How Ballyliffin shimmered in the Irish Open spotlight

There is no underestimating what this Dubai Duty Free Irish Open meant to everybody at Ballyliffin Golf Club, but it was general manager John Farren’s mission not to squander the opportunities that hosting the European Tour event presented to Donegal as a whole.

It is not lost on folk in these parts, the Inishowen Peninsula, the county and the north-west region, that an Irish Open has only once visited the west coast of Ireland and that when it did, in 1999, it was 300-odd miles down the Wild Atlantic Way in Ballybunion, Co. Kerry.