EUROPEAN Tour golf may soon be on its way back to North Yorkshire with The Flaxby Country Resort reportedly in line to host a re-established British Masters.

Sources close to the course, near Knaresborough, say The Flaxby has been offered the event, which in the 1980s was one of golf’s most lucrative tournaments.

Today, The Flaxby’s owners – The Skelwith Group – confirmed they had held talks with the European Tour about hosting an event but declined to elaborate.

The course, located just off the A1, is about to go through a £100 million transformation with planning permission recently granted to build a 300-room hotel, complete with restaurants, bars, gym and spa.

Leading European golf course architect Cabell Robinson has teamed up with world number three Lee Westwood to redesign The Flaxby’s 18-hole Park course, with work due to start later this year.

Westwood has also been signed up as course professional from next year and will transform the course’s 23-bay driving range and teaching centre into a Lee Westwood academy.

With all these developments, chiefs at The Flaxby are keen to secure a high-profile event as quickly as possible, with even the sport’s biggest team events, the Solheim Cup and the 2022 Ryder Cup, mooted.

But, in the short term, the British Masters, which was founded in 1946 and had a £1.8 million prize purse in 2008, looks to be on their immediate agenda.

The tournament was not staged last year after a deal with the insurance company Quinn Group, which had seen the event staged at The Belfry, ended and attempts to find another sponsor were without success.

The roll call of past winners is a who’s who of golf including Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam, Colin Montgomerie, Lee Trevino and, in 2007, Westwood.

North Yorkshire has not staged a big professional golf event since The Murphy’s Cup last came to Fulford in 1991.

A source told The Press: “The Flaxby have been offered the British Masters, which hasn’t got a home. Golf courses haven’t got any money at the moment, so if they can bring them any form of sponsorship or cash then it is all there to be taken. It’s believed the British Masters would cost around £3 million to host.”

Ben Pilgrim, head of communications at The Skelwith Group, was circumspect when contacted by The Press but said: “We are looking at a whole host of events and the British Masters has obviously got a rich heritage within the golfing world and that is exactly the kind of event which we want to attract.

“We’ve got very big ambitions for the course, for the whole resort and, within that, major events are key to the success of everything. We’ve got the backing of Yorkshire Forward, of Welcome To Yorkshire, some very high-profile stakeholders – and of course Lee Westwood and Michael Vaughan are integral to that along with ISM and Troon Golf.

“We have some major influences within our team, which has encouraged us to take this path. I don’t think they would put their names behind it if they didn’t think it was a genuine opportunity and something we could realise.

“I don’t see any reason why we (couldn’t have a European Tour event) in 2013. We know what the hotel is going to look like, we know what facilities are going to be there and we have started talks so hopefully we can pin them down as soon as possible.”