Star power makes Irish Open 'jewel of European Tour'

Rory McIlroy's charitable foundation is hosting the 2017 Irish Open at Portstewart Golf Club. Credit: PA

  • By Joe Kearney

Look around Portstewart Golf Club this week and you’d never guess from the packed galleries and scores of world class players that the Irish Open was on the brink of oblivion less than 10 years ago.

One thing saved it … star power. The star in question Rory McIlroy.

Being a four-time major champion and former world No1 gives you a fair degree of clout and the Holywood man has now made a dying enterprise a jewel of the European Tour.

When McIlroy put his name next to the tournament he wanted to restore its lustre, move it closer to The Open in the schedule, and get it regularly coming north of the border and played on links courses. All ambitions dispatched with the nonchalance of a 320yd drive.

The field this year is perhaps the strongest ever gathered for an Irish Open and the only obvious winner is Northern Ireland.

In 2012 when the event was won at Royal Portrush by Ryder Cup star Jamie Donaldson an attendance of 131,000 over six days set a tour record and this year is sure to be in the same ballpark.

For once McIlroy is not even the highest ranked player in the world competing, with that honour going to Japan’s World No2 Hideki Matsuyama.

The 25-year-old arrives in Portstewart fresh off a runner-up finish at the US Open and is sure to bring huge galleries in his wake all week.

Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, ranked No2 in the world. Credit: PA

Another even younger golfing “phenom” - as our American cousins insist on saying - eyeing the biggest slice of a £5.5m prize fund is 22-year-old Jon Rahm.

The big-hitting Spaniard, dubbed Rahmbo by the galleries, not only knocked off a PGA Tour win in his first full season but broke into the world’s Top 10 thanks to a consistency and confidence which belie his age.

Rahm, like Matsuyama, looks a Major winner in-waiting and now he’s committed to playing more European Tour events with an eye to the 2018 Ryder Cup in Paris - a team he looks like being a mainstay of for years to come.

Talking of Ryder Cup mainstays - Justin Rose, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood head an English invasion which could well see the title McIroy won in such thrilling style last year at the K Club heading back across the Irish Sea.

The former US Open winner, Medinah miracle worker, and ex World No1 will fancy their chances, but so too will the likes of countrymen Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Chris Wood, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Andy Sullivan and Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston - all tour winners in their own right.

Ryder Cup star Ian Poulter. Credit: PA

So fickle is the world of golf that 2016 Masters champion Danny Willett is not being talked about as a likely contender, given injury woes and an unsurprising dip in form. But as the maxim goes “form is temporary, class is permanent” and where better to rediscover it than in front of the Irish galleries.

Other big names teeing it up include 2016 Ryder Cup stars Rafa Cabrera Bello and Thomas Pieters.

The super-fit Spaniard and the big-hitting Belgian are both well worth a follow and McIlroy himself knows first-hand just how good Pieters can be, having at times been carried by his outstanding debutant partner in captain Darren Clarke’s defeated team.

Which brings us neatly to the Irish contingent.

Clarke may be in the twilight of his tour career, but the 2011 Open champion certainly knows his way around a links, and given that he lives just round the corner in Portrush will be keen to give a good account of himself.

The North Coast's own Graeme McDowell. Credit: PA

Graeme McDowell falls into the category of another “local lad” needing a fillip in form and, with home support and a relatively short, fast-running layout, this could be just the week for the 2010 US Open champion to find it.

Three-time Major champion Padraig Harrington is the definition of mercurial.

Long gone is the consistency when he was sweeping all before him from 2006-2008, but shock wins in the US and Europe in the past two years proved his lasting class and bookie-beating potential.

You’d be hard-pressed given the strength in depth this week to find a 1,000-1 shot in the field, never mind one that might win the title, but that’s just what Offaly’s finest Shane Lowry did as an amateur in a playoff at Baltray in 2009.

Waiting at greenside that day to douse his friend and former teammate in champagne was a young Rory McIlroy.

Having missed a putt to win in regulation, McIlroy told his pal to “believe” - the same mantra he applied to reinvigorating the Irish Open itself.

Everyone’s a believer now.