Stars queue up to back Fota Island Resort’s credentials

Pádraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell may have come up short in this year’s quest for an Irish Open victory, but both would be delighted to give it another shot at Fota Island Resort after a hugely successful week in Cork.

With 97,889 coming through the gates between Thursday and Sunday, and a total of 104,000 spectators — including those who attended last Wednesday’s Pro-Am — this year’s Open proved more popular in terms of attendance than even the European Tour’s flagship tournament, last month’s BMW PGA Championship.

Compared with recent Irish Opens, Fota’s hosting of the tournament was outshone only by Royal Portrush in 2012, which drew 112,280, while it bettered Killarney’s best showing in 2002 of 85,179, and last year’s event at Carton House near Dublin of 81,379.

“I love the venue,” three-time major winner Harrington said following his 14th-placed finish. “It’s a great venue for a golf tournament — the setting, the type of course it is. There’s plenty of birdies to be made out there. We seem to get better weather down here at Cork.

“Nice practice facilities, hotel on site; what more could you ask for in a venue, [and an] airport nearby? I hope it comes back and gets onto a rota that it comes back here regularly.”

Former US Open champion McDowell, who finished as the leading Irishman, three shots behind tournament winner Mikko Ilonen of Finland, gave an equally emphatic endorsement of his Irish Open experience and praised the record crowds in East Cork.

“I believe they are talking about Fota Island as a venue the next two or three years,” McDowell said, “I’m all over it. I think it’s a great venue.

“I stayed out at Castlemartyr [Resort] this week; they were phenomenal — just great people. The crowds were amazing. It’s a beautiful part of the world, and they tell me the sun shines like this all the time.”

Fun couple of days at @IrishOpen2014 so far. Great support from everyone here at @fotaisland. Thanks so much. Big weekend would be nice!!

— Graeme McDowell (@Graeme_McDowell) June 20, 2014

The Irish Open now moves north for 2015 to Royal County Down, when it will be staged in the last week of May, following the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, before returning south for 2016.

Fota Island Resort chief executive Jonathan Woods said he would consult with the property’s owners, the Kang family, over the coming weeks before deciding whether the venue would bid to stage the event again in two years.

“We’ll have to sit down and do a full review of the event,” Mr Woods told the Irish Examiner. “We’ve had a glorious week, weather-wise.

“We’ll take it as it comes, and we’ll see. There was a huge appetite in the resort to bring it back after 2002, so we’ll see. A lot of things may change.

“The European Tour are looking for a title sponsor for the event and that may drive where the venue is going to be, so we wouldn’t be in any rush to make a decision because we couldn’t have asked for anything more.

“The tournament has been brought forward a couple of weeks to the end of May, you know. Are you going to get this sort of weather in May? The conditions will have to be right for us.

Thanks to everyone for all the support this week @IrishOpen2014 Nothing quite like playing at home, @fotaisland did a great job all round!

— Darren Clarke (@DarrenClarke60) June 22, 2014

“But we’ve had a magnificent tournament. We need to sit down and evaluate it; maybe look over a number of months to see what it does for the resort and the facility and make a decision then. We want to be involved in bringing international events to Cork, whether they’re golf or whether they’re other sporting activities that may be based in Fota. There is an appetite here for it.”