Killarney reserve dates as Open options explored
The European Tour schedule published on Sunday lists the Irish Open for July 28-31 without a venue although chief executive George O’Grady stated that “Killarney have been kind enough to give me an option to take the tournament there which would be my choice. I will probably confirm that with Killarney in the next week or two.”
A great deal, however, will depend on whether or not the Tour can come up with a commercial sponsor to replace ‘3’ who pulled out unexpectedly a few weeks ago.
“We have held the date”, Maurice O’Meara, general manager of Killarney, confirmed last night.
“We appreciate that 3’s withdrawal has left the Tour with a problem and we will help in every way we can.
“We would be disappointed not to have the opportunity to stage it again and work on the huge success in 2010. We tried everything we could to make it work and it was a great package between ourselves and the town.”
O’Meara ruled out any possibility of the club contributing financially to the tournament’s return.
He said this year’s event was: “a contra deal between ourselves and the Tour. We provided the venue and they provided the tournament. We worked closely with them and would be happy to do so again.”
While there is no direct financial outlay by the Killarney club — as there was in the days when the Irish Open was held at commercial ventures such as Mount Juliet Druids Glen and Carton House — there would still be a considerable level of expense incurred.
In 2010, the Killeen and Mahonys Point courses were closed to visitors for two to three weeks, additional green keepers had to be employed and the clubhouse was extensively refurbished.
However O’Meara stressed that these factors would not inhibit their willingness to stage the Irish Open in 2011 and believes that the experience gained this year would enable them to make an even greater success of the event in the future.
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