This year’s Irish Open takes place from 12-15 September at Royal County Down in Northern Ireland.
Sweden’s Vincent Norrman will defend the title after his closing 65 clinched a one-stroke victory at the K Club last year.
The field includes Irish stars Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry who are among the past champions in action, having won the title in 2016 and 2009, with Lowry’s victory 15 years ago at County Louth coming while still an amateur.
A couple of sensational fairway-wood shots over the closing three holes helped McIlroy triumph eight years ago and there is a plaque on the 16th fairway at the K Club to commemorate the four-time major winner’s three-wood over water to the narrow green which set up his victory.
BBC Sport NI will have TV highlights on Sunday night while Sportsound on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio Ulster will have coverage of Saturday’s action.
In addition, the BBC Sport website will have live text commentary of the weekend’s play at Royal County Down.
Previous Irish Opens at Royal Co Down
Denmark’s Soren Kjdeldsen, who is among this week’s entries, won the event at Royal County Down in 2015 when McIlroy was tournament host but missed the halfway cut by four shots after rounds of 80 and 71.
After George Duncan’s victory in the inaugural Irish Open at Portmarnock in 1927, Ernest Whitcombe took victory the following year at Royal County Down and came back to the Newcastle venue seven years later to repeat the feat.
Ernest was among three Whitcombe brothers to win the Irish Open in an eight-year period as Charles won at Royal Portrush in 1930 and Reg triumphed at Royal Dublin six years later before Arthur Lees took victory at Newcastle in 1939 prior to the arrival of World War Two which halted the event until 1946.
Regularly rated as world’s best course
The Newcastle club was founded in 1889 by a group of what was described as a “group of influential business and professional men from Belfast” and was granted its royal status by King Edward VII in 1908.
There is some evidence to suggest that a rudimentary form of golf had been played by the townsfolk before then on the rabbit warren at Newcastle.
Legendary designer Old Tom Morris produced the original layout and amid six architects making refinements to the links over the years, Royal County Down has consistently remained at the very top when the subjective matter of calling the world’s top golf course has arisen.
As recently as July this year, the highly respected Golf Digest rated Royal County Down as the world’s top course with Royal Dornoch, St Andrews and another great Northern Ireland links Royal Portrush filling out the top-four positions.
“On a clear spring day, with Dundrum Bay to the east, the Mountains of Mourne to the south and gorse-covered dunes in golden bloom, there is no lovelier place in golf,” stated the Golf Digest appraisal.
“Though the greens are surprisingly flat, as if to compensate for the rugged terrain and numerous blind shots, bunkers are a definite highlight, most with arched eyebrows of dense marram grasses and impenetrable clumps of heather.”
And the par-71, 7,186-yard course looks certain to be a tough test again this week after Dane Kjeldsen finished at only two under par when he triumphed nine years ago.
Irish Open history
The wait for a first home winner ended as the tournament restarted in 1946 after the conclusion of World War Two as Fred Daly – a year before his famous Open Championship triumph at Royal Liverpool – clinched a four-shot victory at Portmarnock over 1938 champion Bobby Locke.
But within eight years, the Irish Open entered into a hibernation which wasn’t to end until Christy O’Connor Jnr’s home victory at Woodbrook in 1975.
With the arrival of a fully fledged European Tour still over two decades away, financial troubles in the Golfing Union of Ireland meant the Irish Open wasn’t played in 1951 and 1952 and while it did resume a year later at Eric Brown won at Belvoir Park, the tournament then found itself mothballed for 22 years.
After O’Connor’s victory in 1975, the Irish Open found a home at Portmarnock for the next seven years with Americans Ben Crenshaw and Hubert Green and Ireland’s John O’Leary among the winners before Seve Ballesteros clinched the first of three titles in four years when he edged out Brian Barnes at Royal Dublin in 1983.
Nick Faldo secured three straight titles between 1991 and 1993 with Bernhard Langer and Colin Montgomerie also three-time champions and Padraig Harrington winning his home event at Adare Manor in 2007 a couple of months before he landed his first Open triumph at Carnoustie.
The event’s prestige dipped for a time before McIlroy’s K Club triumph put it on an upward curve again which continued with Jon Rahm’s victories at Portstewart and Lahinch – which came either side of a successful 2018 staging in Ballyliffin amid unusually sun-splashed county Donegal skies.
The onset of Covid-19 led to the 2020 event being staged at Galgorm Castle in county Antrim as American John Catlin clinched victory but four years on, the Irish Open looks to be facing a losing battle to regain the glory days of the period between 1983 and 1994 when the title was the preserve of major winners Ballesteros, Faldo, Ian Woosnam (twice) and Jose-Maria Olazabal.
This week’s other fancied players
Other hopefuls this week include Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre who will be attempting to become the first man to win the Scottish and Irish Opens in the same year after a season where he clinched his first PGA Tour triumph at the Canadian Open.
England’s Aaron Rai, who finished second behind Catlin four years ago, is another recent PGA Tour winner in the Royal County Down field.
Competing European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald will be able to survey the form of the Hojgaard brothers Nicolai and Rasmus plus other prospective candidates for next year’s biennial match at Bethpage who local fans will hope include home players Seamus Power and Tom McKibbin.
In terms of good each way bets, South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence, fourth at this year’s Open Championship, and England’s Daniel Brown, who was also in the top 10 at Royal Troon, could be worth a flutter given their links pedigree.
This week’s prize money
The winner of this week’s DP World Tour event will bank £780,000 in addition to securing 5,000 Race to Dubai points and 1,500 European Ryder Cup points – if applicable.
Weather forecast for the week
The weather forecast looks dry and potentially sunny for the practice days and Thursday’s first round albeit with the temperature not getting above the mid-teens.
Light rain and a moderate breeze is then predicted for Friday and Saturday before blue skies return on Sunday when temperatures are predicted to reach 17 degrees centigrade.
