The club was founded in 1891 by a group of businessmen from
Cardiff, with the first nine-hole
golf course being laid out on Lock's Common by Charles Gibson the following year. In 1895, the club moved to its present location with the addition of a further nine-hole course. Shortly after that, the new course was extended to eighteen holes, with the original course later being abandoned. Royal status was conferred on the club by
Edward VII in 1909. The
Senior Open Championship was played at Royal Porthcawl in 2014 and
Bernhard Langer won by thirteen strokes over runner-up
Colin Montgomerie; it returned again in 2017, where Langer defeated
Corey Pavin to win again. In 2015,
The R&A championship committee chairman Peter Unsworth said that The R&A had "no intention" of hosting
The Open Championship at Royal Porthcawl. He added that "We're happy with the number of courses on the rota, and we don't have any intention to go to Porthcawl". It is thought that the infrastructure around Royal Porthcawl does not meet requirements, with roads leading to the course being narrow and that public transport would not cope with the huge crowds in the Open Championships. ==Major tournaments hosted at Royal Porthcawl==