Killarney eyeing August Irish Open

GOLF’s Irish Open could be poised for a return to Killarney Golf Club, it is understood. Negotiations between mobile phone company and Open sponsors 3, the European Tour and four potential venues for next year’s Open are underway with a new date around the August bank holiday weekend on the table.

Phone giants 3 rescued the championship this year and were rewarded for their initiative when Irish amateur Shane Lowry captured the title in sensational circumstances after a play-off against Robert Rock.

3 had hoped to move the event from mid-May to later in the season in the hope of attracting a higher-class field and hopefully an improvement on the foul weather that has bedevilled the event in recent years. 3 would have preferred to play it on a links a week or two before the British Open but those dates were – and remain – in the safe keeping of Barclays and Alstom, the sponsors for several years of the Scottish and French Opens.