The Open Rota Set At 10 And Only 10

After the confirmation of the majestic Royal Portrush as the 2019 Open host, Nick Rodger considers the state of the Open rota.

Royal Porthcawl has been pushed out and it's hard to see Royal Cinque Ports getting a shot as the London-adjacent-ish venue over Royal St. George's, sadly. But it's a pretty stout group, even if Royal Lytham will have a very hard time remaining relevant unless the golf ball is changed.

 “We are quite happy with 10 venues at the moment,” said Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the Royal & Ancient, after confirming that Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland would be staging the 2019 Open earlier this week. “That’s all we’re looking at. There are no discussions going on about any other course. This (Portrush) was the big decision to make and we’re looking forward to getting this one going. I think it’s important not to get too far ahead of ourselves.”

Golden Slumbers also discussed the early days of his new tenure, which has seen the fleeing of BBC and ESPN as television hosts in favor of Sky and NBC.

The early days of Slumbers’s tenure have been a bit of a whirlwind and the hasty re-jigging of the television contract for the Open, after the BBC decided to pull the plug a year early, was a robust introduction to the job. “It’s been a busy number of weeks but it will be a busier few years,” he added. “They (the BBC) asked us just after the Open to get out of their contract. Of course we were disappointed but Sky stepped in with great gusto.”