A final day crowd of almost 30,000 packed Fota Island resort on Sunday for the conclusion of the Irish Open.
This meant a four day aggregate for the tournament of 97,889, a massive 21,000 more than attended the European Tour’s flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth last month.
It reaffirms the Irish Open’s position as the most attractive on the European Tour in terms of attendance and popular appeal. That appeal is likely to be strengthened with the alternation for the next three years at least between courses in the Republic and Northern Ireland.
It appears likely that Fota Island will be bidding to host the tournament in 2016, in between Royal County Down and Lough Erne. Meetings between the Kang family, who bought the resort last year, and officials from the European Tour took place over the weekend and appear to have been positive.
Carton House in Kildare which hosted the event in 2013 is also thought likely to be interested in welcoming the event back.
Sponsorship
Sharing the Open between North and South may also make it easier to allocate the sponsorship funding which has in recent years come from Tourism authorities.
Failte Ireland reduced the amount of direct investment into this year’s tournament by 20% from €1.25 million to €1 million and the Irish Open remains one of few on the European Tour that does not have a headline commercial partner.
The next three weeks leading up to the British Open will see events in Germany, France and Scotland sponsored respectively by BMW, Alstom and Aberdeen Asset Management.
The future of the Irish Open is secure in the short to medium term, largely as a result of the continued high turnout of fans on the fairways, but the Tour will be anxious that in the longer term a commitment is made to either stay with the tourism investment or secure a private commercial partner that sees the value of the domestic and international appeal of the tournament.
