Tourism chiefs in NI confident of another swift return of the Open

Tourist chiefs in Northern Ireland are confident of a swift return of golf’s Open Championship to the region after hailing last week’s event an “outstanding success”.

Almost 280,000 spectators attended Royal Portrush Golf Club across a week that culminated with world No 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler lifting the prized Claret Jug in front of thousands of cheering fans around the sun-drenched 18th green on Sunday evening.

The 153rd Open at Portrush was the second-best attended event in the championship’s long history.

When the Open came to Northern Ireland in 2019 after an almost 70-year absence, tournament organisers, the R&A, committed to staging it at Royal Portrush at least two more times.

There was surprise at how soon the sporting showpiece then returned, especially as the event skipped a year because of the pandemic in 2020.

Tourism NI is now hopeful that there will be a similar timeline for the next staging of the major championship on the region’s scenic north coast.

The tourism promotion body’s director of events Aine Kearney said the R&A’s feedback on last week’s event had been overwhelmingly positive.

“We’ve had really positive engagement with senior people in the R&A and they just told us how well it’s gone,” she said.

“And we hope that puts us in a really good place in terms of them coming back as quickly as they did after 2019.”

She added: “It’s been an outstanding success. And I think that’s something that’s been echoed by the R&A, we’ve heard the same from the golfers, we’ve heard the same from all the visitors that have come to experience not only the golf but also the destination.

“The feedback has been absolutely fabulous in terms of how successful it’s been, and how much we’ve been able to shine a light