AIG Women’s Open Returns to Royal Lytham for its 50th Anniversary

Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club will welcome the world’s leading women golfers from 29 July to 2 August 2026 when the AIG Women’s Open returns to the Fylde Coast for its landmark 50th staging. The championship will bring five decades of women’s golfing history back to a course that has played an important part in the development of the event.

The championship was first held at Fulford Golf Club near York in 1976, where English amateur Jenny Lee Smith claimed the inaugural title. What began as a comparatively modest competition later developed into one of the most prestigious events in women’s golf, attracting leading players from Britain, Europe, the United States and beyond. In 2001, it gained major championship status on both the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour.

Royal Lytham & St Annes first hosted the championship in 1998, when American golfer Sherri Steinhauer won the title. She returned to claim another victory at Lytham in 2006, while Annika Sörenstam won on the course in 2003.

Sherri Steinhauer (USA) wins the 1998 Weetabix Women’s British Open, Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club, Lytham St Annes. 16 August 1998 after winning with the trophy. The championship produced another memorable Lytham result in 2009, when Catriona Matthew became the first Scottish golfer to win a women’s major championship. Her victory came only eleven weeks after the birth of her second daughter and placed her three strokes ahead of Karrie Webb. © Alamy

Annika Sorenstam with the trophy after winning the WEETABIX WOMENS BRITISH OPEN at Royal Lytham St. Annes Golf Course on 3 August 2003. Photo by Mark Newcombe. © Alamy

Catriona Matthew with the trophy after winning the Ricoh Women’s British Open 2009, Royal Lytham St. Annes. Picture Credit: Mark Newcombe / visionsingolf.com The 2009 Ricoh Women’s British Open, the 33rd edition of the championship and the ninth as a major on the LPGA Tour, was held from 30 July to 2 August 2009 at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club. © Alamy

Royal Lytham’s most recent staging in 2018 delivered one of the most popular home victories in the history of the event. England’s Georgia Hall began the final round one stroke behind Thailand’s Pornanong Phatlum before producing a closing score of 67 to win by two strokes. With her father Wayne serving as her caddie, Hall secured her first major title and the first British victory in the championship since Matthew’s triumph at Lytham nine years earlier.

England’s Georgia Hall with the trophy after she wins the Ricoh Women’s British Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club. Photographer: Richard Sellers, 5 August 2018. © Alamy

Georga Hall on the 18th during day one of the Ricoh Women’s British Open at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo.  Thursday August 2, 2018. Photo credit: Peter Byrne/PA Wire. © Alamy

The 2026 event will therefore return to a venue closely associated with several defining moments in the championship’s history. It will be the sixth time Royal Lytham has hosted the competition, with the eventual winner joining Steinhauer, Sörenstam, Matthew and Hall among the players to have lifted the trophy on the Fylde Coast.

Royal Lytham & St Annes has also hosted The Open, the Ryder Cup, the Amateur Championship, the Walker Cup and the Senior Open. Its course is known for its large number of bunkers and for the coastal winds that can quickly alter playing conditions. The opening par-three hole immediately places accuracy and control at the centre of the challenge.

The contrast between the championship’s beginnings and its 50th staging demonstrates the extraordinary growth of women’s golf. When Jenny Lee Smith won the inaugural event in 1976, the entire prize fund amounted to just £500. Fifty years later, the world’s leading players will arrive at Royal Lytham & St Annes to compete for a total purse of US $10 million, reflecting the championship’s development from a modest domestic competition into one of the five major championships in the women’s game. The 2026 purse is also US$250,000 higher than in 2025.

The anniversary will celebrate the pioneers who established the championship as well as the generations of players who carried it forward. For Lytham St Annes and the wider Fylde Coast, the event will provide another opportunity to host a major international sporting occasion while marking half a century of progress in women’s golf.

For more about the history of women’s golf, please have a look at the timeline post on Malcolm Crane.