Yahoo Sports Ballyliffin hosts Amateur Championship and hopes for Open one day
After a hugely successful hosting of the DP World Tour's Irish Open in 2018, Donegal club Ballyliffin will aim to provide further evidence that it should be in the conversation as a possible future Open Championship venue when it stages the Amateur Championship next week.
The prospect of The Open taking place outside the UK for the first time was mooted last October when the R&A said it would "investigate the possibility" of Portmarnock staging The Open or Women's Open.
For the moment, the Dublin links remains the only Republic of Ireland course being considered as a possible Open venue but that hasn't deterred Ballyliffin's ambitions to one day host golf's oldest championship.
Ballyliffin's rise to become a world-class links venue has been one of the stories in Irish golf over the past three decades.
I declare an interest having played Ballyliffin's original Old Links for the first time as a nine-year-old in 1978 when much time was spent sticking my short arms down the rabbit holes which infested the fairways in the often fruitless search for your golf ball.
While new curses were invested amid the injustice of it, even a golfing cub could appreciate the untapped potential of the rolling Inishowen links land.
But in those bleak days of the 1970s as the Northern Ireland Troubles raged little more than 25 miles away, it seemed inconceivable this remote and neglected corner of north Donegal would emerge from the wilderness.
Some 46 years on, Ballyliffin is transformed. Pull into the club's car park from any day from late Spring to October and you will hear north American voices who have arrived to sample the Old Links and Glashedy courses that reside less than 15 miles from Ireland's most northerly point of Malin Head.
Many pinpoint the moment Ballyliffin changed forever as when then Open Champion Nick Faldo took a helicopter ride to the venue in June 1993 and described the Old Links "as the most natural golf course I've ever seen".
By that stage, plans to the sculpt the second Glashedy course out of the Ballyliffin dunes were already well under way.
The Pat Ruddy and Tom Craddock designed masterpiece opened to rave reviews in 1995 and in truth, Ballyliffin has never really looked back.
Faldo even made an attempt to buy Ballyliffin a couple of years later which was gently rebuffed by the club's members and the six-time major winner returned to the club in 2007 to officially unveil his redesign of the original links.
Despite having hosted the Women's Irish Open as well as Challenge Tour and European Senior Tour events, there was more than a little scepticism around Ballyliffin's suitability to stage an Irish Open.
In the event, the naysayers were proved utterly wrong as the sun shone on the Inishowen venue in July 2018 and a record European Tour attendance of over 95,000 revelled in the opportunity to watch Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm in action on the Glashedy course.
While the Covid-19 pandemic prevented Ballyliffin from fully exploiting the exposure generated by the Irish Open, the club's general manager John Farren then pivoted the club's strategic focus to forming relationships with the R&A.
The 2022 men's and women's Home Internationals was Ballyliffin's first significant collaboration with the game's governing body having already announced that this year's Amateur Championship would be played on Ballyliffin's two courses.
While that's going to be a big undertaking with 288 players competing in two rounds of stroke play on the Old Course and the Glashedy before the latter course stages the match play action, Farren is confident Ballyliffin will be ready for 10 days of golf which includes a pre-qualifier for the final 10 spots.
"We are bringing in an additional 20-odd greenkeepers because we wouldn’t have the manpower to have two courses ready at 7am in the morning for 10 days in a row," says the Ballyliffin general manager.
Winner earns Open, Masters & US Open spots
This week's US Open will deplete the Ballyliffin field somewhat with many of the world's top amateurs participating at Pinehurst.
But the winner of the 36-hole match play final on 22 June can himself look forward to teeing up at next year's US Open as well as earning invitations to the 2025 Masters and Open Championship at Royal Troon in five weeks.
South African Christiaan Maas and Spain's Jose Luis Ballester Barrio are the highest ranked players in the field with six foot nine inch American Tommy Morrison, who reached the last 16 at Hillside last year, and Wales' Walker Cup player James Ashfield among the fancied contenders.
Another interesting entry is Scotland's former Walker Cup captain Stuart Wilson who returns to the Amateur Championship 20 years after triumphing at St Andrews while the Irish hopefuls include Malone's Matthew McClean, who played in the Masters and US Open last year after winning the US Mid-Amateur title in 2022.
John Farren adds: "Some of the young guys will be winning on the DP World Tour and PGA Tour within a matter of two or three years."
'The infrastructure is there'
In terms of the big picture, Farren admits the notion of Ballyliffin one day hosting The Open can be termed "aspirational" but points out that many scoffed at the suggestion the Irish Open could be brought to the Inishowen peninsula.
"I have no doubt this facility could stage an Open Championship quite easily. The infrastructure is there. Albeit that it’s probably 15, 20 years away perhaps.
"The quality of the golf courses, the ease of access and the lack of a need for a park and ride situation, with all parking possible on site, all lends itself to running a very smooth and successful championship of the order of an Open Championship.
"We’re hopeful that we’re going continue to develop our relations with the R&A and with professional tours to bring bigger events to Ballyliffin, showcase the region, help the local economy and help build this into an even better golf complex than it already is."
