Has the Irish Open diminished in status ?

Delancey

Perhaps this question has been asked before , if so then apologies for any duplication.

I remember years ago when The Irish Open was held in Portmarnock and seemed to attract major names like Seve Ballesteros , Bernhard Langer , etc . While I'm in no way suggesting that its current competitors are ' small fry ' I can't help get the feeling however that it has lost some of its status and importance.
My memory is that it merited greater coverage/mention on BBC than it gets nowadays for example.

Is this the case or it is just my flawed perception ? If I am correct what has caused this decline in it's status ?

Opics

It's a third rate Euro Tour event atm. We are lucky we have many top Irish players or else the field would have been a disaster this year. Probably the worst date in the whole calender too.

plumber77

For sure.Hopefully the success of Irish golfers will help get it back up and running.Needs a major sponsor and definitely a new slot in the calendar.Hard to shift the more well established events now though.

Delancey

What caused the decline of the Irish Open ? It was such a prestigious event at one time and its a pity to see it has lost out so much.

stockdam

Delancey wrote: »

What caused the decline of the Irish Open ? It was such a prestigious event at one time and its a pity to see it has lost out so much.

I'd suggest that it was money. The top golfers will tend to play in the events where they can make most money. Maybe paying appearance money also helps (I have no data so I don't know).

thewobbler

stockdam wrote: »

Delancey wrote: »

What caused the decline of the Irish Open ? It was such a prestigious event at one time and its a pity to see it has lost out so much.

I'd suggest that it was money. The top golfers will tend to play in the events where they can make most money. Maybe paying appearance money also helps (I have no data so I don't know).

I'd suggest that most European Tour events are suffering in the same way the Irish Open is.

There are a dozen or so really big European players, but once you get past those, there's very few crowd pullers.

As half that group are US Tour focused and are extremely selective of their European events, that doesn't really leave a lot of 'love' to go around. As mentioned already, we're very lucky that 4 of those big guns are actually Irish.

I'm not even sure that throwing lots more prize money at it would overly help the situation. Perhaps getting a slot immediately before or after the BMW would help.

dharn

rte coverage was very poor i could not watch it all the time but saw little of mc elroy, harrington, clark, a lot of useless chat, ads ,inane commentary did not help

k.p.h

Discussed this a few of the lads recently and I came to the conclusion that the Irish Open should be played on a links course. They are unique to this part of the world and Ireland has enough top class links course's that a suitable venue could always be arranged. I don't think it should be should be changed on the golf calendar either. August Bank Holiday is perfect as it would allow the majority of Irish golf fans to attend.

I think with the current bunch of top class Irish golfers and a date on the calender that allows a good attendance of Irish fans proper sponsorship should not be too far away.

Screw diminishing status, we can't afford to get into a battle with the big crazy money tournaments in the US and alike. What we can do is host an event that is a tough but fair test on a unique course. Provide a great atmosphere and most of all most of all the accolade to the winner. If we can't convince ourselves that it's an important tournament how are we meant to convince anyone else.

On a slightly delusional side note ..

If I was in charge first port of call Portrush. Second rebrand "The Irish Links Open". Thirdly give Guinness a call and see what they could do sponsorship wise. Then give a few well known Portrush members (and guinness drinker) a call and see if they would get on board. We would have what we have then but IMO we would be putting our best foot forward.

plumber77

Doubt most golfers would want to play a links golf course agai so soon after the british open.They are in the process of getting ready for a WGC event and the PGA at this stage.Links golf requires a totally different kind of shot.If it was to be changed to a links course on a date prior to the British Open,organisers might have a better chance of pulling in some better golfers apart from the Irish.

Bullseye1

If this was a week or two before the British Open and played on a links it would make for a better event.

mike65

Its nothing like as big a draw in terms of the tour but thats mainly down to the Tour itself having expanded greatly since the days of Faldo, Seve, Norman, Langer, Calcavecchia etc playing. Moving it out of Dublin was an error from a commercial point of view I think, the prize money is on a par with the Italian Open this year which tells you where it is in the scheme of things. Also it used to be nicely placed on the calender, it was effectively a warm up for the Open.

SM746

100% agreement with the date being wrong. As the posters above have stated, the tournament would have a great chance of pulling in better players and even some of the big guns if it was an event in the weeks leading up to the British Open. Courses such as Lahinch, the European Club, Rosses Point and others (all regularly used by top golfers in the weeks preceding the British) should be considered.
As some have also said there is no doubt the lack of sponsorship is also having an impact.
At the moment it is not a very appealing event and unfortunately I can only see this continuing for the forseeable future.

Degag

Why are people so quick in taking the Irish Open from Killarney? Fantastic crowds, organisation and infrastructure. There are very few places you could take it with the ammount of hotels in a 15 minute radius. There are talks of a big local sponsor coming on board next year too if it stays there

SM746

Degag wrote: »

Why are people so quick in taking the Irish Open from Killarney? Fantastic crowds, organisation and infrastructure. There are very few places you could take it with the ammount of hotels in a 15 minute radius. There are talks of a big local sponsor coming on board next year too if it stays there

In fairness Killarney is one of the best places in the country and it does present an excellent infrastructure base but the only issue I would have is the quality of the golf course. Granted it has been a long time since I played Killarney, and it might have changed drastically, it is nowhere near the challenge and quality a top links course such as Lahinch, Rosses Point, etc to name a few pose. If the Irish Open was to be changed to before the British Open, to attract a top quality field the tournament would have to be played on one of the top and toughest links courses imo.
Hopefully a sponsor does come on board and it starts making its way back but I still feel the date that the event is now on will not help it in the long run.

Adiaga 2

It has little to with the prize money either as the prize fund last year was one of the biggest on the tour and the field was pretty much the same. It's the date in the calender pure and simple as already mentioned. Great weekend for crowds which is a big plus but not for attracting big names with a wgc the following week 6 time zones away.