April 26 (Bloomberg) -- Women will be allowed to enter the British Open Championship next year and Hawaiian teenager Michelle Wie may get to play in this year's event, the organizer of golf's oldest major tournament said.

Wie would probably be allowed to play this year if she won July's John Deere Classic on the men's U.S. PGA Tour or finished as the leading player not otherwise exempt from qualifying for the Open, Peter Dawson, chief executive of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, told reporters today.

``I don't think there's any problem with women playing in the Open,'' Dawson said at St. Andrews, Scotland. ``If Wie wins the John Deere Classic she'll get in.''

The R&A has agreed in principle to remove the men-only restriction from next year's entry form, said Martin Kippax, chairman of the championship committee. The 15-year-old Wie, who has been invited to play in the John Deere Classic, will try to qualify for the U.S. Open at Pinehurst in June, one of four major tournaments in the men's game.

The R&A, which governs the sport outside the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is discussing how to frame the rules to ensure requirements are the same for men and women, Dawson said. For example, he said, an amateur woman's scratch handicap isn't comparable to a man's zero handicap, because men and women play off different tees.

``There would have to be a level playing field,'' he said. ``We're not going to change the stringency of the qualifying criteria.''

Men Only

The policy change may put pressure on three of the nine clubs that stage the Open -- Royal Troon, Royal St. George's and Muirfield -- to end their ban on women members. U.K. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell in March 2003 sent a letter to Dawson urging him to stop holding golf's oldest tournament at men-only venues. Troon hosted last year's event, St. George's was the venue in 2003 and Muirfield staged the 2002 Open.

Sweden's Annika Sorenstam, the top-ranked female golfer, became the first woman since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1945 to play in a men's PGA Tour event when she missed the cut by four strokes at the 2003 Colonial tournament in Texas. Wie missed the 36-hole cut in her first men's tournament, the 2004 Sony Open in Hawaii, by one shot.

The 2005 British Open will take place at St. Andrews from July 14 to 17.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dex McLuskey at St. Andrews on at dmcluskey@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 26, 2005 08:11 EDT