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AIG WOMENâ€™S BRITISH OPEN

July 31, 2019

Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

THE MODERATOR: Good morning, and thank you for joining us here this morning. I would like to introduce our panel, closest to me we have Johnnie Cole-Hamilton, the executive director of championships for the R&A. Next to him we have Dafydd Elis-Thomas, deputy minister for culture, sport and tourism for Wales, and followed by Rhys James, captain of Royal Porthcawl Golf Club. I would like to invite Johnnie now to make our announcement.

JOHNNIE COLE-HAMILTON: Good morning, everybody. It is my pleasure to announce today that the AIG Women's British Open will be played at Royal Porthcawl Golf Club in 2021. The R&A is delighted to be taking the AIG Women's British Open to Royal Porthcawl for the first time. The club has a long and proud history of hosting R&A championships, including the Senior Open in 2014 and 2017, as well as the Amateur Championship, the Walker Cup and the Curtis Cup, amongst other R&A championships.

We're obviously set for a wonderful championship this week at Woburn Golf Club, and we have a couple of exciting years ahead with the championship also making its debut at Royal Troon in 2020 and now followed by Royal Porthcawl in 2021.

All three courses present an outstanding test for the best women golfers. I now welcome Dafydd Elis-Thomas, the deputy minister for culture, sport and tourism, to comment on what this announcement means for Wales.

DAFYDD ELIS-THOMAS: Good morning, and thank you very much indeed for this opportunity to join in the welcoming of this tournament to Wales. Obviously it is a great opportunity for us to showcase the quality of Royal Porthcawl and the other golf clubs in Wales. The growth of the golf tourism business is of central importance to us in Welsh golf. It's of central importance to me as I represent the north shores of Cardigan Bay with the many traditional links courses there that some of you will know well.

The opportunity is a great one for us, as well, because one of our priorities in government is the encouragement of equality in participation in sport, between men and women and obviously between ethnic minorities and the rest of the population, and especially to emphasize the importance of golf as participation, not just something that people can view and follow and support, but obviously that's essential in all sports, but also to encourage greater participation by women in sport. So there's my sporting and political message in one. Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: I'd like now to invite Mr. James to comment on behalf of Royal Porthcawl Golf Club.

RHYS JAMES: This is tremendous news for Royal Porthcawl Golf Club and all its members. You've already heard earlier that the in last 50 years, Royal Porthcawl has hosted many of the leading amateur golf tournaments, including the Curtis Cup, the Walker Cup, the British Amateur and Home Internationals. More recently we've hosted the Seniors Open in 2014 and 2017. So now to be awarded the Women's British Open is an enormous honour, and we will be counting down the days from tomorrow until that all-important week in July 2021.

Hosting the Women's British Open will be a huge privilege, but it will also be a huge responsibility, a responsibility to ensure that the players, the spectators, the sponsors and the officials all enjoy the tournament and have an unforgettable experience at Royal Porthcawl and all for the right reasons. I can assure you that Royal Porthcawl Golf Club and all its members and staff will be working tirelessly in the next two years to ensure that the course and everything at Royal Porthcawl is ready to welcome the leading lady golfers in July 2021.

And I can also assure you there will be a huge wave of excitement in the club when we announce later today of today's tremendous news. Thank you very much.

Q. Can I just ask you about the history of women at Royal Porthcawl; do they go back to the beginnings of golf, or did you suddenly let them in at some point?
RHYS JAMES: Ladies have always been part of the setup at Royal Porthcawl. They're an integral part of what we do and competitions we play, and particularly in recent years a lot of mixed golf is played and encourage. I can't be specific on precise dates as to how far back it goes, but they are very much part of everything we do at the club, and they're an extremely important part of our setup going forward.

Q. They've been full members for many years?
RHYS JAMES: Yes indeed. Absolutely.

Q. Can I just ask, obviously I don't want to -- this is a major in its own right and it's obviously very prestigious, but do you see this as another step along the way to getting the male Open?
DAFYDD ELIS-THOMAS: That's a matter for the Royal & Ancient great golf professionals.

Q. I'll speak to the captain: Is the club interested in the slate in the Open?
RHYS JAMES: The club is certainly interested in the potential for bringing The Open to Royal Porthcawl. I think we all saw what a massive success the activities at Portrush have been in the last 10 days, and I think working closely with the R&A, with the Welsh government and other related organisations, it is certainly something that we would like to consider.

Q. And the infrastructure there, is the course up for it? Are you confident it is?
RHYS JAMES: There are certainly adaptations that would be required to the course, and I think frankly it's a question of extent and degree and the detail of that.

