Women’s Open Diary: More cash and pristine venues set to continue

Increased prize money (up to €7.2 million) and the best of venues, that’s the mantra of the R&A in seeking to advance the AIG Women’s Open with future venues indicating that the trend set in recent years — Carnoustie in 2021, Muirfield this time — will continue.

Next year’s championship will be staged at Ryder Cup venue Walton Heath in England, with the iconic Old Course at St Andrews playing host in 2024 and Royal Porthcawl in Wales staging the event in 2025.

“This is a long-term strategic goal of ours to drive this championship to be viewed as one of the best championships in the world and to showcase the talent there is in the women’s game, and prize money is part of that equation ... big-time sport needs big-time venues, we were absolutely focused on how do we get the best venues that we can get that mean the most to golf, and stage the championship there,” said R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers of the strategy.

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Darragh Ó Sé: Changing grades hasn’t worked out - the GAA needs to go back to U-18 and U-21

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Seán Moran: Hurling counts its winners as football ponders its disappearing audience

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Gerry Thornley: Danger of mental scarring for Leinster following latest gut-wrenching final defeat

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Grayson Murray’s sad passing casts a pall over the PGA Tour

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Officially, there are 147 bunkers on the Muirfield links ... Leona Maguire managed to avoid all of them in her opening round 71, level par.

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Louise Duncan — in just her second professional event — claimed the early morning 4.30am alarm call was worth it, not just in shooting an opening round six-under-par 66 but also in getting to witness Catriona Matthew hit the first tee shot of a women’s professional championship at Muirfield.

“She’s really inspiring to all Scottish girls rising through the ranks,” said the 22-year-old of playing with her legendary compatriot, some 30 years her elder.

Duncan, who won the Smyth silver salver as leading amateur when securing a top-10 in last year’s championship, missed the cut on her professional debut in the Scottish Open last week but felt a new head in her driver helped in her opening round. “I haven’t had a pay cheque and still feel like I’m an amateur. I’m rolling with the punches and see where it takes me,” she said.

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Another victim of suitcases going missing on international flights, Jessica Korda has had to be a wee bit creative about her fashion sense this week.

The American knows that her suitcase is somewhere in Zurich airport — she has an air tag on her gear! — but also knows that it hasn’t moved since she got to Muirfield.

In practice rounds, she has borrowed pants from Megan Khand and her sister Nelly and also those of Alison Lee, while FootJoy managed to kit her out for the first round.

But how could Khang’s pants fit? “She rolls her pants up. Megan is like five-foot-nothing, so she rolls her pants up a lot. So they fit me perfectly,” explained 5ft 11in Korda.

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No sight nor sound of a plastic water bottle, which is all part of the AIG Women’s Open initiative with Adidas’s End Plastic Waste Campaign and Mastercard’s Priceless Planet Coalition.

Rather than selling water in plastic bottles, water stations have been located around the links providing chilled water for spectators to fill up their BPA-free stainless steel refillable bottles.

And, for good measure, the two corporate partners are donating funds to help restore global forests in some of the earth’s most vulnerable locations.

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“Sometimes you get a funky lie and you’ve got to take your medicine and you’ve got to accept in a links golf is about sometimes a little bit of luck” — Gaby Lopez, who combined creativity with that bit of luck for an opening round 67