PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – Changes are already underway for the AIG Women’s British Open.

Announced earlier this month was that the prize fund for the Women’s British Open will increase almost 40 percent for 2019, making it the second-highest purse for the five women’s majors.  

Asked Wednesday whether he foresees a day when the women and men would compete for equal pay – the women’s purse is now $4.5 million, compared to $10.75 million for the men – R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers said he’s more focused on a sustainable business model for the Women’s British Open.

“To build the economics of the Women’s British Open, to be able to keep raising the prize money, we need to do it as a sustainable business model,” he said. “It needs to be a long-term business model. How do we build a better model to have a more finally successful Women’s British Open that will then flow down into the prize money?

“Where it ends up, I don’t know. But my ambition is to keep growing the overall performance of it and keep enhancing the status of the event.”  

Though Slumbers said that he has no intention to take the men’s Open to any inland courses, preferring to play golf’s oldest championship on 10 of the finest links in the world, that’s not yet the case for the Women’s British. This year, for instance, the event is being held at Woburn in England (with Royal Troon on deck for 2020).

“We’re looking at it very carefully,” Slumbers said. “How we attract more people to watch the championship, to watch it live, to watch it on TV, it may be that all being on links courses may not be the right answer,” Slumbers said. “With the Women’s British Open, a mix of some of the great inland golf courses and the great links courses, but all aimed at trying to make the championship more engaged with by the public.”