Irish Open Review

01 Jun

Rory McIlroy can be very proud of what he helped achieve with this year’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open hosted by the Rory Foundation. In fact, hats off to everyone involved because this was an incredibly well organized tournament in every respect.

Honestly, coming back to Royal County Down – in my case for the first time since 1998 – was a wonderful experience. All the players will have their own lists of favourite links courses and Royal County Down is probably in most peoples’ top-three. It really is an unbelievable layout. My two personal favourites are Muirfield and Royal Lytham, for obvious reasons, but Royal County Down and Royal Portrush are right up there, too.

Obviously we had some weather in Ireland last week, but hey this is links golf – you expect that. I didn’t have any complaints about the conditions – you just had to play great golf to craft a good score on this golf course, which is what Søren Kjeldsen did. All credit to him and to the other guys at the top of the leaderboard; shooting under par for four rounds was seriously good playing. The weather certainly didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the Irish fans, either. They were awesome from start to finish. It’s actually the second week in a row that we’ve had crowds in excess of 100,000 for the week, which is wonderful for the players and great news for the sponsors and the European Tour.

Irish Open 2015 Review2

The support of a lot of the world’s top players added to the buzz here and, again, Rory has to take a big share of the credit for that. Rory asked me to play and it was an easy decision to say ‘yes’, as it was for a lot of the other guys. Rory is a fine ambassador for our sport and from a personal standpoint he’s also been a loyal supporter in our efforts to raise money for Els for Autism. He’s played in numerous events for us in South Africa and in the US and I was more than happy to do the same for him in return.

And clearly this tournament was a big success from a charitable standpoint, with more than £1.5 million raised for the Rory Foundation, supporting children with cancer. On Thursday night we attended a dinner for the Foundation and it was wonderful to see all the great work that he is doing to help families in need. That’s something that a lot of the players totally ‘get’. In fact, it’s an integral part of the professional game these days, with players supporting each other’s events and the charities really being put to the forefront of media attention. That helps raise money and, just as importantly, it helps raise awareness for great causes all around the world. It just goes to show that golf – and of course sport in general – still has the power to change lives for the better.

Anyway, after a couple of weeks in Europe it’s back to the US for me at this week’s Memorial Tournament. Everyone knows that Jack’s tournament has long been one of my favourite stops on the PGA TOUR and I have some great memories from over the years. Not just winning here in 2004 (pictured below), which remains one of the highpoints of my career outside of the Majors, but also playing with Jack in 2005 in what was expected to be his last PGA TOUR appearance. The atmosphere in those first two rounds was really something unique and it was a privilege to be part of it.

The Memorial Tournament

Jack obviously has a world of experience as a golf course architect, but he’s also in the position of having been a great player and he can see things through a player’s eyes. He wants us to feel challenged by the course and, because he prides himself on quality, he wants it to be in perfect shape. And this golf course is PERFECT in every way – the greens, the fairways, the bunkers, the way the tees are mown, the practice facilities; basically everything. It’s one of the best-conditioned courses that we play and it’s a course that suits my eye. The fairways are quite generous so you can be somewhat aggressive off the tee. Going into the greens is where you can be a bit creative, shaping shots in there depending on the wind or the pin position. And, as I said, the greens are perfect. As always, I’m looking forward to teeing it up.

Finally, before signing off, I send my best wishes to everyone involved in a special event taking place in Cape Town this Tuesday and Wednesday, when my great friend Gary Player officially opens the Mercedes-Benz South African Golf Museum & Hall of Fame at the V&A Waterfront. I’m sure it’ll be a wonderful event and well done to everyone involved in creating this new facility, one that I’m sure a lot of golf fans are going to enjoy for years to come. For more information visit the website: www.golfhalloffame.co.za.

Okay that’s it for now. Follow me on Twitter @TheBig_Easy.

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