Unlike the FAI and their UEFA EURO 2028 co-hosting with the UK that will involve a stadium predominantly owned by the IRFU and a GAA stadium that for now, does not exist, Irish golf has the infrastructure and facilities to host the cream of the crop on a regular basis.
While the FAI harp on about lasting legacies for the next five years as we wait for our shiny European Championships to roll into town, Irish golf will have already delivered a handful of showpiece events which are a result of previous legacies established from the 2006 Ryder Cup and 2019 Open Championship.
From 2024 Ireland will open its golf courses to the best amateur and professional events in the world with Ballyliffin, Lahinch, Portmarnock, Royal Portrush and Adare Manor all set to host a catalogue of world class events while the Horizon Irish Open dances from the K Club to links courses around the country.
2024 will be a year to remember as the R&A’s men’s and women’s Amateur Championships are held in Ireland in the same year for the first time while the Arnold Palmer Cup travels to Lahinch as a trial run ahead of their hosting of the 2026 Walker Cup.
Ballyliffin will become just the fourth Irish links to host the Amateur Championship after Royal Portrush (1960, 1993, 2014), Royal County Down (1970, 1999) and Portmarnock (1949, 2019) while Portmarnock will host the 2024 Women’s Amateur Championship from 24-29 June in what they hope will be a precursor to the AIG Women’s Open and Open Championship.
It will mark the second time that Portmarnock has hosted the Women’s Amateur Championship having previously held it in 1931.
In 2025, the Claret Jug will be up for grabs on Irish soil once again as Royal Portrush makes an eagerly anticipated return to the Open Championship rota, just six years after a record breaking hosting in 2019 where Shane Lowry was a fantastic winner.
The 2019 Open was a sell-out for the first time in the history of golf’s oldest Major when a record-breaking 237,750 fans set an attendance record for a Championship staged outside St Andrews. It was the second largest crowd ever to attend an Open Championship and Chairman of the Championship Committee, Ian Kerr, is looking for bigger and better in two years time.
“I think our numbers were 237,000 or 238,000 in 2019 and I know they (The R&A) are targeting a higher figure for 2025 of around 280,000,” Kerr said earlier this week.
“One thing that you will see will be different in 2025 will be the hospitality areas will be slightly larger,” he added.
“Part of the work that’s being done in conjunction with redesigning our Valley Course is to level and widen our members’ driving range. And this will be used as a more centre-focused tented village area focusing on our 17th and 18th.
“So there’s a lot of preparation that’s been done that will increase those hospitality areas that’ll cater for a larger crowd.”
There is no doubt that Royal Portrush’s successful staging of the Open in 2019 has started a domino effect that will hopefully see the Claret Jug up for grabs in the Republic of Ireland for the first time in Portmarnock.
Following the removal of the gender barrier in the famous Dublin links, the club joined the R&A in 2021 and is now seeking the Government’s support in looking at the feasibility of hosting the AIG Women’s Open and the Open.
Rory McIlroy said last month Portmarnock would be a “fantastic” venue for The Open, while Pádraig Harrington, who is exempt until 2032, has said that taking the event to Portmarnock “would seem the logical first step” to moving the event around the world.
Of course, Portmarnock isn’t the only Irish links eyeing an Open, with Ballyliffin keen on golf’s oldest major having hosted the Irish Open ahead of the Amateur Championship stopping there next year.
After what will undoubtedly be a resoundingly successful first staging of the Arnold Palmer Cup, Lahinch will stage the 51st Walker Cup between Great Britain and Ireland and the United States of America on Saturday, 5 and Sunday 6, September 2026. The renowned links, which is situated on the northwest coast of County Clare will host the international match for the first time in its history when the two sides meet in the biennial encounter.
It will also be just the third time in the contest’s history that Ireland has hosted the Walker Cup.
The AIG Women’s Open will head to St Andrews and Royal Porthcawl in 2024 and 2025, Portmarnock will be hoping to maintain its part in this Irish golfing festival by laying claim to the 2026 berth.
Everything is leading up to the big one in 2027, when the Ryder Cup returns to Irish soil for the first time since the K Club in 2006 at Adare Manor in Limerick.
It’s sixteen years since Darren Clarke walked onto the first tee to what was a spine tingling reception and by the time Adare Manor rolls around it will have been 21 years too many since the biennial contest was played on Irish soil.
Last month’s Ryder Cup was a rousing success for Team Europe but once the last putt was holed, the realisation that the next European hosting will be in the Treaty County hit home and it’s not far away now.
The Ryder Cup will be the pinnacle of what will undoubtedly be a glorious four years of hosting major golf tournaments in Ireland.
Ireland is already a golfing oasis for tourists but after hosting so many major golf events in quick succession it should become a golfing dynasty and a staple for hosting some of the biggest golf tournaments in the world.
While the weather will be hit and miss over those four years one constant will be the Irish fans who are quite simply, the best in the world.
The impact Irish fans have on sporting events here and all over the world is second to none and they have had a huge impact in bringing the Walker Cup to Lahinch, the Open back to Royal Portrush and potentially the Women’s Open and Open to Portmarnock in the future.
“Irish golf supporters are second to none,” Kerr said. “We turn out in force to support golf and top class sport. The R&A is a not for profit, commercial organisation that has to make its money out of the Open to plough back into golf around the world. The best venues that will get the largest attendances help that and I could see the crowds at Portmarnock being in a European capital city, why wouldn’t it be a success if you look at the Irish Open?
“I remember going there in the 1980s and watching Ballesteros, that was such a success at the Carroll’s Irish Open and the Open going there will be mega.”
A fitting note to end on. Golf in Ireland over the next few years will be mega, as it establishes itself as a golfing Mecca for elite golf tournaments around the world.
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