Major success as Royal Porthcawl to host world’s top women

ROYAL Porthcawl will make its debut on the Women’s British Open roster when it hosts the world’s leading female golfers in 2021.

The stunning Mid Glamorgan links became the first course to stage a Major in Wales in 2014 and German great Bernhard Langer produced one of the stand-out performances in the history of the game to win the Senior Open title for the second time.

Three years later Langer lifted the Senior Claret Jug again at Porthcawl.

Prior to hosting the Senior Open Championship, Royal Porthcawl hosted the Coral Welsh Classic on the European Tour three times between 1980 and 1982, and the Wales Senior Open in 2009, 2010 and 2013, as well as the 1995 Walker Cup, featuring Tiger Woods, when Great Britain and Ireland beat the USA 14-10.

It’s also hosted the Curtis Cup and the Amateur Championship in 2016.

And now the club will get the 2021 AIG Women’s British Open, following on from Royal Troon, which makes its debut on the Championship roster in 2020.

The 2019 Women’s British Open is being staged at Woburn this week and with Royal Porthcawl getting the nod in 2021, calls for the men’s Open Championship to be staged in Wales for the first time will only grow louder.

As South Wales’s first 18-hole golf course, Royal Porthcawl was awarded the privilege of the prefix ‘Royal’ in 1909, only the second course in Wales and one of only 66 clubs around the world to have that distinction.

Royal Porthcawl club captain Rhys James added: “We are thrilled that the AIG Women’s British Open is coming to Royal Porthcawl in 2021.

“Hosting our first women’s Major is a tremendous honour for the club and we cannot wait to welcome the world’s best golfers to Wales.

“Being here at Woburn this week and seeing the impressive scale and quality of the Championship makes us look forward to it all the more and to seeing how these fantastic players handle all the challenges our course in two years’ time.”