The Open Championship is the only major without a permanent wanderlust problem: instead of a new venue every year (the U.S. Open, PGA) or one course forever (the Masters), golf’s oldest championship rotates through a closed club of links courses called “the rota” — ten venues, all seaside, all in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, each waiting years between turns. This week it’s Royal Birkdale’s turn, hosting its 11th Open — more than any course outside St Andrews since it joined in 1954.
Here’s the full system: every rota course and its history, how the R&A decides who hosts, why Turnberry sits in exile, and the birthplace course that hosted 24 Opens and then vanished from the list forever.
The chart below covers all ten venues, the selection logic, and the exiles. Take a look, then we’ll break it all down.
Contents
Why Golf’s Oldest Major Travels in Circles
The rota exists because The Open predates the idea of a golf “venue” — it began in 1860 as a competition among clubs, hosted by them in turn, and the modern system is that founding logic professionalized. What survived is golf’s strictest identity rule: the championship is played on links ground or not at all, which caps the candidate pool at the sandy coastal strips of Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland and makes the rota effectively a heritage register with grandstands. Inside that constraint, the R&A runs it like a club with unwritten bylaws: St Andrews returns roughly every five years as the anchor, the English and Scottish courses rotate through 8-to-12-year cycles governed increasingly by logistics (a modern Open needs room for a quarter-million spectators, and several historic courses barely qualify), and membership is genuinely dynamic — Royal Portrush returned in 2019 after 68 years away, drew the largest crowds in Open history outside St Andrews, and was handed 2025 almost immediately, while Muirfield spent years suspended until its members voted to admit women. This week’s host is the rota’s quiet overachiever: Royal Birkdale, redesigned in 1922 through Southport’s towering dunes, has staged more Opens than anyone but St Andrews since joining in 1954 — and produced more champions there too, from Ian Baker-Finch’s Sunday 29 on the front nine in 1991 to Jordan Spieth’s chaotic masterpiece in 2017.
Turnberry, Prestwick, and the Door That Swings Both Ways
The rota’s most interesting stories are its absences. Turnberry is the active wound: the Ailsa course is on the short list of the most spectacular links on Earth and hosted the greatest Open ever played — the 1977 “Duel in the Sun,” Watson over Nicklaus by one — but it hasn’t seen the championship since 2009, and the R&A has said plainly that it won’t return while the focus would be on the course’s owner rather than the golf, leaving a masterpiece in indefinite exile. Prestwick is the poignant one: the birthplace itself, host of the first Open in 1860 and 24 editions total, permanently retired in 1925 because the ground that invented the championship simply couldn’t hold the twentieth century’s crowds — a fate shared by Musselburgh, Prince’s, and Royal Cinque Ports (which lives on, sweetly, as a final-qualifying course, feeding players into the championship it once hosted). Set those exits against Portrush’s triumphant return and the lesson of the rota is that it’s a living institution: courses can be added, suspended, restored, or quietly never invited back, and every venue announcement is the R&A adjudicating a century of history against next decade’s logistics. The next chapters get written one announcement at a time — and this page updates with each one.
Final Word
The Open Championship rota: ten links courses — St Andrews (30 Opens) at the center, orbited by Birkdale (11th this week), Muirfield, Royal St George’s, Hoylake, Lytham, Troon, Carnoustie, Portrush, and the exiled Turnberry — sharing golf’s oldest major by turns, with membership governed by one hard rule (links ground only), modern logistics, and the R&A’s judgment. Prestwick’s 24 Opens and permanent retirement prove nothing is guaranteed; Portrush’s return proves nothing is final. The 154th edition tees off Thursday at Birkdale, where Scottie Scheffler chases the first back-to-back Opens since Padraig Harrington in 2007-08 — a repeat Harrington completed, fittingly, at Birkdale.
What makes these courses different is in what is a links course?, the trophy they share is in the Claret Jug, explained, and the money at Birkdale this week is in Open Championship prize money.