THE 153RD OPEN MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 22, 2025

Mark Darbon

Press Conference

MIKE WOODCOCK: I'll ask Mark Darbon to step up and give a few opening remarks regarding this year's Open.

MARK DARBON: Hi, everyone. Fantastic to see so many of you here today. Thank you for joining us for this media day ahead of the Open Championship this summer. It's a great chance for me to meet some of you for the very first time, so it's a pleasure doing so. I'm very much looking forward to building a strong and open relationship with you guys over the months and years to come.

I'm at four months or so into my role as Chief Executive of the R&A. I've been deliberately in listening and learning mode. I met a bunch of the key stakeholders from the game of golf all around the world, and I'm loving the role so far. I am of course very much looking forward to what will be my first Open Championship in this role this summer here at the wonderful Portrush Golf Club.

Indeed it's just 13 -- will probably hate me for saying this, but it's just 13 Thursdays before the first tee shot will be hit here this summer, and we're all very much looking forward to what we think will be another memorable championship ahead of us.

Earlier in my career, I worked for Diageo, their large beverage alcohol business, and at the time they owned the Bushmills Distillery just down the road. If none of you have been, I would thoroughly recommend it for a visit when you're here this summer or before.

This place brings back amazing memories. I used to drive past the golf club looking on enviously from the window of the car heading out to a day of meetings thinking I'd much rather be out here on these wonderful links. It's brilliant being back here under different circumstances, and as I say, very much looking forward to the summer ahead.

As I hope you'll see this afternoon, the course is shaping up really nicely, and we expect it to provide a brilliant challenge for the best golfers in the world come July.

To that end, I wanted to acknowledge the great relationship we have with Royal Portrush Golf Club and to express our thanks for the hard work their teams are doing to help prepare us for what lies ahead. We know they are just as committed as we are to ensuring this is a really memorable championship for all involved.

Specifically today, we wanted to make a couple of announcements. Firstly, we wanted to note that The 153rd Open will see 278,000 fans attending throughout the course of the week, the second largest attendance in the championship's history and 41,000 more than attended the event here in 2019.

That figure includes more than 27,000 tickets for under 16-year-olds and reduced priced tickets for fans under the age of 25 through the R&A's longstanding Kids Go Free initiative. It's a program that we're incredibly proud of, and since it was launched in 1997, almost 450,000 young children have attended The Open for free.

Secondly, The 153rd Open will be the largest sporting event ever held in Northern Ireland, and it's expected to generate more than 210 million pounds in economic benefit for the country. We're proud of the fact that The Open has a huge impact on the regions which host this wonderful event, and this announcement is further validation of the huge impact and benefits that staging an Open Championship can bring to regions.

Of course, none of this is possible without the wonderful support we have from our key partners. I've already touched on the golf club itself, but I also wanted to thank Tourism Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Executive for their incredible ongoing support and partnership. This is a set of relationship that's we're very proud of, and we're looking forward to building on them into the future in what is becoming a really important venue for us in The Open Championship.

With that, I'll draw my opening remarks to a close and look forward to taking some questions. I want to thank you again for joining us today and to restate our excitement for what lies ahead this summer.

Rory's remarkable win last weekend further whets the appetite for what's to come, and we can't wait for what promises to be some incredible golf here this July.

MIKE WOODCOCK: Very happy to take any questions.

Q. The figure you announced there, Mark, the 278,000, has that been increased since Rory won the Masters? Is there a McIlroy factor in that?

MARK DARBON: I'm glad to say our planning extends beyond just the last couple of weeks, so it's a number we've been focused on for a good period of time now.

We have huge demand for The Open Championship, something we're very proud of. I think we had just under 1.1 million applications for tickets last summer. We looked to increase the capacity from 2019. As I've said, we're up just over 40,000 since that event. So a long time in the planning, and we're excited to enable more people to come and watch what we think will be a brilliant championship.

Q. Following on from that and following on from how you finished your opening remarks, obviously Rory's victory, presumably that was the most perfect scenario for a year when The Open is going to be staged at Royal Portrush. Have you had to come up with anything else now to potentially deal with McIlroy mania when we get to July?

MARK DARBON: Firstly, I think it's brilliant for the sport of golf, not just our own championship. It was an amazing, emotional win, as many of you witnessed. We're delighted to see Rory etch his name in the history books.

