Report: British Open Not Returning to Trump Turnberry or Muirfield in 2028

According to the Telegraph, Royal Lytham and St. Annes has emerged as the favorite to host the 2028 British Open.

Despite a push from the U.K. government, Turnberry was passed over for the 2028 British Open. | Offside Sports-Imagn Images

It appears the British Open won’t be returning to Trump Turnberry or Muirfield anytime soon. 

According to the Telegraph, Royal Lytham and St Annes has emerged as the venue most likely to host the 2028 British Open. Royal Lytham last hosted the year’s final major championship in 2012. 

With only 27 months until the 2028 British Open, it was expected that Turnberry, which Trump bought in 2014, could be in the running. The famed course has contested four Opens, starting with the Duel in the Sun in 1977 and most recently in 2009, when a 59-year-old Tom Watson lost in a playoff to Stewart Cink. 

The U.K. government had been petitioning for golf’s oldest major to come back to Turnberry; however, R&A chief executive Mark Darbon told the Telegraph last year, “We need a venue that is appropriate from both a logistical and commercial perspective.” And Turnberry is in a remote part of Scotland. 

If Turnberry wasn’t granted the tournament in 2028, it appeared Muirfield was an option. The British Open was last played there in 2013, when Phil Mickelson won, and the AIG Women’s British Open was contested there in 2022. Last decade, the R&A dropped the course from the Open rotation due to the banishment of women from the club. However, Muirfield began admitting female members in 2017. 

The course has been home to 16 British Opens, the first being in 1892. And earlier this year, Rory McIlroy endorsed the event returning to Muirfield. 

“Muirfield deserves to be back on the Open rota,” he said. “They rectified the issues they had. It’s a wonderful course. It’s one of the best courses on the rota and in the U.K. As well, it has to commercially make sense. Mark 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.”

The R&A, though, requested the club refurbish its practice facilities and increase spectator areas to boost attendance.