Q. Johnnie, can you talk about it?
JOHNNIE COLE-HAMILTON: Yeah, I absolutely can. I think it's difficult for the captain of the club to answer those questions. I think I can be clear, and I think Martin Slumbers was quite clear at the Open Championship that currently we have no plans to take the Open Championship to Royal Porthcawl.

Q. Peter Dawson said exactly the same about Royal Portrush.
JOHNNIE COLE-HAMILTON: He did, but I'm saying we have no plans to take the Open Championship to Royal Porthcawl. They've hosted the Senior Open, they're about to host the AIG Women's British Open. The Walker Cup and Curtis Cups have got a great history of managing to stage R&A championships, but currently The Open Championship is not in the discussions. We're very happy with the 10 venues we have at the moment, and that is our position at the moment.

Q. Can I just ask you, do you think it's fair that the four parts of the United Kingdom and Wales is the only nation of those not to have staged The Open?
DAFYDD ELIS-THOMAS: That's not the way I look at these things. I look at these things very pragmatically about what we can achieve, and my interest as sports minister is to invest the Welsh pound, which we have and do all government in the effective way. I believe our current partnership with the R&A and with the development of golf championships, it's not a matter -- it works well. It's not a matter of competing with other parts of the United Kingdom.

Clearly when we look at Ireland, golf in the whole of Ireland, and we're looking increasingly now at ways in which -- I won't make any political comments on deals or no deals. It won't be appropriate in this context. But the whole history of golf in Ireland as an island, wide activity, and clearly the championship recently in the north was extremely well-supported north and south. We haven't got that capacity in Wales, but we have got the capacity to deliver what we are seeking to deliver at the moment, and we will continue to support it.

Q. Johnnie, Troon, now Porthcawl. Does this week mark the end of this championship in parkland or inland courses, or would that be a leap of faith to say that now?
JOHNNIE COLE-HAMILTON: No, again, I think that was asked at the Open Championship, and I think we were clear that links venues are very important as part of the development of the AIG Women's British Open, but it's really important that we build a sustainable business model for this championship, and that might mean a mix of courses. So I don't think that would be clear to say here.

Q. Could I go back to the captain? I'm just wondering how you felt about Johnnie's response when you've obviously talked about the possibility of getting The Open one day, and it wasn't terribly encouraging what Johnnie had to say.
RHYS JAMES: Well, it's not a club decision. We have to work and would obviously work very closely with the R&A and we take the lead from the R&A. In answer to the earlier question, is the club interested, I think the answer is yes, we're interested. But it is down to the detail, and it's an enormous amount of detail, and time scales. So I don't think anybody can say very much more than that. If it's on the agenda in the years to come, we would participate and cooperate as much as we possibly could.

JOHNNIE COLE-HAMILTON: I would reiterate that we have an extremely strong relationship with Royal Porthcawl, which is why they're hosting the AIG Women's British Open, why they've hosted two British Senior Opens in recent memory, Walker Cups, Curtis Cups, Amateur Championships in recent memory. The R&A love Royal Porthcawl and we have a really strong relationship with them and indeed with Wales.

Q. Johnnie, while you clearly have no plans to expand The Open rota, presumably you would still be monitoring how well the staging of the Women's British Open at Royal Porthcawl goes, and in that respect, could that potentially going forward influence any kind of decision on expanding the rota to include Royal Porthcawl?
JOHNNIE COLE-HAMILTON: I mean, as I say, it's not on our radar at the moment, but it is the first time that Royal Porthcawl has hosted what is an extremely important and big major championship with a worldwide audience. So absolutely we'll be looking to see how it pans out.

DAFYDD ELIS-THOMAS: If I could just add something to that, to make a comparison to other sports, what we've found, we recently hosted part of the men's British cycling championship but also a major part of the women's cycling championship, and this has developed through practice and the experience. So what we are talking about here is how well we can provide for major sporting events, and that's certainly our ambition. But we are not going to be overly ambitious, because it's the quality of the experience for the participants as well as the people viewing the sport, and it's about encouraging the sport and the legacy of increasing the interest in all sports and a choice of sports that is our objective.

Q. Johnnie, when you take all your other championships to other parts of the United Kingdom, why wouldn't you want to try to take it to Wales, the men's Open?
JOHNNIE COLE-HAMILTON: I mean, obviously we want to take The Open to -- it's the most international major of all, and we want to take it to all parts of the United Kingdom. But we have 10 venues that we are very, very happy with at the moment, and at the moment we have no plans to take it to Royal Porthcawl.

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