John Catlin became only the third American in the 65-year history of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open to lift the title yesterday. BenCrenshaw and Hubert Green were the only two previous winners from across the Atlantic and their wins were over a decade before Catlin was born.
The course and the resort looked great in TV screens around the world and it was a major achievement on the part of the European Tour and event Director Simon Allis to get it played at all in this year of years.
Full credit is due to Shane Lowry who came straight from the US Open to play in the tournament that kick-started his career when he won it as an amateur back in 2009. That was two years after Padraig Harrington won and the Dubliner was also in action at Galgorm, playing his first tournament golf since March.
He has had a good lockdown if there can be such a thing, discovering a more relaxed and playful side to his personality through the discovery and good use of social media.
<strong>Decisions</strong>
The other two stars we might have hoped to see did not make it. Rory McIlroy is our most recent winner of the event and his decision to stay in the US became more understandable when it emerged that he was to become a father for the first time in the weeks leading up to the Open.
Graeme McDowell was to have been the tournament host this year and next and was an eager promoter of the tournament for when it was originally scheduled back in May. With the change though it brought a clash to a tournament on the US PGA Tour that he won last year and his wanting to defend that, together, no doubt, with personal reasons to stay on the other side of the world meant that he too was absent.
It is the strangest of years and there is no blame to be attached to either decision though in looking back it is those who did come that will gain the greater affection.
The Tour itself deserves the same, as does the sponsor Dubai Duty Free who made the call to stay on the slate despite a horrendous hit to their business operations in the middle east and around the world.
<strong>Contract</strong>
The contract for the sponsorship was extended by four years back in 2019 but with a break clause which will be discussed with the Tour in the coming weeks.
Their coming on board alongside McIlroy as tournament host in 2015 was a defining moment for the event which then secured Rolex Series status and a prize fund of €7 million.
With the Ryder Cup coming to Adare Manor in 2027 the tour will want to maintain a strong Irish Open.
It has to be hoped that discussions with Colm McLaughlin and his team in Dubai, as well as with Rolex, will result in the tournament bouncing back and being staged at Mount Juliet in 2021, with the crowds that have made the event so special and such a positive for the Tour.
We cannot control the public health issues that have wreaked such havoc across sport and our daily way of living in 2020. But we have to be confident that science will win through and that we can get back to the things that lit up our diaries.
