'Fantastic' Porthcawl could host Women's Open again

Miyu Yamashita (left) won the AIG Women's Open, while Paula Martin Sampedro was the leading amateur at Royal Porthcawl

R&A chief executive Mark Darbon says Royal Porthcawl will be considered to host another Women's Open after holding a "fantastic" competition over the weekend.

Miyu Yamashita won the event in south Wales, holding off the challenge of England's Charley Hull and Japanese compatriot Minami Katsu to finish two shots clear.

However, despite impressing with its infrastructure and facilities - and attracting more than 47,000 spectators - Darbon says the links course is not currently in the running to host the men's Open Championship.

"We have had fantastic feedback on the golf course and the player set-up and facilities more broadly," said Darbon, who added that crowd numbers were "above expectations".

"This is a wonderful links golf course, a real test, and they played it in some tricky conditions through the week.

"This is a great venue. At the AIG Women's Open we are really focused on giving these wonderful athletes a stage [on which] to perform and that requires fantastic venues.

"We are very proud of that pool of venues and this has been a great week on that front.

"We think venue choice is really critical and we have had a great week here, so I certainly think it could be considered for the future.

"We have named venues for the next couple of years and we'll continue to assess things, but this is an important venue for the R&A."

Darbon praised the working relationship with the town, golf club and government bodies.

"I think this is the largest women's sporting event ever in Wales and that's something we are incredibly proud of," he said.

"Venues are really important to us. This is not the first R&A championship hosted here. We have had Senior Opens and some of our significant amateur championships here. So it's a venue that is very much in our thinking."

But while Royal Porthcawl has hit the mark for women's, seniors' and amateur golf events, it faces fierce competition to even be part of the conversation to host the men's blue riband Open Championship.

"Look, it's not being considered at the moment," Darbon admitted.

"We are very happy with the pool of venues we have got for the Open Championship, in no small part because of the scale of infrastructure that's required these days to stage a modern Open Championship.

"We are looking at one incremental venue maybe as part of that pool of options and that's over at Portmarnock [in the Republic of Ireland], but largely we are really happy with the venues we have.

"We love coming here with our championships, but the scale of the modern Open I think presents a challenge for the men's competition."