British prime minister Keir Starmer pushes to host Open Championship at Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf resort
Turnberry is one of the famous Scottish golf courses to have hosted the Open Championship, but since Donald Trump took ownership in 2014 has been absent. That could be about to change.
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FOR years businessmen, negotiators and even US presidents have taken to the golf course to foster good relations and strike deals.
Now Sir Keir Starmer is looking to take golf diplomacy one step further as part of his government’s efforts to woo President Trump, a keen golfer who is often pictured playing at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
British officials have been instructed to investigate the possibility of the president’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland returning as host of the Open Championship, one of Britain’s most prestigious sporting events.
Officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have discussed the prospect with the R&A, one of golf’s two governing bodies and the operator of the Open, the oldest golf tournament in the world.
Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of the Open returning to Turnberry in phone calls with Starmer. Government sources said he remained very interested in the fate of his two golf resorts in Scotland. His second course is Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire, which opened in 2012 but would not be considered as a host of the Open.
A source close to discussions said: “The government is doing everything it can to get close to Trump. One concrete thing is that DCMS have been involved in pushing for the Open to return to Trump-owned Turnberry.”
The earliest it could be hosted at Turnberry would be 2028, as the venues have already been decided until 2027.
The 800-acre Turnberry estate in Ayrshire, bought by Trump for pounds 39.5 million in June 2014, last hosted the Open in 2009. It is among the pool of 14 links courses that have hosted the tournament.
Trump has publicly called for the Open to return to Turnberry. In 2023 he declared: “Everybody wants to see the Open Championship here.”
The King also referred to the Turnberry estate in his letter offering the Trump a state visit this year. Charles pointed out that his foundation at nearby Dumfries House provides hospitality skills training for young people who “often end up as staff in your own establishments”. The R&A, however, is understood to have highlighted the significant logistical obstacles to hosting the tournament at Turnberry again given the growth in spectators since 2009, when 120,000 people attended. The R&A is expecting 278,000 fans to attend the Open at Royal Portrush in Co Antrim in July.
The obstacles include a lack of train and road links and accommodation, while security is also understood to be a major hurdle. A spokesman for the R&A said: “We regularly engage with government and local government regarding venues. We have explained the logistical challenges around Turnberry to the government and they are aware of the position.”
Mark Darbon, the R&A’s chief executive, has said that the modern-day Open would need hotel accommodation of more than 60,000 beds in addition to better infrastructure. He has described the logistical requirements as “challenging at that venue”.
The R&A has also made clear that the focus of the championship must always be on golf. There are concerns that play would be significantly overshadowed by political rows and protests if it was to be held at the Trump-owned course. Seven people have been charged after the estate’s Ailsa course was vandalised by pro-Palestinian protesters last month, while Trump’s arrival at the Women’s Open there in 2015 amid his first run for president overshadowed the first day of the tournament.
However, Darbon has been more positive about Turnberry’s chances than his predecessor, Martin Slumbers, who he replaced in July last year.
Lavishing praise on the course in a Sky News interview this month, he described it as “brilliant”, adding: “At some point we’d love to be back there.”
Slumbers had ruled out Turnberry hosting the Open in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021.
The DCMS declined to comment but government sources insisted that sport operated independently and decisions on tournament hosting venues were a matter for relevant bodies.
They added that any move to host the Open at Turnberry would be for the R&A. The resort, which is managed by the president’s son Eric Trump, also declined to comment.
The discussions reveal the lengths to which the UK is going to woo Trump as Starmer attempts to strike a trade deal with the US to lower tariffs. Last month Finland’s President Stubb spent seven hours with the US president on the course at his Mar-a-Lago estate. It appeared to succeed in hardening Trump’s attitude on Russia after listening to Stubb’s arguments about the need to impose a deadline on President Putin to abide by a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Stubb also left the course with an economic victory as Finland was awarded a bumper contract by Trump to build Arctic icebreakers.
Starmer, a keen footballer, is unlikely to take on Trump on the course himself.
The last prime minister to play golf with a US president was David Cameron, who played a round against Barack Obama in Hertfordshire in 2016. He was resoundingly beaten by the American leader.
The Times revealed last week that Trump had taken back personal control of the company that runs Turnberry, having stepped down as a director of Golf Recreation Scotland in 2017 after his first election victory.
Originally published as Keir Starmer pushes to host Open at Trump’s Turnberry golf course
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