.
A general view of the first hole during a Pro-Am ahead of the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews Old Course on August 21, 2024 in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Charlie Crowhurst/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)
So far, only Royal Porthcawl has been announced as a future venue in 2025. The men’s Open Championship goes to St. Andrews once every five years. R&A chief Slumbers met with the media on Wednesday and stopped short of putting a number on how often the women would come here but said “more often.”
“I think you’re going to increasingly see us use exactly the same venues as we use for The Open,” said Slumbers, “with one exception that we will probably want to have, periodically, a championship in the London area, for reasons – it’s primarily linked to one of the byproducts of this is trying to grow young people to play – more women to play golf, and there are more women golfers down in the south of England than in Scotland, so we’ll take advantage of that to lean into.
“But you’re increasingly, over the years, going to see the same venues that we use for The Open Championship, and I think that is entirely appropriate.”
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