Lahinch felt responsibility to Clare and West to stage Open

As the chairman of the Lahinch Golf Club Tournament Committee, John Gleeson has already visualised the packed grandstand behind his club’s 18th green as the champion-elect strides along the par-five final hole with a throng of spectators in his wake and hundreds more teeming up the Liscannor Road on the other side of the wall.

It could be a landmark scene for Irish golf every bit as iconic as the course that will this week stage the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open and Gleeson is confident tournament host Paul McGinley, the famous links and the Co. Clare town whose borders it sits within, are more than up to the task of delivering that vision.