R&A boss 'optimistic' on Portmarnock's Open hosting bid
TEE UP: CEO of The R&A Mark Darbon speaks during the media day at Royal Portrush Golf Club, Northern Ireland. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire.
New R&A chief executive Mark Darbon has declared himself “optimistic” that The Open can one day be brought to Portmarnock.
Golf’s oldest championship will be played in Royal Portrush in Co. Antrim this summer, six years after Shane Lowry won the Claret Jug on the same famous Dunluce links course.
Prior to that, the one and only hosting in Northern Ireland had been on the same links in 1951.
The Republic of Ireland has never hosted a tournament that was first contested in 1860 but a campaign to change that in Portmarnock in Co. Dublin has been building up steam in recent years.
The Irish government has declared its support for the venture and is seemingly willing to invest financially to make it happen while Darbon’s predecessor, Martin Slumbers, had spoken positively of the possibility before leaving his post last year.
Portmarnock is also bidding to host the AIG Women’s Open which, like its male counterpart, has never been played outside of the United Kingdom. Darbon, while careful with his wording, was supportive of all this on a visit to Royal Portrush on Tuesday.
“We are doing a lot of work around feasibility with Portmarnock right now and clearly it is a wonderful golf course that we think is fit to stage this Championship. There is a lot that we need to do, though, to really get under the skin of feasibility.
“We are really thankful for the support that we are receiving from the government and the local authorities there as we go about that feasibility study. So a lot of ground to cover but we are optimistic for the opportunity in the future.”
Royal Birkdale will play host in 2026 with a return to St Andrews inked in for 12 months later but the question as to what course will host this competition is a perennial one with Turnberry always high on the list in terms of public interest.
Part of Donald Trump’s global golfing portfolio, Turnberry hasn’t hosted The Open since 2009 and Slumbers had stated in the past that the noise surrounding the US president was one issue in its absence from the rota in recent times.
Darbon, as he has before, made the point in Portrush that logistics is the main obstacle for Turnberry. The course catered for just 100,000 spectators when The Open was last held there. Portrush will have close to three times that number.
That said, there was an acceptance from the R&A boss that road, rail and accommodation infrastructure issues were not the only potential stumbling block to seeing the tournament return to that corner of Scotland in the years to come.
“Of course, when it comes to a Championship like this, we want the focus to be on the golf and that is a factor too.”
That said, no doors have been closed, with the CEO stating that they would “love to” return there at some point.
This will be Darbon’s first Open in charge and the 153rd hosting will see a total of 278,000 fans take in the action. That will be an increase of 41,000 from the tournament in Portrush in 2019 with 27,000 tickets reserved for children and under-25s.
It will be the largest ever sporting event held in Northern Ireland and is expected to generate more than £213m (€248m) in economic benefit for the country according to an independent forecast by the Sport Industry Research Centre (SIRC) at Sheffield Hallam University.
The estimate is that the economic impact resulting from the tournament will be £63 (€73m) million, while the “destination marketing benefit” for Northern Ireland derived from coverage produced through TV and digital platforms will exceed £150m (€174.5m).
Whatever about definitive figures, The Open’s impact will surely be helped by the fact of Rory McIlroy’s success in Augusta earlier this month when, by finally winning the Masters, he secured golf’s Grand Slam of major titles.
The Open had long since sold out Royal Portrush for this summer’s fourth and final major and Darbon said that there will be no extra fuss made of Northern Ireland’s most famous son when he returns here in mid-July.
“We would expect him to be very focused on performance when he is here. I have written to him to recently congratulate him and it has been a real privilege as part of this role to get to meet some of the elite players in our game.
“I spent a little bit of time with Rory in the last few months and we know that he is super excited to return here. He has some unfinished business on this course. He will be very focused on performance and we look forward to welcoming him.”
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