Our friends in the North
Friday, 13 January 2012
Arlene Foster, Tourism Minister, Redmond O'Donoghue, Chairman, Failte Ireland, Philip Tweedie, Captain, Royal Portrush Golf Club and George O'Grady, Chief Executive, The European Tour, and Darren Clarke, Open Champion pictured at a press conference.
BRITISH Open champion Darren Clarke has conceded that local knowledge should play a part when the Irish Open returns to Royal Portrush this summer after an absence of more than 60 years.
Clarke, instrumental in attracting the tournament back north for the first time since 1953, is a long-time admirer of the Dunluce Links and honed his game there before winning the Claret Jug at Sandwich last July.
He also has plenty of experience of playing the course from his younger days, particularly in the North of Ireland Amateur Open which he won back in 1990. Fellow major winners Padraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell were both beaten finalists in the North, Harrington in successive years in 1993 and 1994 and McDowell in 2001, while the fourth Irish major winner, Rory McIlroy, holds the course record which he set in the North as a 15-year-old schoolboy.
That should give the quartet a healthy advantage when some of the world's best golfers tee up on June 28.
“G-Mac and myself should have the most local knowledge and that should come into play but this game can be fickle," admitted Clarke.
“However, I would be surprised if one of the four of us wasn't up there on the final day."
No doubt organisers will be hoping that at least one of the four - if not all of them - will be in contention on the Sunday, not least to attract the crowds.
Last year in Killarney the homegrown stars, perhaps burdened by a weight of expectation, failed to challenge which amounted to something of an anti-climax for the thousands of golf fans who flocked to county Kerry.
“We've addressed that," admitted Clarke's manager Chubby Chandler.
“There was a lot of pressure on the boys last year and they all missed the cut.
“I think they took on too much in the week of the tournament. At the end of the day you can help promote the tournament but the best way to do that is to be there on the Sunday," he added.
Excitement is already building in anticipation of what promises to be the biggest golf event here since Max Faulkner won the British Open on the same links back in 1951 with a number of top players already intimating their desire to be here at the end of June.
Businesses, too, stand to benefit with hotels already reporting brisk trade, some five months before the event gets underway.
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