5 years on, the course opens its doorways for the fifth and last main of the ladies’s season, a lot to the delight of the members.
It is going to be a particular sort of pleasure for Scottish golfer Catriona Matthew who, past having the chance to expertise a serious only a brief drive from house, will go down in historical past as the primary lady to tee off at Muirfield in a Girls’s Open.
“It is an enormous honor once you’re requested to do one thing like that,” Matthew, Open champion at Royal Lytham in 2009, instructed reporters Tuesday.
“I feel it may be an ideal expertise … all of the gamers may have watched the lads play right here over time and I feel they’re delighted to have that chance to return right here and play their very own Open.
“That simply elevates this championship, and we are actually going to programs that individuals are used to seeing The Open and the majors on. I feel it is good for us.”
The 52-year-old admitted she was “dissatisfied” with the preliminary vote to take care of male-only membership, however believes the reversal confirmed progress is being made.
“You simply need to look ahead fairly than look backwards,” Matthews added. “Golf, beginning in Scotland, we had much more traditions maybe, that we’re simply regularly transferring with the instances.
“Hopefully any ladies or boys who’re {golfing}, they will see each the lads and the ladies taking part in the identical golf programs, which is sweet.”
Lioness classes
Anna Nordqvist arrives in East Lothian because the defending Open champion, having clinched a one-stroke victory at Carnoustie final yr. Together with her first main look coming as an novice on the occasion in 2007, the triumph consolidated a “particular” connection between the three-time major-winning Swede and the Open.
“I’ve heard rather a lot about Muirfield,” Nordqvist mentioned. “I do know the fellows have performed right here over time, so I feel it is a tremendous alternative for us to have Muirfield added to our Open rotation.
“Coming in via the gate, (I) noticed my image — it is the primary image you see — clearly it nonetheless feels fairly surreal to have my title on the trophy,” she added.
Regardless of the ache of seeing Sweden routed 4-Zero within the semi-final by the eventual champions, Nordqvist sees parallels within the elevated protection of ladies’s soccer and golf.
“It is simply thrilling to see that I feel girls’s sport (all) over the world is getting extra consideration,” she mentioned.
“It was fairly an enormous occasion, the way in which they had been internet hosting it and the TV instances, I feel that is essential. Our tee instances are getting higher, too. Plenty of instances, we tee off early as a result of (of) … the fellows’ schedule.”
‘Recharged’
Whereas Nordqvist tees off as reigning champion, Brooke Henderson begins as arguably the shape participant.
After withdrawing from the Scottish Open, gained by Japan’s Ayaka Furue on Sunday, Henderson is “recharged” and raring to go.
“To be taking part in this yr, it actually means rather a lot to all of us,” she mentioned. “It is simply proof that the ladies’s recreation is continuous to develop — the purse sizes are growing, we’re on community TV extra, and we’re taking part in these higher venues.
“It is only a actually enjoyable time to be part of girls’s golf, as a result of it’s rising a lot and we really feel like we’re making a distinction for future generations.”
“I used to be extraordinarily excited to return out and play this occasion this yr,” she mentioned.
“I knew the historical past, and the truth that we had been going to be the primary feminine event out right here, too, was fairly superb.
“So I used to be simply extra excited to truly be out right here and to get to play this golf course and soak all of it up, in addition to the historical past of this place.”
Catriona Matthew is about to tee off first in her group alongside Sophia Schubert and Louise Duncan at 6:30 a.m. native time (01:30 a.m. ET) on Thursday.