Volvo PGA Champions Andrew Oldcorn and Costantino Rocca and Ryder Cup player Andrew Coltart head the field for the fourth North West of Ireland Open, which this year moves to Ballyliffin Golf Club in County Donegal.
Oldcorn won the 2001 Volvo PGA Championship at Wentworth Club at the age of 41 to become the oldest winner of The European Tour’s flagship event, beating the previous record set by Rocca. The Scot returns to Ireland this week for the first time since playing a leading role in Great Britain and Ireland’s victory in The Seve Trophy at Druids Glen in April. The 42 year old received a late call up to the team following an injury to David Howell and performed with distinction becoming the only player to be undefeated in the team.
Oldcorn missed the last two European Tour events to be held in Ireland - the Murphy’s Irish Open and the Smurfit European Open – due to illness but now fully recovered he is ready to challenge for a fourth European Tour title.
Rocca won the Volvo PGA Championship in 1996 aged 39. At that stage he was already the most successful Italian golfer of all time having become the first player from his country to play in The Ryder Cup Matches. Rocca made his debut in 1993 and then played a key role in the European victory at Oak Hill in 1995. Two years later Rocca was again in the European Team for the Matches at Valderrama, winning a crucial singles match against World Number One Tiger Woods 4 and 2 to help Europe to victory. In 1999 he made a bold attempt to earn a fourth Ryder Cup berth by winning the first North West of Ireland Open, his fifth European Tour title, at Galway Bay but narrowly missed out on making The Ryder Cup Team.
Other former Ryder Cup players in the field include the English trio of Peter Baker, Paul Broadhurst, Steven Richardson and Ireland’s Philip Walton.
Italian golfers have enjoyed great success in this event with Massimo Scarpa following directly in Rocca’s footsteps by winning the title in 2000 at Slieve Russell Hotel Golf and Country Club, Co. Cavan. Scarpa once again joins Rocca in the field looking to repeat that victory.
Last year it was the turn of Tobias Dier to win the title, the German edging Welshman Stephen Dodd by a single stroke at Slieve Russell. Dier has made full use of the valuable one year exemption that victory gave him by claiming his second title last month, winning The TNT Open at Hilversumche GC.
The North West of Ireland Open is a “double badge” event with the field split between The European Tour and the European Challenge Tour. The leading player from the Challenge Tour, England’s Lee James, arrives in Co. Donegal brimming with confidence having already won three titles on the Challenge Tour – the Sameer Kenya Open, Clearstream International Luxembourg Open and the Talma Finnish Challenge. James currently leads the Challenge Tour Rankings with €118,856, almost twice as much as his closest rival Jean-Francois Lucquin who has won €61,082.
Situated close to Malin Head on Donegal’s Inishowen Peninsula, Ireland's most northerly links comprises 365 acres of spectacular duneland and is practically surrounded by rolling hills and mountains - the only other boundary is the Atlantic Ocean.
Ballyliffin Golf Club has two 18 hole courses - the classic Old Links and the magnificent new Glashedy Links which opened for play in August 1995. The Glashedy Links, which will host the 2002 North West of Ireland Open, makes the most of a genuinely dramatic location. Designed by Pat Ruddy and Tom Craddock, it has been laid out on predominantly higher ground above and beyond the Old Links.
The views from the course are stunning. With vast undulating greens, cavernous bunkers and fairways that twist and roll beneath towering dunes, the challenge presented by the Glashedy Links is almost as formidable as it is exhilarating.
Niall Reddy, acting Chief Executive of Bord Fáilte, said: “ It is precisely events as the North West of Ireland Open that Bord Fáilte’s International Sports Tourism Initiative is designed to help. As we aggressively market Ireland as an ideal destination for sports related holidays, County Donegal in general and the Inishowen Peninsula specifically have so much to offer the visitor. The Glashedy links at Ballyliffin is one of Ireland’s golfing gems and an ideal location for an event of this international prestige.”
The International Sports Tourism Initiative, introduced by the Irish Government in 2000, and administered by Bord Fáilte has an annual budget of €7.62 million up to and including 2007. The €55.24 million fund has been set aside for the staging of premier sports events with the capacity to strengthen Ireland’s reputation as an ideal sports tourism destination.
