This week, the AIG Women’s Open is at the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers’ precious Muirfield golfing ground on the east side of Gullane in East Lothian.
I can feel everyone cranking up the “iconic” references. It’s not that lazy, constantly mis-used word. It’s symbolic, which actually means a whole lot more.
Just four or five people
Winner of the AIG Women's Open, Girls' Amateur and Women's Amateur!
One of The @RandA's great Champions, Anna Nordqvist has arrived at Muirfield and is ready to defend her AIG Women's Open title.#WorldClass pic.twitter.com/1dQh6wQD89
— AIG Women’s Open (@AIGWomensOpen) August 1, 2022
In May 2016 I was one of the journalists huddled on the lawn between Muirfield’s 18th and the Hon Coy’s clubhouse. Henry Fairweather, then the captain, came out to announce that a vote had fallen 2% (probably just four or five people) short of the necessary two-thirds majority to admit women members.
Opprobrium rained in on the Hon Coy and poor Henry (who favoured admitting women). Within five minutes of the announcement, R&A Chief Executive Martin Slumbers, in a clear signal that the governing body wouldn’t tolerate this nonsense anymore, excised Muirfield from The Open Championship rota.
In March the next year, another visit to that same ground and another appearance on the front lawn by Henry. This time, in a re-vote, more than 80% of HCEG members favoured admitting women. Phew.
But that first vote had ensured that Muirfield, long known as exclusive, secretive and a wee bit self-importantly rude, was to be known as home to golf’s Misogynists-in-Chief.
Muirfield and the HCEG took the rap
Deserved? Maybe in the past. But super-exclusive Pine Valley in America, for example, only admitted women as members this time last year.
Or ultra-exclusive Augusta National, ten years after admitting Condoleeza Rice and Daria Moore as its first female members, has since admitted just two more.
No matter that Royal Troon still has fewer women members than Muirfield. That even the R&A, the most high-profile golf club in the world that actually sets the game’s rules, was only a couple of years ahead in admitting women.
No matter that a host of clubs in Scotland, England and Ireland, squirming as they saw the Muirfield furore, quietly and discreetly changed their similar membership policies.
To a large degree the Hon Coy took the rap for golf’s ludicrous anti-women traditions pretty much on its own.
One of the greatest venues in the sport
It makes this week massively symbolic. Not just for the Honourable Company and for women, but for the entirety of golf. The biggest women’s championship comes to Muirfield, undeniably one of the greatest venues in the sport.
It’s right and proper that this championship, rather than The Open, should mark the return of Muirfield to championship golf.
I imagine The Open will return by the end of this decade (2026 or 2028, most probably). But if anything, the course at a modest 6,600 yards with its famous concentric loops of nine should actually better suit this particular championship.
The course shouldn’t be any greener than the Old Course or neighbouring Renaissance was last month. It should be every bit as good as the great men’s Open in 2013 there, when the ground played like marble by the end of the week.
The club itself? I’ve been a couple of times recently and it feels totally different. Most certainly different than the days at an Open in the past when a female journalist colleague was stopped – but not me – as we tried to go in the main door.
What really matters at Muirfield is unchanged
Muirfield is shaping up beautifully ahead of an historic week…
Will you be in attendance?
🎟 https://t.co/sbP5O8TfRw#WorldClass pic.twitter.com/QwRfe8afSc
— AIG Women’s Open (@AIGWomensOpen) July 30, 2022
Strong characters deftly guided the club into the 21st century. Former SGU chair Douglas Connon and club secretary Stuart McEwan, formerly of Kingsbarns and Gleneagles among them.
At the same time, the things that made the Honourable Company special – their great course, foursomes golf, their many artefacts and treasures, sumptuous lunches and dinners, their superior taste in ‘refreshments’ – are unchanged. Not that inviting females to join was ever going to change them.
I remember on the day of the re-vote, as we were waiting for Henry Fairweather, three golfers were finishing their rounds up Muirfield’s great 18th hole.
They were visitors from Switzerland – Anna Dietrich, Pascale Reinhard and Jeanette Siehenthiler. And they all had lunch in the clubhouse.
The continuity candidate
The journey starts now @LukeDonald 😏
— Ryder Cup Europe (@RyderCupEurope) August 1, 2022
Luke Donald’s confirmation as the ‘new’ European Ryder Cup captain at least shows some of the continuity for which the “template” is known.
Paul Lawrie maybe jumped the gun a little ten days ago at Gleneagles – Stenson’s seat was still warm. But Paul was essentially right. The new captain had to come from the remaining three original candidates.
A real stalwart of four winning teams, Donald had a 70% win rate. That’s the best of anyone who has played in more than 10 series for Europe. He led the singles at Medinah in 2012, setting the table for the Miracle.
I always thought he was very unlucky not to be picked as a wildcard in both 2014 and 2016. Paul McGinley said it was his toughest decision as captain – bar none – to leave Donald out.
Donald, whose father is Scottish, was also vice-captain to Thomas Bjorn in Paris in 2018. He’s quickly endorsed the choices of Bjorn and Edoardo Molinari as vice-captains for Rome.
There’s been no mention of the dreaded L word in the official announcement. But Donald did say “It is truly one of the greatest honours that can be bestowed upon a golfer, to be ambassador for an entire continent.” Ouch, Henrik.
I’m glad for Stenson that he won the LIV Bedminister event and the $4m. Only, I hope he gets a bit better advised with all that money than he’s been in the past. Maybe read the contract in full this time?