Open a success despite setbacks

Bad weather and the loss of five of your six headline stars before the weekend would be enough to cripple most tour events.

But the Irish Open still emerged relatively unscathed from a week of uncontrollable mishaps at Carton House as 86,000 fans made the trip to the Maynooth venue.

While Major winners Rory McIlroy, Pádraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Graeme McDowell and Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley threw a spanner in the works by missing the cut, the official attendance for the four tournament days was 81,379 with another 4,793 attending the Wednesday pro-am.