Staff WriterDame Laura Davies has never been one for misty-eyed nonsense, which makes her reflections on the 50th AIG Women’s Open rather more valuable than the usual anniversary bunting.
Here is a championship that began in 1976 with a prize fund of £500, part-funded by the players themselves, and now strides into Royal Lytham & St Annes with a US$10 million prize fund and the look of a major event fully aware of its own importance.
Not bad for a tournament that once had to build its own stage before anyone would agree there ought to be one.
A Championship With Proper Mileage
The R&A has launched celebrations to mark 50 days until the 50th AIG Women’s Open, using Davies as both witness and narrator. That feels entirely right. Few figures in women’s golf have seen more of the road, the rough edges or the transformation.
First played in 1976, the Championship has produced 42 champions from 15 countries and visited 22 venues across the United Kingdom. Those numbers matter because they tell the story of a tournament that did not arrive fully polished, waving a hospitality lanyard and asking where the champagne tent was. It had to earn its place.
Four-time major champion Davies, a former winner of the AIG Women’s Open and one of the defining figures in women’s golf, places the credit where it belongs.
“When I think about the AIG Women’s Open, I think about the women who helped build it. They competed because they loved the game and believed women’s golf deserved a bigger stage. What they achieved created opportunities for every generation that followed.”
There is the heart of it. Before global broadcast coverage, expanded prize funds and elite player facilities, there were golfers turning up because the game mattered. They were not decorating the margins of sport. They were dragging the margins into the middle of the page.
From £500 To US$10 Million
The Championship’s growth has been particularly sharp since AIG partnered with The R&A in 2019. This year brings a sixth consecutive prize fund increase, with the total now more than treble what it was when that partnership began.
The current US$10 million prize fund is not merely a bigger number on a bigger cheque. It is a statement about seriousness. Golf, like most sports, is very good at applauding history once the hard work has already been done. The more meaningful test is whether the modern version gives current players the platform, visibility and reward they deserve.
By that measure, the AIG Women’s Open has become one of the leading major championships in women’s sport. The Championship now sits in that rare and desirable space where heritage and momentum are not wrestling each other in the car park.
Royal Lytham Gets The Anniversary Stage
This summer, the AIG Women’s Open returns to Royal Lytham & St Annes from 29 July to 2 August. Lytham is an excellent place for golf’s romantic tendencies because it does not indulge them for long. The course has a habit of asking plain questions in a rather stern Lancashire accent.
It has already crowned champions including Annika Sörenstam, Catriona Matthew and Georgia Hall, which gives this 50th edition a useful sense of weight. Royal Lytham is not scenery. It is examination. The bunkers have the social warmth of a tax inspector, and the closing stretch rarely hands out favours without checking the small print.
For the players, that is precisely the point. A major championship should feel like an occasion and a test. The AIG Women’s Open now arrives with both.
Davies On A Tournament Transformed
Davies played in the Championship a record 43 consecutive times, which is less a statistic than an endurance certificate with spikes on. She has watched the event change from close range: the galleries, the media attention, the status, the player experience and the opportunity around it.
“The Championship has changed beyond recognition during my career,” added Davies who played in the Championship a record 43 consecutive times.
“The crowds are bigger, the coverage is bigger and the opportunities for players are greater than ever before. But what has never changed is what it means to win this Championship.”
That last line is the anchor. Bigger does not automatically mean better, although in this case the expansion has clearly given the Championship the scale its players long deserved. The trick is keeping the competitive soul intact while everything around it grows shinier, louder and more commercially sophisticated.
The AIG Women’s Open appears to have managed that balancing act with unusual steadiness. Its player experience has been recognised by the LPGA as the best in golf for the past two years, which is not a small compliment in an era when elite athletes quite reasonably expect more than a locker, a sandwich and a polite shrug.
A Celebration With A Future Attached
Anniversaries in sport can become dangerously self-satisfied. A few archive photographs, some swelling music, a former champion in soft focus, and everyone goes home feeling as though the past has done the heavy lifting.
This one has sharper edges. The 50th AIG Women’s Open is not just about remembering the players who pushed the Championship forward. It is also about showing the next generation that women’s golf now has a stage big enough for ambition.
“Personally, I’m proud that what those women set out to achieve 50 years ago will be there for everyone to see at Royal Lytham this summer. The 50th AIG Women’s Open is a chance to celebrate how far the game has come, recognise the people who helped get it there and inspire the next generation to dream even bigger.”
Tickets are available at aigwomensopen.com, with children under 16 able to attend free of charge when accompanied by a paying adult through The R&A’s Kids Go Free initiative. Youth tickets for ages 16–24 are available at half price, while premium hospitality packages offer elevated viewing and more than ten hours of world-class golf each day.
That matters too. If women’s golf is to keep building, it needs more than champions. It needs crowds, families, young players, curious newcomers and the sort of spectators who arrive for a day out and leave wondering whether they should dig the old clubs out of the garage.
Fifty years on, the AIG Women’s Open has travelled from belief to stature, from a £500 prize fund to a US$10 million major, from modest beginnings to Royal Lytham in full voice. Dame Laura Davies knows better than most how far the Championship has come. More importantly, she knows who carried it there.
And this summer, at last, everyone else gets a proper look.
Tickets are available at aigwomensopen.com. As part of The R&A’s ‘Kids Go Free’ initiative, children under 16 can attend free of charge when accompanied by a paying adult, while youth tickets (ages 16–24) are available at half price.
