Rory McIlroy wanted The Open Championship to be held at a banned golf course
Rory McIlroy had dreams of The Open Championship being held at Muirfield. However, a ban on female golfers put a stop to this and left him fuming.
The Open is being held this year at Royal Birkdale in Southport. The club, situated just north of Liverpool, has hosted the major championship 10 times as well as two Ryder Cups.
McIlroy was keen for Muirfield to host for the first time since 2013 but private members refused to allow women. The Masters champion urged those who voted against allowing female golfers to join the club to “see sense.”
McIlroy said in 2016: “It’s more of a loss to Muirfield than it is to us. It’s not right to host the world’s biggest tournament at a place that does not allow women to be members. Hopefully Muirfield can see some sense and we can get it back on The Open rota.”
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As a result of the ban, the R&A confirmed they would not allow Muirfield on The Open rota until rules changed. A further vote was held in 2017 but the same outcome followed, leaving McIlroy furious.
He said: “Muirfield wouldn’t be one of my favourite Open rota courses, so no matter the decision yesterday, if it had been kept off The Open Championship rota, I wouldn’t have been that unhappy. In this day and age where you’ve got women that are the leaders of certain industries and heads of state and not to be able to join a golf course?
“I mean, it’s obscene. It’s ridiculous. It’s horrendous. I don’t get it. We’ll go back there for The Open Championship at some point and I won’t be having many cups of tea with the members afterwards.”
Eventually, the Muirfield members reneged and the ban was lifted. McIlroy was pleased and proposed that The Open be held there in 2028, but Royal Lytham & St Annes was chosen instead.
The 37-year-old said: “It would be wonderful if it was [there]. I’m not privy to those conversations, but Muirfield deserves to be back on the Open rota.
“They rectified the issues they had. It’s a wonderful course. It’s one of the best courses on the rota and in the UK. As well, it has to commercially make sense.
“I think Mark Darbon [R&A chief executive] has been brought in to make the Open Championship commercially viable. I would say Muirfield, that area, North Berwick, that would probably be one of the more commercially viable Opens.”
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