Whitehall officials “pushed open to return to Trump-owned gymnastics” | The open

Senior Whitehall officials asked golf bosse whether they can host the Open Championship 2028 at Donald Trump's gymnastics championship after repeated inquiries from the US President, according to Sources.

Officials had asked older people at R&A what the oldest big golf championship in the world organized, which would be the hurdles for the alignment of the 2028 Open in turnberry.

One source described the talks as a direct lobbying of the government, although others said that civil servants had asked about hypothetical problems with the idea instead of insisting that this was done.

A person with knowledge of the discussions said: “The government does everything to come close to Trump. A specific thing is that the department for culture, media and sport (DCMS) was involved in returning the open return to Trump-Outd-Turnberry.”

Both the DCMS and Trump Turnberry refused to comment.

Two other people who were informed about discussions between the US President and Keir Starrer said that Trump had asked the Prime Minister several times about the direction of the Open in Turnberry, which the Trump organization has had since 2014.

Trump has previously campaigned publicly to organize the open on the Ayrshire course, and said in 2023: “Everyone wants to see the Open Championship here.”

King Charles recognized the importance of the course for Trump when he wrote to him and offered a visit to one of his Scottish lands if the president was already in the country to visit turnberry.

The host of the Open could offer a welcome financial boost for SLC Turnberry, the operational company of the course, which is operated by the President's sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. last year, who lost 1.7 million GBP after he had achieved 571,000 GBP in the previous year – his only win in 10 years.

The R&A contains a list of nine or ten historical courses that would consider the organization of the open, including famous places such as St. Andrews and Royal Birkdale. Turnberry is on this list after organizing the championship in 2009. However, golf experts point out that the event has grown significantly since then. While the 2009 opened 123,000 people, the event in Royal Troon took part in over 250,000 last year.

The R&A previously said that the tournament at Turnberry was not accommodated after Trump's attack on Trump's attack on the Capitol in 2021 last November. The organization's head at the time did not want to affect the game.

Since then, the R&A has changed the lead. And in an obvious postponement of position Mark Darbon, the new managing director, he would like to see last week how the championship “someday” returns to turnberry.

Those who have been informed about the discussions between government officials and R&A say that they mainly focused on the logistical challenges to accommodate the open at turnberry. They said the main problems would bring the sheer number of spectators on the street, rail and air in and outside the location, since Turnberry is a two and a half hour train journey from Glasgow or a one-hour drive along a single A-Road along a single a-road.

Darbon said last week: “At Turnberry there are definitely some logistical and commercial challenges that we face on the street, rail and accommodation infrastructure. We do some feasibility work on what it would look like to return to this event location, and the investments it would need.”

A minister announced the Financial Times at the beginning of this year that the venue would need “ten or hundreds of millions of pounds investments” to make it easier to achieve and to provide enough high -quality hotel accommodation in the region.

A spokesman for R&A said: “We regularly deal with the government and the local government in relation to venues. We have explained the logistical challenges about turnberry to the government and they are aware of the position.”