Any lingering hopes Royal Portrush may have had of a return to the British Open rota, have been scuppered by an announcement from St Andrews yesterday. The 2001 Open is to be staged at Royal Lytham and St Annes, where Tom Lehman captured the trophy last year.

Portrush had reason to be optimistic. When they were given a three-year contract for the British Senior Open, starting in 1995, it was seen as a possible forerunner of bigger things.

In that context, 2001 seemed an appropriate time, given that it is the golden jubilee of the only British Open staged at Portrush. Indeed, until Max Faulkner captured the title on the famous Dunluce links in 1951, the event had never been played outside of Scotland and England.

Logistics are the problem, specifically hotel accommodation and restaurants. And even with the current IRA ceasefire, there is an ongoing concern about security for such major, international gatherings.

Lytham, on the other hand, has always been a popular and highly successful venue for both players and spectators. This was reflected in a record attendance of 191,334 in 1988, for an Open outside of St Andrews. It will be the 10th staging of the Open there, starting with the triumph of Bobby Jones in 1926 and only five years after the Lehman victory.

Next year's event will be at Royal Birkdale; the 1999 Open returns to Carnoustie which last played host to it in 1975, and St Andrews will be the venue in 2000. Incidentally, the R and A have revealed that, when the Open was at Birkdale in 1983, the water pressure was so low during a long, hot summer as to reach crisis proportions.

In fact, supplies to the town of Southport were cut off for three hours in order to keep the Open afloat, in a manner of speaking. Arising out of that experience, the R and A decided to buy a 75,000gallon water tank, which now travels to each Open so as to make the championship self-sufficient.

Either way, the announcement about 2001 will come as a major disappointment to the various interested parties in Northern Ireland, not least because of the potential revenue involved. According to Peter Greenhalgh, chairman of the R and A Championship committee, between £15 million and £18 million has been estimated as the revenue brought into the local area by the Open each year.

Meanwhile, there is certain to be a concerted push to outlaw the broomhandle putter when the R and A and the US Golf Association, hold their four-yearly review of the Rules of Golf, in January, 2000. "Yes, we are thinking of banning it," said David Rickman, Rules Secretary of the R and A.

During the recent International Golf Conference at St Andrews, there was a plea for a stay of execution from an unlikely source. Seymour Marvin of the Brazilian Golf Confederation explained that, having been a scratch player 60 years ago, he was tempted to give up the game because of putting problems, which were solved by the long putter.

David Pepper, chairman of the R and A Rules of Golf Committee, insisted, however, that in considering a ban, they were responding to concerns that the game was no longer being played in the traditional form. "If we go down this line, we would be talking about a maximum length of putter and the style of the stroke," he said. "We would be looking to make sure that all areas were covered."

But CONGU representative David Marsh takes the view that it would be difficult to impose a limit on length because of the possible effects on other clubs. He is also concerned that banning a certain type of stroke could prevent players from executing difficult recovery shots from hazards and bushes.

In the event, ongoing concerns about space-age golf equipment are also being addressed by the R and A. And Dr Alastair Cochran, their technical consultant in this area since 1979, has some particularly interesting views on the subject.

According to measurements taken on the USPGA Tour since 1968, the average driving distance of the leading players has increased by only 15 yards. That is an improvement of only half-a-yard per year and measurements on the European Tour since 1982 have brought similar findings.

Cochran takes the view that 40 per cent of the increased distance can be attributed to the construction of the modern golf ball, while club design would be responsible for only 20 per cent. In that context, there would be no problem, technically, in creating a ball with a lower velocity that would reduce the drives of the best tournament players by 25 yards. But would it be fair?.

Would the governing bodies be justified in making changes which might help the professional game but make golf less enjoyable for 99.9 per cent of the world's players? In Cochran's opinion, it seemed unrealistic to penalise the majority for the ability of an elite few.

But couldn't professionals and amateurs use different balls? Indeed. This would raise the question, however, as to which ball should be used in amateur championships and international matches. And which ball should college golfers in the US use? Having witnessed the confusion caused in amateur ranks by the transition from the small ball to the big ball in 1981, I can see why such an arrangement should be avoided at all costs.