Royal Troon A Little Slow On The Progress Front

Martin Dempster reports that the members at Troon are a little slow to diversify their membership and that the hold up appears to be internal, setting up an awkward first Open Championship for new Chief Executive Martin Slumbers.

Filing for The Scotsman, Dempster writes:

In short, there is an element of the membership that want it to remain men-only, despite the lead having been taken by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews when it voted in favour of admitting women, and Royal St George’s subsequently following suit.

Slumbers was being diplomatic when he said that Royal Troon deserved “respect and the freedom to consult with their members as they wish”. Privately, though, he’d surely rather be overseeing his first Open Championship since taking up the reins from Peter Dawson without this thorny issue hanging over the event.

Here’s something for the Royal Troon members to consider in the hope that whatever or whoever is stalling the process has a change of heart in order for the club to become mixed gender before the world’s top players converge in the middle of July. The 2013 Open Championship at Muirfield may have ended in fairytale fashion as Phil Mickelson produced one of the best back nines in the history of the great event to get his hands on the Claret Jug for the first time, but it was a tournament that took place against an awkward backdrop due to its men-only policy.

And at least Muirfield produced one of the great majors in a decade. Troon is returning on the heels of...and we love and admire you Todd...a Todd Hamilton major. Not a lot of political capital there fellas.