Relief all round as Irish Open remains on Euro Tour

GOLF in Ireland received a welcome boost last night with the news that the Irish Open remains on the 2011 European Tour schedule.

Doubts had surfaced over the survival of the country’s leading tournament on the schedule when title sponsors “3” opted out of the final year of a three-year contract.

However, Fáilte Ireland, a non-title sponsor of the event through its “Golf Ireland” brand, yesterday confirmed news from the Tour that despite the blow of losing the title sponsor, the Irish Open will appear on the 2011 Race to Dubai schedule when it is released in Dubai today, and will be played on July 28-31.

“I can confirm the Irish Open’s slot for next year will remain at the end of July and we’re currently working with the Tour on establishing where the venue would be and who the tournament would have as a sponsor,” Fáilte Ireland’s head of communications Alex Connolly said. “That work is ongoing but there’s nothing confirmed yet.”

For now, the schedule will show the venue for the 2011 staging of Ireland’s premier golf event as “TBA”, while the European Tour is confident a sponsor will be found in time for it.

Keith Waters, director of International Policy with the European Tour said: “The Irish will go ahead because it is a key integral event of the European Tour schedule, and given also the exemplary strength of the Irish players on the Tour at the moment. But it is early days yet as it was only recently that we were without a sponsor for next year, and obviously we hope to find another one. So yes, the Irish Open is continuing, with full details to follow.”

News of the survival of the Irish Open will be music to the ears of stakeholders in the Irish golf industry, who last Friday heard warnings of closures facing clubs and courses due to current overcapacity.

“Losing the Irish Open would be a blow to the industry,” Marty Carr Carr Golf Services chief executive, told the Irish Examiner yesterday. “It’s the second biggest tournament in Europe, it was a great success in Killarney (in 2010).

“It’s not an ideal situation when a sponsor is lost but I’m sure some alternative will surface.”

Carr Golf Services last Friday hosted ‘Road to Recovery — Golf Business Conference’ in Dublin which presented findings of the first comprehensive research report into the Irish golf industry. Among the findings were a significant level of debt amongst clubs, a lack of strategic planning and an average of only 1% of revenue allocated towards marketing which saw an estimated 14.7 million rounds of golf played in Ireland where there was capacity for 23 million.

Carr tells today’s Irish Examiner of the implications of those findings and the possible solutions, including the formation of a new umbrella body for the Irish golf industry.