Next year’s Irish Open at Portstewart gets prime European Tour slot

Rory McIlroy welcomed a July date for next year’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open as “huge”, after the European Tour confirmed the links at Portstewart Golf Club as host venue for 2017.

After years of timing difficulties which have seen Ireland’s national open shifted from pillar to post around weeks in May and June, the tournament, supported by McIlroy’s charitable Rory Foundation has finally been placed front and centre in the summer schedule, with the European Tour creating a links series of tournaments which will take its members, and hopefully some American star power, to the Derry coast to play Portstewart’s Strand Course on July 6 to July 9, before moving on to the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart in the build-up to the following week’s Open Championship at Birkdale.

The news was greeted enthusiastically at Baltusrol Golf Club, where both McIlroy, the Irish Open’s host and defending champion, and three-time major champion Pádraig Harrington were yesterday preparing for this week’s PGA Championship.