Dame Laura Davies Eyeing Up Major Farewell At St Andrews

Dame Laura Davies has played in 133 Majors and there is a strong chance that she will make the Old Course her final appearance in 2024

Dame Laura Davies
Dame Laura Davies
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Dame Laura Davies has made 43 consecutive AIG Women's Open appearances and she could now make the ultimate farewell – at the Old Course at St Andrews in 12 months' time.

The Englishwoman won the event back in 1986, before it was afforded Major status, and she is now eyeing a send-off in Fife. Past winners who are 60 and under are exempt and Davies will leave her fifties in October this year.

Davies was part of the Celebration of Champions event at St Andrews last summer, ahead of the 150th Open, but 2024 will only be the third time that the Women's Open has visited the Old Course – Davies missed the cut both years.

"I'm probably not going to play any more regular tour events," Davies told Sky Sports. "I'm going to be playing some seniors tour events next year and then, if I feel my game is good enough, I will have a go at St Andrews," Davies told Sky Sports ahead of her commentating role this week at Walton Heath.

"It's my favourite golf course in the world so couldn't be better, but I'm not going to go there if I'm playing really horrible golf. Hopefully the senior events I play in will be enough to have some kind of game going in."

This year's championship was a bit of a write-off for Davies who was forced to withdraw after just six holes on Thursday. After finding the heather on various occasions and dropping nine shots, Davies had to call time on her efforts.

"I just kept hitting it in the deep rough and I went for one too many. I had been kind of hacking my way down the first three or four holes and then got to six and it was a really bad lie in the brambles. I went for it when I probably should've taken a drop and I just felt something in the wrist pop. On the tee shot on seven I felt it again and I thought 'do you know what, I'm way over par, I'm getting in everyone's way and it really hurts', so I called for a ruling.

"The doctor has a look at it and said it was a rumbling tendon, which I don't think I've had before! I don't think I could have played today so I think it was the right decision. It's disappointing but sometimes you've got to know when it's getting close to the end."

Davies has spent more time in the Sky Sports commentary box in recent times than on the course and she will again be a vice-captain at the Solheim Cup in Spain, working alongside captain Suzann Pettersen as Europe go for a third straight win.

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Mark Townsend
Contributing editor

Mark has worked in golf for over 20 years having started off his journalistic life at the Press Association and BBC Sport before moving to Sky Sports where he became their golf editor on skysports.com. He then worked at National Club Golfer and Lady Golfer where he was the deputy editor and he has interviewed many of the leading names in the game, both male and female, ghosted columns for the likes of Robert Rock, Charley Hull and Dame Laura Davies, as well as playing the vast majority of our Top 100 GB&I courses. He loves links golf with a particular love of Royal Dornoch and Kingsbarns. He is now a freelance, also working for the PGA and Robert Rock. Loves tour golf, both men and women and he remains the long-standing owner of an horrific short game. He plays at Moortown with a handicap of 6.