The 97,000 fans who thronged the magnificent Fota Island Resort over the last four days had it all. The weather, the big names, the course looking better than an airbrushed postcard.

This country has produced many of the game’s finest but for reasons not always easy to fathom, their record at the Irish Open is a long way short of what might have been expected.

THE 2003 Irish Open is on its way back to a links course, with its one-time traditional home at Portmarnock likely to be confirmed as the venue today in Dublin.