The 19-22 June tournament will see the European Tour event returning to the Cork club for the first time since Soren Hansen's victory in 2002.
The official confirmation made later this week.
Carton House in Maynooth, Co Kildare hosted the event in 2013, and at one point had been hotly tipped to keep the tournament but miss out.
A main sponsor for this year's tournament has not yet been secured and the European Tour is understood to be continuing its efforts to find a principal backer for the event.
Fota Island, which is 10 miles from Cork city, first hosted the Irish Open in 2001 when Colin Montgomerie triumphed and Dane Hansen took victory at the venue 12 months later.
The 500 acre resort in Cork Harbour was built by Irish developer John Fleming at cost of over €90 million. It was sold last year on behalf of Nama to the Kang family from China for an estimated €20 million.
Fota Island Resort was developed by the Fleming Group in 2006 who purchased the original golf course in 2004 from the Killeen Group, owned by the O’Mahony family.
Subsequently two more golf courses were added to the original course which hosted the Irish Open in both 2001 and 2002 while the group also built the 131 bedroom hotel complete with a state-of-the-art leisure centre and spa with a 18-metre pool.
In 2006 it was operated as a Sheraton but when Nama took over Fleming Group loans in 2010, PriceWaterhouse Cooper was appointed as receiver.
2 comments:
Exciting news about Fota Island being named as hosts for next summer’s Irish Open. I was lucky enough to be there when the competition was last held in Fota back in 2002 and the course has certainly matured a lot since then. Looking forward to seeing how McIlroy and McDowell find the Deerpark course!
Really excited about visiting Fota Island next week, I've always wanted to visit Ireland on a golfing break that I decided to make the commitement this year as I heard so much about this Cork Golf Club which will hopefully provide a stiff challenege to such a high quality field. I think I'm one of the few to get a room in the neighbouring luxury Cork Hotel, so all in all I'm really looking to the trip over next week!
Post a Comment