BlogIrish Open Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Amazing on how just four years ago this event had one foot in the grave.  It was close to being gone, they couldn’t get any Irish sponsorship and it was hard just finding a course to have the event on.  That was until Rory McIlroy got involved and help bringing in Dubai Duty Free to sponsor the event.  With his foundation being a part of the tournament, Rory is also working on getting more marquee players to this event.  The upside is now the tournament won’t go away and has no problems  striving as the prize fund has doubled to seven milllion pounds..  In 2011 first place paid around $360,000 while this year first place will pay $1.2 million a drastic increase.

This year the event is being played at Portstewart Golf Club, which is in the town of Portstewart, Northern Ireland.  It’s about seven miles west of Portrush which is going to hold the 2019 British Open.  This is a dream course, one of those that is not well know but once you stumble upon it, you want to play it everyday for the rest of your life.  Known by many for having one of the best opening holes in Ireland, the 7,118 yard par 72 Stand Championship Course designed by Des Griffin first opened in 1894 as a nine hole course and was extended to 18 holes in 1934.  It will get rave reviews from all of the players and will have many more professional tournaments on it in the future.

Course information:

• Portstewart Golf Club
• Co. Derry / Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland
• 7,118 yards     Par 36-36–72
• What a dream course this is, I have been lucky to play it about a half a dozen times and each time I played it, loved it even more.  The course opened as a nine hole course in 1894.  It was just a string of holes along the ocean that was just over 1,000 yards.  In 1934 the course was extended to 18 holes.  But it wasn’t until 1986 that the course became what it is today.  That’s when the club bought a piece of property next to it know as “Thistly Hollow”  It was a number of towering sand dunes in which the club was able to put seven new holes around the dune and then snaking the course over dune-covered peninsula flanked on one side by the River Bann and the other by the Irish Sea.
• It is know by everyone that has played it as having the best opening holes in golf, matter of fact the whole front nine is fantastic.  The last three holes are really good, all par 4s, they run parallel to each other and are the furthest holes from the sea.
• The club held a qualifying round for The British Open in 1951 when it was played at Royal Portrush. The club played host to the Irish Amateur Championship in 1992 and the Amateur Championship in 2014, won by Bradley Neil of Scotland.  I will bet any amount of money that when the British Open is played down the road at Portrush, Portstewart will be the second most popular area during the week.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Irish Open:

Key stat for the winner:

• Hard to guage what the keys are to winning at Portstewart.  They have held amateur events but never a professional events.  So the course will be hard to predict.  But you can bet that weather will play an important part.  Portstewart is on a combination of the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean so expect the players to have the full effects of an Irish summer.  Now an Irish summer isn’t the type of summer that we are use to.  On a perfect day during an Irish summer, it will be blue skies with temperatures just going over the 70 degree mark.  May be a touch of a breeze off the ocean, but what everyone says is a perfect day.  But you get that about once a week if your lucky, the normal Irish summer day is cloudy, temperatures in the mid-60s with a 10 to 15 mph breeze blowing off the ocean.  In some cases you will get a really terribly Irish summer day, winds blowing up to 45 mph, rain fallowing diagonally and just really miserable conditions.  Now playing a true links course in these conditions is fun as a change of pace, but if you had to play well and money is on the line it’s the most stressful conditions you can find in golf.
• For this week the four days weather will be an average day at Portstewart, cloudy temperatures in the low 60s and winds coming from the north at 10 to 15 mph Friday and Sunday it will rain, so look for those that are patient in bad weather to do well..
• This is also a perfect chance to get your game ready for the British Open in two weeks.  I can’t think of a better place to get ready than Portstewart, so this will be a good testing week for many in the field.
• Last but not least look at our hot index of players in the field (It’s up above this).  You have to think that those that are playing good will do well.  Also don’t put much credence in the last two events on the European Tour, they are on courses totally different and fields that aren’t as good as the one playing this week.  But look for that golfer that has shown solid improvements in the last ten weeks.