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    R&A

    Why Open Championship's return to St. Andrews in 2027 has added meaning

    January 23, 2025
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    GLYN KIRK

    Still in his first few weeks on the job, new R&A chief executive Mark Darbon had some happy news to deliver in his first official announcement:

    The Open Championship is coming back to St. Andrews in 2027.

    “I’m looking forward to The Open’s return every bit as much as the fans and the players,” Darbon said in a press release, July 15-18 revealed as the specific dates. “There is something incredibly special about The Open being played on the Old Course and so many of the great champions have walked these fairways since the first staging here in 1873.”

    This will mark the 31st time the legendary course will be hosting the championship—seven more than the next closest venue (Prestwick). The last came in 2022 when Cam Smith shot a closing 64 to win the claret jug in the historic 150th playing of golf’s oldest championship.

    Of course, there are nostalgic reasons to play the Open so frequently at the Home of Golf. Many of the game’s all-time great players have won at St. Andrews, including J.H. Taylor, Peter Thomson, Bobby Locke, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods.

    But there are financial considerations as well. A record-breaking 290,000 fans attended the Open in 2022, with the championship generating more than £300 million in economic benefit for Fife and Scotland, according to the R&A.

    “The staging of the championship here in 2027 will have a significant and positive economic impact on the region,” said Business Minister Richard Lochhead. “We know from independent research that the last 10 Opens held in Scotland contributed a total of £1.36 billion to the economy.”

    “St. Andrews is the home of golf and it generates a unique atmosphere for the fans and the players as well as providing an amazing spectacle on television and digitally for millions of viewers around the world,” Darbon said. “It promises to be another milestone occasion at one of sport’s greatest and most historic venues and we will be doing everything we can to make it a memorable experience for everyone involved.”

    There is a unique historic footnote to St. Andrews hosting specifically in 2027: It marks 100 years since Bobby Jones won the Open at the Old Course as an amateur, pulling off a six-stroke victory in the second of three career Open wins for the famed amateur.

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    Topical Press Agency

    The 2025 Open will be played in July at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, and the 2026 Open is scheduled for Royal Birkdale in England.