Fota developing nicely for Irish Open

Summer’s Irish Open is still more than three months away but tournament hosts Fota Island have already begun preparations for the June 19-22 European Tour event.

Course designer Jeff Howes paid a visit to the Fota Island Resort yesterday to run the rule over the modifications to his Deerpark creation ahead of this summer’s return to the venue that staged the Irish Open in 2001 and 2002. Work began last week on lengthening the layout with new tee boxes being built on each of the par-five holes at the fourth, fifth, 10th and 18th in order to make the course play similarly to the way it did in terms of length a dozen years ago.

Fota director of golf Kevin Morris told the Irish Examiner in January that the fourth hole would be lengthened from 548 yards to around 580 and the fifth would go from 544 to about 570-575.