Portmarnock: Irish government backs Dublin club’s Open and Women’s Open ambitions

The Irish government has announced that it has given “provisional support” to Portmarnock hosting the Open Championship and the Women’s Open.

The Open and the Women’s Open have never been been played in the Republic of Ireland and an Irish government statement described its announcement as a “significant step towards the potential hosting of these major sports events in Portmarnock Golf Club”.

Last October, the R&A said it was it was keen to “investigate the possibility” of staging The Open or Women’s Open at the famous north county Dublin links course.

This followed the Dublin club’s statement that it had contacted the R&A to say that it wanted to explore the possibility of hosting the major championships.

“The department of tourism, culture, arts, gaeltacht, sport and media will continue to engage with Portmarnock Golf Club and the R&A to further explore the costs of hosting and to prepare a full business case for the events, in line with the department’s recently published major international sports events policy,” said Tuesday’s Irish government statement.

“The department assesses each request for support to a major event on its own merits. In particular, it is imperative to ensure that economic, participation and sports benefits are derived from any state investment.”

Next year’s Open Championship will be played at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland where the championship returned to 2019 after a 68-year gap.

Portmarnock has previously hosted R&A events including this year’s Women’s Amateur Championship and the 2019 Men’s Amateur while the Irish Open has been played at the north county Dublin links on 19 occasions.

The course hosted the Walker Cup in 1991, when Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley were part of the Great Britain and Ireland team and the US team included Phil Mickelson and David Duval.

Famously, the north Dublin club hosted the then Canada Cup, which later became the World Cup, in 1960 when US greats Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead clinched an eight-shot victory.

An obvious obstacle to The Open or Women’s Open being hosted by Portmarnock was removed in May 2021 when the Dublin club voted to admit women members for the first time.