The Irish Open will be heading back to Northern Ireland in 2021 when Portstewart takes over hosting duties for the second time in four years.
The European Tour event, which is scheduled to be held at Mount Juliet next May, was announced to Portstewart members at the club’s AGM on Thursday evening.
The news comes following the overwhelmingly successful return of the 148th Open Championship after 68 years down the road at Royal Portrush where, in 2012, the Irish Open returned to Northern Ireland after a similarly long absence of 59 years.
The event attracted a then attendance record for the European Tour event and unsurprisingly, Northern Ireland has remained a regular on the rota ever since having staged at Royal County Down in 2015 and Portstewart in 2017, where Spain’s Jon Rahm collected the first of his now two Irish Open titles.
With a host still missing from next May’s Irish Open renewal, it might seem foolish to speculate on who’ll take the reins come 2021 but the early favourite seems to be local legend, Graeme McDowell who’ll surely relish to role on home soil in two years’ time.
Northern Ireland is on a roll when it comes to golf and expect the 2021 Irish Open renewal to outdo the previous attendance seen at Portstewart that hit 79,856 for the week in 2017. All in good time, we suppose.
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