The British Open is returning to St. Andrews in 2027, perhaps giving Tiger Woods one last chance to play his favorite golf course — and maybe even pause when he crosses the Swilcan Bridge.
The R&A announced Thursday the sport’s oldest championship would return to the home of golf for the 31st time, the most of any links in the rotation. It was most recently held on the Old Course in 2022, when Cameron Smith shot a 64 in one of the great closing rounds of any major championship tournament.
Mark Darbon, who began his role as the new chief executive of the R&A last month, noted his excitement about his first announcement being a return to the Old Course on Scotland’s eastern coast.
“I’m looking forward to the Open’s return to St. Andrews every bit as much as the fans and the players,” Darbon said. “There is something incredibly special about the Open being played on the Old Course, and so many of the great champions have walked these fairways since the first staging here in 1873.”
The choice of the Old Course for 2027 means Muirfield — located due south of St. Andrews and to the east of Edinburgh — which most recently hosted the British Open in 2013, would not host again until at least 2028. It might have to wait even longer to avoid holding consecutive editions of the tournament in the same region.
Muirfield, except for interruptions from World War I and World War II, had never gone longer than 11 years without hosting the British Open.
Woods won by eight shots at St. Andrews in 2000, which made him at age 24 the youngest player to complete the career Grand Slam. It also came during his run of four consecutive major victories — the 2000 U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship, plus the 2001 Masters — in what was termed the Tiger Slam as it did not meet the calendar-year requirement of a true Grand Slam.
He won at St. Andrews again in 2005, but Woods feared his appearance in 2022, when he missed the cut, would be his last, not knowing when the British Open would return to the Old Course. It’s there that so many of golf’s greatest players — Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson among them — have stopped atop the stone Swilcan Bridge across the 18th fairway to soak it in and allow for commemorative photos.
“Stop! Stop!” photographers yelled in 2022 to Woods, who removed his cap a few steps before reaching the bridge, then kept right on walking.
“That was my favorite golf course in the whole world, and if that was it, that was it,” Woods said that day. “That’s one of the reasons why I was kind of emotional, because I don’t know if I’ll ever play St. Andrews again. I’ll play Open Championships in the future, but I don’t know if I’ll be around when it comes back there again.”
Woods played at Royal Troon on Scotland’s western coast last year and plans to be at North Ireland’s Royal Portrush this July. He would be 51 when the tournament returns to St. Andrews in 2027.
The R&A noted that 290,000 spectators attended the 2022 event at St. Andrews, the largest crowd of any of the British Opens held in Scotland. That might be one reason the R&A opted for a return to St. Andrews over Muirfield, which does not boast the same capacity for spectators.
It was a theme of Martin Slumbers’ tenure as R&A chief to raise the profile of great events with big crowds, and this could suggest more of that.
“St. Andrews is the home of golf, and it generates a unique atmosphere for the fans and the players as well as providing an amazing spectacle on television and digitally for millions of viewers around the world,” Darbon said. “It promises to be another milestone occasion at one of sport’s greatest and most historic venues, and we will be doing everything we can to make it a memorable experience for everyone involved.”