Gary Player Calls For ‘Incredibly Special’ Trump Turnberry To Return To Open Rota

Gary Player has paid tribute to Trump Turnberry on a visit to the famous Scottish links and says it ought to be reinstated as an Open venue.

The Ailsa Course has hosted The Open four times. The first time was in 1977 when Tom Watson claimed a one-shot win over Jack Nicklaus. It then hosted the Major again in 1986 and 1994, but it hasn’t been held there since 2009, when Watson nearly became the oldest player to win a Major, aged 59, before he eventually succumbed to Stewart Cink in a playoff.

Three-time Open champion Player visited the course this week, and heaped praise on the venue in a post on Twitter accompanied by a photo of him on one of its greens.

He wrote: “With all the golf I’ve played in my life, it is not often that I stop to snap a photo on a green. But Turnberry is incredibly special and is a close second to Pine Valley in my top two courses on the planet. No doubt Turnberry deserves to be back on The Open’s Rota. It’s an absolute paradise of links golf with a storied history.”

Donald Trump purchased Turnberry in 2014, two years before he embarked on a controversial term as the 45th President of the USA. The R&A removed Turnberry from the rota days after the US Capitol riots in January 2021 at the end of Trump’s term in office.

Before the 2022 LIV Golf Team Championship, Trump claimed The R&A were ready to reintroduce Turnberry to the rota, telling reporters: "They want The Open to go back. I can tell you they want to come back. It is rated the number one course in Europe now. We did a big surgery on Turnberry and it has gotten great reviews, even from people who hate me."

Those comments came after chief executive of The R&A Martin Slumbers vowed that The Open would not return to Turnberry “until we are convinced that the focus will be on the championship, the players and the course itself.”

The R&A later dismissed Trump’s claim leaving the prospect of The Open returning to Turnberry as remote as ever.

Earlier this year, Trump visited Turnberry for the first time since 2018, although it is not known if discussions were held with The R&A on a potential return of The Open to the venue, with the main news to come from the visit being Trump setting out his vision to build “one of the great golf courses in the world” in Aberdeenshire.

Despite remaining off the Open rota, and its continuing association with Trump, the Ailsa Course is one of the highest-rated in the country, and is third in Golf Monthly’s top 100 golf courses of UK and Ireland.

Following the glowing praise from a legend of the game in Player, it appears likely that as time goes on, the clamour to see the tournament return to Turnberry will only grow.