Huge news for Irish golf.
It is looking increasingly likely that Portmarnock Golf Club will be hosting the Open Championship, and the Women’s Open, at some point.
With Portrush hosting the famed major back in 2019, it opened the door for the tournament to move to the south of the island for the first time in its history.
Firstly, changes needed to be made to the course at Portmarnock in North Dublin, for it to host, and its members have voted overwhelmingly in their favour.
Some of the changes include making the par-four second hole a par-three, building a new green and tee box for the fifth hole, due to safety concerns, while the 17th would become the 18th, and 18th would become the first hole if the tournament were to be held there.
With these changes approved, it is now up to the Irish government, who have promised a €40m investment into the Portmarnock area to aid its bid, and the R&A, to bring a major championship to Dublin.
On Portmarnock’s work with the Irish government, then chief executive of the R&A, Martin Slumbers, said last year: “We are fully supportive of the club doing that, and we are actively engaged in making those assessments.”
Last year, Portmarnock club captain, Niall Goulding, said: “There’s an evaluation that has to be done by the government because we recognise we can’t do this by ourselves. It will be a matter for themselves with input from the R&A.
“If that goes well, we’ll get on to the next stage, but as things stand at the moment, we have nothing further to add except this is an investigation process. But it also declares that we are interested in it and it also clearly means that the R&A are interested as well.
“The R&A would highlight that there are significant infrastructural requirements needed. Everybody recognises that Portmarnock village is a busy place.
“In hosting these big championships there’s a lot of work to be done to consider how this works. That would be a concern for ourselves and that will be part of their evaluation process.
“It would be very much the R&A’s call as to what the next steps are but there is an evaluation process and we have no control over that. We have no certainty in terms of the outcome.”
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