IRISH OPEN RETURNS

ROYAL County Down Golf Course was yesterday named as the venue for the 2024 Horizon Irish Open.

In a social media post, RCD proshop wrote: ‘We are delighted to announce that the Horizon Irish Open will be returning to Royal County Down in 2024!’ The Irish Open is the biggest golfing event in Ireland and part of the DP World Tour, which is what the European Tour has been named since 2022. The tour has 47 tournaments in 27 countries throughout the world.

The Irish Open was last played at Royal County Down in 2015, when the competition was hosted by Rory McIlroy and his Rory Foundation. On that occasion the event was won by Soren Kjeldson after a sudden death play-off against Eddie Pepperell and Bernd Wiesberger.

That event in Newcastle was a resounding success as the attendance was 106, 906. From 2012 to 2019 the only Irish Open venues to have an attendance larger than 100,000 were RCD and Royal Portrush. The latter venue hosted the competition in 2012, when over 112,000 fans turned up. When the event was played at Newcastle in 2015 a carnival atmosphere came to the town, and a string of events were staged locally, such as the Island Green Chip challenge at Castle Park, a Down Junior Challenge Golf Tournament and the ‘Love Golf’ opera composed by Brian Irvine was performed in the town.

Many of the famous golfers spent much time in the area. Some of the more colourful golfers such as Ricky Fowler and cigar-smoking Miguel Ángel Jiménez were spotted out and about as they travelled to Ireland to compete on one of the world’s finest courses. Royal County Down is often ranked as one of the top courses in the world. Last year Golf.com ranked the course as number two in the UK and Ireland behind St Andrews. American site Golf Digest has consistently ranked Royal County Down as the number one international course since 2014. The Irish Open was first played in 1927 when the competition took place at Portmarnock. In its second year it was played at Royal County Down and was won by Ernest Whitcombe.

The event has been played at RCD four times, in 1928, 1935, 1939 and 2015. This year’s Horizon Irish Open is taking place from September 6 to September 11 at the K Club in County Kildare. Irish stars such as Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Padraig Harrington, Seamus Power and Holywood’s other golfing star Tom McKibben will be in attendance. The K Club could be a happy hunting ground for Rory McIlroy though, as he won his one and only Irish Open title at that venue in 2016. Other players named to play this year include Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald, Tyrrell Hatton, America’s Billy Horschel and Australia’s Min Woo Lee. Poland’s Adrian Meronk is the current defending champion after his win at Mount Juliet last year. Previous recent winners include Australia’s Lucas Herbert (2021), America’s John Catlin (2020), Spain’s John Rahm (2017 and 2019) and Scotland’s Russell Knox in 2018. The last time the Irish Open came to Northern Ireland was in 2020 when it was played at Galgorm Castle in Ballymena.