*Photograph: Arthur Ellis.
CO CLARE is on course to host The Irish Open for the second time in less than a decade with a deal close to getting over the line for Trump Doonbeg to be the official venue.
Officials on the European Tour and management at the five-star Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Doonbeg Ireland are staying tight-lipped on the possibility of the Irish Open heading to West Clare next September.
Already Co Clare is teeing up for a spike in visitors with Lahinch Golf Club to host the fifty first Walker Cup on September 5th and 6th 2026. Lahinch hosting the biennial match will mark the third occasion that it has been played in Ireland with the famous links course following in the footsteps of Portmarnock (1991) and Royal County Down (2007).
Talks are understood to be ongoing regarding the Trump owned Doonbeg resort hosting the 2026 Amgen Irish Open with hopes high that a deal could be soon reached.
Thirty kilometres separate Lahinch Golf Club and Trump Doonbeg, the combined hosting of both events would serve as a major lift to tourism and hospitality in Co Clare.
Lahinch hosted The Irish Open in 2019 when Jon Rahm shot 62 to claim a two-point victory. Local hotelier Michael Vaughan previously estimated it was worth €10m to the local economy. The club last week saw one of its most beloved members, Jonathan Keane win the South of Ireland Amateur Championships on his home course.
This year’s venue, the K Club agreed in April 2022 a long-term deal with the European Tour to host The Irish Open in 2023, 2025 and 2027. This year’s Open takes place from September 3rd to 7th.
In a statement to The Clare Echo, a spokesperson for The European Tour outlined that a venue for the 2026 Irish Open will be announced in the autumn but no date has been set for such an announcement. “We have not got a timeline set for this yet, we anticipate announcing 2026 schedule details at some point in the autumn”.
According to a spokesperson for the DP World Tour, “We are looking at a number of venues for the 2026 Amgen Irish Open and will make any announcement on that in due course”.
At Trump Doonbeg, plans are understood to be afoot to build new tees this winter to add yardage to its links.
A spokesperson for Trump Doonbeg told The Clare Echo, “We are not in a position to comment on it either way at this time” regarding the potential of it hosting next year’s Irish Open.
Locals in Doonbeg are not getting too excited until confirmation is issued, local shop owner and county councillor Rita McInerney (FF) said. “We often hear of things proposed for Doonbeg which don’t come through so until something is confirmed people won’t react, we’re just waiting for an announcement”.
She told The Clare Echo, “Any event coming to West Clare is very welcome. As a local authority we will do anything we can do to facilitate a prime event coming to West Clare”.
Services and infrastructure will have to improve to cater for a European Tour event, she flagged. “I do have concerns in relation to our infrastructure when it comes to things like the water and water supply, we’ve had a lot of outages over the last number of years and progress has been made on the Doonbeg and Cooraclare line but it does require serious investment. We’ve had a lot of electricity and broadband outages, some of which are hard to control, when it goes down there should be a redundancy system to kick in if this was to be repeated. We will continue to fight for the road infrastructure on the N68, we need our infrastructure and utilities working together in West Clare if we are to facilitate a big event in West Clare”.
Hosting the Irish Open would be a timely lift, she acknowledged. “It can have a huge knock-on effect and a benefit long-term. I welcome events of this scale coming to West Clare but we will have to work together to facilitate something and make sure all of the services are in place. We’re trying to look at different forms of accommodation in West Clare whether it be motorhomes park, hotels take a long time to come on stream but we need to facilitate people staying in West Clare for any big event”.
