Rory McIlroy endorses Muirfield's return from exile, hopes it will be back on Open rota soon

DUBAI — Rory McIlroy believes Scotland’s famed Muirfield should be returned to the Open Championship rota in time for the 2028 edition.

Speaking to reporters after a third-round 71 at the Dubai Desert Classic, the reigning Masters champion said the Gullane area golf course “deserves” to be placed on the unofficial list of anchor sites the R&A uses for the men’s links major.

The U.K. major is headed this summer to Royal Birkdale, in the Southport area of Northwest England, before returning to the Old Course at St. Andrews in 2027 for the 155th Open.

While the R&A has not yet announced host courses for the 2028 and 2029 editions, McIlroy says Muirfield is worthy of welcoming back for the first Open since Phil Mickelson triumphed in 2013.

“Yeah,” the 2014 Open champion said Saturday when asked if it was time Muirfield came back into the equation. “I would say Birkdale this year, would be very early to bring an Open back to that [Northwest England] region in 2028.” Meaning, Royal Lytham may not be a suitable host for 2028 given it is less than 40 miles from Birkdale. In that case, Muirfield may be a better candidate.

“Muirfield, they obviously rectified the issues that they had,” he said. McIlroy was referring to a 2017 vote by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers to allow women members for the first time in Muirfield’s centuries-old history. McIlroy had been critical of the issue. At that year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, McIlroy said it was “ridiculous” that it had taken so long to allow women to join. Five years after the vote, Muirfield hosted the Women’s Open for the first time, with South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai winning in a playoff.

At Royal Portrush during last year’s Open, Darbon spoke about potential future Open rota venues. He acknowledged that with the enormous scale of the modern British Open, Muirfield had logistical hurdles to consider but added discussions with the East Lothian course were positive.

“We love the golf course at Muirfield,” Darbon said. “We’re in a discussion with the venue right now. There are some things that we need to evolve at Muirfield—the practice ground, in particular, is a challenge for us to host the modern Open, and this is work we need to do. And if they need to facilitate some of the infrastructure that we require decent cabling to enable the scale of the production that we have these days.

“But it’s good dialogue, and we’d love to be back here in the future.”

The logical issues aside, Muirfield is regarded among the finest in the U.K. It ranks seventh in Golf Digest’s World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses.

“It's a wonderful golf course,” McIlroy said. “It's one of the best courses on the rota and in the U.K., but I think, as well, it has to commercially make sense. I think [CEO of the R&A] Mark Darbon has been brought in to make the Open Championship commercially viable. I would say Muirfield, that area [of] North Berwick, that would probably be one of the more commercially viable opens. It would be wonderful if it was. Again, I'm not privy to those conversations but Muirfield deserves to be back on The Open rota.”

Now a career Grand Slam champion and five-time major winner, McIlroy wants another shot at hoisting the claret jug at Muirfield, having missed the cut in 2013 in what he said “could have been the lowest point in my career.” He won the Open at Royal Liverpool the following year