I don't think we have to do anything significant in terms of an evolution to our plans. We were confident in the demand, as I've already said, for this wonderful championship. We've been planning on an increased attendance. So I think it just gives us a great run into our event and the championship season to follow this summer.

Q. The 278,000 tickets, are they soldout yet, or are there tickets still available?

MARK DARBON: Essentially soldout, so we now run a ballot process for The Open. Applications took place sometime ago, and there's a draw, and that rewards people who have applied with their place.

No, tickets are not available right now for general admission. We're looking forward to welcoming everyone this summer.

Q. Another Rory question, any plans to honour him in achieving the career grand slam? Anything to do the week during the The Open?

MARK DARBON: We expect him to be very focused on performance when he's here. I've written him this past week to congratulate him. It's been a real privilege as part of this role getting to meet some of the elite players in this game.

I spent a little bit of time with Rory over the last few months. We know he's super excited to return here. He has some unfinished business on this course. He'll be very focused on performance, and we look forward to welcoming him.

MIKE WOODCOCK: Just to add on the tickets, there is an official resale platform for tickets that are returned to us that's available now, but that would be the only way.

Q. We've seen a little bit on tour this year, particularly on the PGA Tour, and it happened again at the Masters, where some players after they completed their rounds weren't available to the media. What are the requirements that players have with the R&A in terms of making themselves available?

MARK DARBON: I've worked in sporting events for a number of years now. I'd like to think I recognise the critical importance that you guys in the media more broadly play, particularly for a sport that's trying to cement the growth that we're witnessing around the world right now.

We'll be really encouraging our players to engage with the media. We always do. We've got good plans in place on that front. Mike and the team can talk to that in more detail, but it's really important for us.

We want The Open to be genuinely open and accessible. We want to tell brilliant stories for what we think is a wonderful championship. It will be a message that we continue to land with our playing group.

MIKE WOODCOCK: That's something we're very conscious of, and we'll do our absolute level best to make sure you guys get the access you need. We're aware of it. It can be challenging at times, but we'll certainly do everything we can.

Q. Given the turbulence in the U.S. at the moment, can I just get your latest on the stance of bringing an Open to Turnberry, if anything's changed at all? I suppose the tariffs, government involvement.

MARK DARBON: Sure. Turnberry is a wonderful golf course, and I think some of the recent improvements there have made it even better. It's a course we'd love to return to at some point.

I think, when we look at our portfolio of venues, of which we're very proud, there are three or four things that inform our choices on where we go. We need brilliant courses that challenge the world's best golfers. Given the scale of a modern Open, we have to be really thoughtful about some of the logistical and commercial challenges and opportunities that come with staging an event like this. And we want to continue to tell wonderful stories about our championship.

We have no doubt, when it comes to Turnberry, about the first and third of those factors -- brilliant golf course and a wonderful place to tell stories about our game. But where we have some challenges is around logistical and commercial challenges. I think the last time we were there in 2009, we had just over 120,000 people. We just said we're going to have close to 280,000 here this summer.

That's really important for us because not only do we want to showcase this wonderful championship to as many people as possible, but it's important for us in terms of our commercial model because everything we generate from The Open we then reinvest back into the game all around the world.

We've got a few challenges at Turnberry. The road, rail, and accommodation infrastructure presents some challenges if we wish to scale our operation there. We've got a good dial-up with the ownership group, and we'll continue to look at feasibility as we move forward. We'd love to return at some stage.

Q. The Trump factor is not the key issue?

MARK DARBON: I think the key issue for us at the moment is these logistical and commercial challenges. We're trying to explore ways to get around those and to mitigate for the future.

Of course, when it comes to a championship like this, we also want the focus to be on the golf. So that's a factor too.

Q. Just very quickly on the subject of future locations, the R&A is in conversation with Portmarnock Golf Club and the potential to bring The Open there in the future. Where do you stand on that at the moment? Have you any update?

MARK DARBON: Sure. We're doing a lot of work around feasibility at Portmarnock right now. Clearly it's a wonderful golf course that we think is fit to stage this championship.

There's a lot we need to do to really get under the skin of feasibility. We're really thankful for the support we're receiving from the government, local authorities there, as we go about that feasibility study.

So a lot of ground to cover, but we're optimistic for the opportunity in the future.

MIKE WOODCOCK: If that's everything, we'll wrap it up there, guys. Thank you very much. If anything we can help you with throughout the day, just let us know.