– The Amgen Irish Open starting this Thursday is much more than just an appetizer for the BMW PGA Championship. Yes, it’s almost inevitable that our eyes will drift to Wentworth next week with the impressive presence of almost the entire European Ryder Cup squad, but it’s worth holding back to not miss what we have this week at the K Club in Ireland. A truly great tournament. Surely, along with the finals in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the two best consecutive weeks on the DP World Tour calendar.
– Over these 15 days, players like Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Brooks Koepka, Tyrrell Hatton, and Patrick Reed will parade through the European Circuit, being in Ireland and Wentworth, as well as Jon Rahm, Hideki Matsuyama, Corey Conners, Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg, Robert MacIntyre, Si Woo Kim, Tommy Fleetwood, Joaquín Niemann, Dean Burmester, Min Woo Lee, Justin Rose, or Billy Horschel, among others, who will join in Wentworth. If it’s not the best edition of the BMW PGA Championship, it’s very close. This Irish Open, we already know, will be the best of the last five years. That’s what the world ranking says.
– Besides the lineup of players, this week we must add the K Club, considered by many the best golf course played all year on the DP World Tour. It takes place on the Palmer North Course. The Dublin course is a gem. Not even the heavy rains in recent hours (40 litres since last Wednesday) will dull the spectacle. Play will be with preferred lies because there’s no other choice, but the conditions are magnificent, with a strong rough. It will be a great test of golf. Watch out for the wind expected on Saturday… and Sunday. It will be a high-class weekend.
– The Irish Open is the third tournament of the Back Nine. It’s a regular DP World Tour event, but the closest thing to a Rolex Series, with a prize fund of six million euros. This is the 70th edition of the tournament. It was first played in 1927, and only four players have won it three times. Be careful with the list: Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, and Colin Montgomerie.
– The big absence is Rasmus Hojgaard, the defending champion. The newly minted Ryder player withdrew early in the week. A shame, but understandable after the enormous effort he has made in recent weeks with the goal of qualifying for Bethpage and with Wentworth next week. He had to stop. Less understandable is the withdrawal of Nicolai Hojgaard, also at the last minute, as well as Sergio García, who was signed up to play this week but withdrew.
– In 2023, the K Club already hosted an event, and the Swedish Vincent Norrman won, absent this week. Rory McIlroy also achieved victory on this course in 2016.
– This week Luke Donald plays, likely more relaxed and relieved than at the British Masters, where he was still keeping an eye on players to finalise his selections. His pairings are no longer as intriguing. This week he plays with Francesco Molinari and Erik Van Rooyen. We fear that the South African will participate little in the captain and vice-captain conversations.
– Brooks Koepka will play his first regular tournament, outside of LIV Golf or the Majors, since 2025. The last was the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in 2024. He has received one of this week’s invitations (five Irishmen and Brooks) and has also been invited to Wentworth. There’s some buzz behind the scenes of the circuit about this matter.
– There are 12 Spaniards in the fray: Ángel Ayora, Joel Moscatel, Ángel Hidalgo, Alejandro del Rey, Iván Cantero, Eugenio Chacarra, Jorge Campillo, Rafa Cabrera Bello, Manu Elvira, Alfredo García Heredia, Nacho Elvira, and Pablo Larrazábal. The last Spanish victory in the Irish Open was in 2019, the second for Jon Rahm in this tournament. There are seven Spanish victories: Seve (3), Rahm (2), Olazábal, and Sergio.
