Open Opened to Women

The Royal and Ancient Club today agreed in principle to allow women to enter the Open Championship - and it could even mean that 15-year-old Michelle Wie appears at St Andrews this July.

Although all the details of how female professional and amateur players would qualify in future years have yet to be announced, Wie comes into a special category because of her invitation to the John Deere Classic in Illinois on July 7-10.

The US Tour event carries with it an exemption into the Open for the leading non-exempt player. Therefore, it would be possible for Wie, who next month makes her first attempt to qualify for the US Open, to miss the halfway cut and still claim an exempt spot.

The entry form for this year's championship starts with the words that "an entry will be accepted from any male professional golfer or from a male amateur golfer whose playing handicap does not exceed scratch."

But Martin Kippax, chairman of the Royal and Ancient Club's championship committee, said today: "The reality is that (if she claims the exempt spot) she will probably get in. I am quite sure the championship committee would probably agree to it."

The issue of women being able to play in majors has been a matter of debate ever since two years ago, when world No1 Annika Sorenstam became the first female to appear on the US Tour since 1945.

Others have since followed around the world, Britain's Laura Davies playing in a tournament in Australia co-sanctioned by the European and Australasian tours and Wie, incredibly, missing the cut by only one stroke at the Sony Open in her native Hawaii in January last year when she was only 14.

The R&A's championship committee first discussed their entry regulations as regards women around 15 months ago, but no decisions had been taken in time to change the form for this year's event.

For next season's Open at Hoylake near Liverpool, however, the "men-only" restriction will be removed and by this autumn all the finer details to qualifying procedure will have been decided upon. "The hesitancy is in the detail, not in the principle," said R&A chief executive Peter Dawson.