Muirfield

For other uses, see Muirfield (disambiguation).

Muirfield is a privately owned golf links which is the home of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Located in Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland, overlooking the Firth of Forth, Muirfield is one of the golf courses used in rotation for The Open Championship.

Muirfield

The Open at Muirfield in July 2013
Club information
Location in Scotland Show map of Scotland Location in East Lothian, Scotland Show map of East Lothian
Location	Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland
Established	1744 (1891)
Type	Private
Total holes	Golf:18
Events hosted	The Open Championship The Amateur Senior Open　Championship
Website	http://muirfield.org.uk
Designed by	Tom Morris Sr.
Par	71
Length	7,245 yards (6,625 m)
Course rating	73 [1]

Muirfield has hosted The Open Championship sixteen times, most recently in 2013 when Phil Mickelson lifted the trophy. Other past winners at Muirfield include Ernie Els, Nick Faldo (twice), Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Henry Cotton, Alf Perry, Walter Hagen, Harry Vardon and Harold Hilton. Muirfield has also hosted The Amateur Championship (ten times), the Ryder Cup in 1973, the 1959 and 1979 Walker Cup, the 1952 and 1984 Curtis Cup, and many other tournaments including the Women’s British Open.

Muirfield has an unusual layout for a links course. Most links courses run along the coast and then back again leading to two sets of nine holes, the holes in each set facing roughly in the same direction. Muirfield was among the first courses to depart from this arrangement and is arranged as two loops of nine holes, one clockwise, one anticlockwise.^[2] This means that assuming the wind direction remains the same throughout a round, virtually every hole on the course has a different apparent wind direction from the tee. No more than three consecutive holes follow the same direction at any stage. The course borders on Archerfield Wood, which features in "The Pavilion on the Links", the short story by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Jack Nicklaus won three Open Championships, the first at Muirfield in 1966, which completed the first of his three career grand slams. Nicklaus has described Muirfield as "the best golf course in Britain."^[3] He later developed a championship golf course and community in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb north of his hometown of Columbus. Opened in 1974, Nicklaus named it Muirfield Village; it has hosted his Memorial Tournament, a top invitational event on the PGA Tour since 1976.

Muirfield has halted two post-war attempts at the grand slam, denying the third major of the year to winners of the first two, the Masters and U.S. Open. Nicklaus was runner-up by a stroke in 1972 to Trevino, and Tiger Woods ran into gale-force winds and rain in the third round in 2002 and shot an 81; he rebounded with a 65 on Sunday to finish at even-par, six strokes out of the playoff in a tie for 28th place.

The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers

The clubhouse of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers

The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, now based at Muirfield, holds the claim of being the oldest verifiable organised golf club in the world, although the game of golf is several centuries older. The club's records date continuously back to 1744, when it produced thirteen "Rules of Golf" for its first competition which was played at Leith Links for the "Silver Club".^[4] This trophy had been requested by the HCEG from the City of Edinburgh Council, which agreed.^[5] The first competition was won by John Rattray, who signed the rules and became the first club captain.^[6] The club played on the five holes at Leith Links for nearly a century, but overcrowding forced a move in 1836 to Musselburgh Links's 9-hole Old Course which, like many prestigious Scottish courses including St Andrews, is a public course, and this course also eventually became too crowded for the liking of the HCEG's members.

In 1795 the Club applied to the Edinburgh Council for a Charter. This was granted on 26 March 1800 together with a Seal of Cause under the new title of 'The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers'.^[7]

In 1891, the club built a new private 18-hole course at Muirfield, taking the Open Championship with them. This situation caused some ill feeling at Musselburgh, which lost the right to hold the Open. Old Tom Morris designed the new course, which met with wide approval from the start; it has been modified and updated several times since, in significant ways up to the late 1920s, after which it has remained stable.^[8] The first Open held on the new course in 1892 was the first tournament anywhere contested over four rounds, or 72 holes.^[9]

Membership policy

Until 2017, women were barred from holding membership of the Company, though were permitted to play the course as guests or visitors.^[10][11] The exclusion of women from membership was controversial. After a May 2016 vote on the policy reached a majority, but not the two-thirds supermajority required for change, The R&A removed Muirfield from the rotation of Open venues.^[12] Speaking shortly after the announcement, secretary Stuart McEwen said the outcome was 'a blow to the club, the local community and Scotland'.^[13]

The public backlash led Muirfield to re-ballot on the issue.^[14] In March 2017 the club voted to admit women as members.^[15] In August 2022 Muirfield hosted the Women's British Open for the first time.^[16]

Course

The course has been extended by 211 yards (193 m) since the 2002 Championship to 7,245 yards (6,625 m).^[17]

Hole	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Out	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	In	Total
Yards	450	367	379	229	561	469	187	445	558	3,645	472	389	382	193	478	447	188	578	473	3,600	7,245
Par	4	4	4	3	5	4	3	4	5	36	4	4	4	3	4	4	3	5	4	35	71

Lengths of the course for Opens since 1950:^[18][19]

2013: 7,192 yards (6,576 m), par 71 2002: 7,034 yards (6,432 m), par 71 1992: 6,970 yards (6,373 m), par 71 1987: 6,963 yards (6,367 m), par 71

1980: 6,926 yards (6,333 m), par 71 1972: 6,892 yards (6,302 m), par 71 1966: 6,887 yards (6,297 m), par 71 1959: 6,806 yards (6,223 m), par 72

The Open Championship

The Open Championship was first held at Muirfield in 1892 and has hosted 16 times, the last in 2013.

Year	Winner	Score					Winner's share (£)
		R1	R2	R3	R4	Total
1892	Harold Hilton (a) 1st	78	81	72	74	305	(am)
1896	Harry Vardon 1st	83	78	78	77	316 PO	30
1901	James Braid 1st	79	76	74	80	309	30
1906	James Braid 3rd	77	76	74	73	300	30
1912	Ted Ray	71	73	76	75	295	50
1929	Walter Hagen 4th	75	67	75	75	292 (+12)	100
1935	Alf Perry	69	75	67	72	283 (−5)	100
1948	Henry Cotton 3rd	71	66	75	72	284 (E)	150
1959	Gary Player 1st	75	71	70	68	284 (−4)	1,000
1966	Jack Nicklaus 1st	70	67	75	70	282 (−2)	2,100
1972	Lee Trevino 2nd	71	70	66	71	278 (−6)	5,500
1980	Tom Watson 3rd	68	70	64	69	271 (−13)	25,000
1987	Nick Faldo 1st	68	69	71	71	279 (−5)	75,000
1992	Nick Faldo 3rd	66	64	69	73	272 (−12)	95,000
2002	Ernie Els 1st	70	66	72	70	278 (−6)PO	700,000
2013	Phil Mickelson	69	74	72	66	281 (−3)	945,000

• Note: For multiple winners of The Open Championship, superscript ordinal identifies which in their respective careers.
• (a) denotes amateur

The Senior British Open

The Senior British Open Championship was first held at Muirfield in 2007.

Year	Winner	Score					Winner's share (£)
		R1	R2	R3	R4	Total
2007	Tom Watson 3rd	70	71	70	73	284 (E)	157,800

Source:^[20]

Women's British Open

The Women's British Open has been held at Muirfield once:

Year	Winner	Score					Winner's share ($)
		R1	R2	R3	R4	Total
2022	Ashleigh Buhai	70	65	64	75	274 (−10)PO	1,095,000

Source:^[21][16]

See also

• Golf in Scotland