Tour must link up Open opportunity

The European Tour must strike while the iron is hot and slot the Irish Open into what could prove to be a money-making "Links Swing" ahead of the proposed 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush.

With the R&A set to formally invite Royal Portrush to become part of The Open rota on Monday, pending approval of the club membership at an EGM, Ireland will be the central of the golfing universe in 2019 and once again a decade after that, as the Dunluce Links returns to the Open family for the first time in 60 years.

The Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open currently occupies that lucrative date just before The Open, but it would make commercial sense for the European Tour and the tourism bodies north and south of the border to look at hosting the Irish Open on a links course the week before the game’s oldest Major is played at Portrush. It’s an idea that certainly appeals to Irish links courses and John Farren, general manager of Ballyliffin Golf Club in Donegal, just a 70-minute drive from Portrush, has already broached the subject with European Tour chief executive, George O’Grady.