It opened its doors to women in 2019, for the first time in its more than 100-year history after the go-ahead from the members that had arrived, through a vote, in March 2017. And, now, the Muirfield Village Golf Club, a Scottish club, will host from tomorrow at 7 August the AIG Women’s Open, the fifth and final 2022 Major in women’s golf.
A historic occasion in Gullane, East Lothian, where the queens of the green will compete for a prize pool of 6,800,000 dollars. But there is much more at stake, with the victory being to see the champions of the discipline on the Muirfield green.
In the field, 44 of the top 50 projects, starting from number 1, the South Korean Jin Young Ko. The Swedish Anna Nordqvist will defend the title won in 2021.
Muirfield, story
Muirfield is a private links golf course which is home to The Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers.
Located in Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland and overlooking the Firth of Forth, Muirfield was one of the courses where the British Open is played in rotation. Muirfield has hosted the British Open fifteen times, most recently in 2013 which saw victory for Phil Mickelson.
Other Open winners at Muirfield include Nick Faldo (twice), Ernie Els, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Henry Cotton, Alf Perry, Walter Hagen, Harry Vardon and Harold Hilton. Muirfield was also the scene of the British Amateur Open on ten occasions as well as the Ryder Cup in 1973, the Walker Cup in 1959 and 1979, the Curtis Cup in 1952 and 1984, as well as many other important tournaments.
Although Muirfield is a links type course, it has an unusual shape. Most links are built along the seashore with a return, resulting in two nine-hole alignments, each aligned in roughly the same direction. By contrast, Muirfield was the first course to deviate from this configuration and to be laid out as two nine-hole loops, the first playing clockwise, the second counter-clockwise.
As a result, with constant wind direction during a course, each hole will be subject to a different wind direction at the tee. At any point of the course it is not possible to find more than three holes having the same general direction.
Jack Nicklaus won three British Opens, including his first at Muirfield in 1966, which allowed him to complete the first of his three career Grand Slams. Nicklaus has described Muirfield as the “best course in Britain”
He later designed a championship course in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb north of his hometown of Columbus. When it opened in 1974, Nicklaus named it “Muirfield Village”; this course has hosted its Memorial Tournament, one of the biggest invitational tournaments on the PGA Tour since 1976.
Muirfield has ended the last two grand slam attempts, denying the third major tournament victory of the year to the winner of the first two, the Masters and the US Open. Nicklaus finished second within a stroke of Trevino in 1972, and Tiger Woods fell victim to strong wind and rain in 2002 which ended his third day with a score of 82.
He recovered on Sunday with a score of 65 to finish in par for a shared 28th place, six strokes behind the players who were going to compete for victory in the play-off.
