Portrush answers Open call

THE RETURN of the Irish Open this year to Royal Portrush will act as a dry run for bringing the British Open Championship to the Dunluce links at the famed Antrim links in the future.

The decision — to be formally announced today — to move the event northward from Killarney comes on the back of the achievements of Northern Ireland’s three major winners in the last two years.

Darren Clarke’s emotional victory in the Open Championship at Sandwich in Kent last summer followed the successive US Open victories of Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy.