They said it would be a once in a lifetime event but the Ryder Cup could return to Scotland within 12 years, it was said yesterday.
While the buoyancy of the tournament scene in the home of golf was bolstered yesterday with the announcement that the future of the increasingly lucrative Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open has been secured until 2020, George O'Grady, the chief executive of the European Tour, refused to rule out the possibility of the biennial battle between Europe and the USA returning to the cradle of the game sooner rather than later.
September's spectacularly successful staging of the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, the first in Scotland for over 40 years, brought rapturous acclaim on a global scale. O'Grady himself said it was the "best presented Ryder Cup" he had ever been involved in and Mike Cantlay, the chairman of VisitScotland, believes that Scotland should be purposefully targeting another stint as host venue, even as early as 2026.
"People have said we won't see another Ryder Cup here in our lifetime but with the activity, the success of this year and the strength of commitment to golf in Scotland, hopefully that will come round sooner than people will have anticipated," he said. "The announcements are still to come, but there is 2026 and 2030. There is a lot of chat in Scotland about 2026."
With France hosting the 2018 match, the bidding process for the 2022 clash on European soil will begin in February and a variety of nations, including Germany, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, have all expressed an interest. While eager to take the contest, and all the riches that it brings, to as many new destinations as possible, O'Grady concedes that Scotland has raised the bar as far as the staging of one of sport's biggest showpieces is concerned.
"It is not out of the question," added O'Grady, on the possibility of a return to Scotland in 2026. "It would have to be an exceptionally good bid [and give us reasons why] we wouldn't give it to someone who hasn't had it before. But you'd never rule anything out for Scotland because that was such a good Ryder Cup. The American representatives from Hazeltine [venue for 2016] were over and went 'wow'. I didn't think we could have done it that well.
"It surpassed all my personal expectations and everybody else's."
The latest announcement, meanwhile, concerning the Scottish Open, which will see the Scottish Government pour in £1m each year along with Aberdeen Asset Management's considerable input as title sponsors, simply backed up the confidence and credibility surrounding championship golf in this country. Next year's event at Gullane will offer an increased purse of £3.25m while the prize fund for the 2017 championship will rise to £3.5m.
By 2018, it will have reached a minimum of £4m. For a tournament that was under serious threat following the withdrawal of long-term backers, Barclays, in 2011, the Scottish Open, which has also safeguarded its prime slot in the schedule the week before the Open for another six years, continues to go from strength to strength.
"I approached a large number of companies [after the Barclays withdrawal] who I thought should be interested in this tournament but Martin Gilbert [chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management] was the only one who was," said Alex Salmond, the First Minister. "If I did that same exercise today and phoned the same dozen top level companies that I did back then, then I think 10 out of 12 would want to do it.
"That was the test back then; the people who saw opportunity not problems. And they [Aberdeen Asset Management] saw that.
"To me this is the prime sponsorship of the European Tour. I believe, absolutely, by 2020 this will be acknowledged as the second biggest tournament after the Open and the second greatest links tournament in the world. That's the ambition."
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