by We want to lead off this Monday by encouraging everyone to watch our video on Royal County Down if you haven’t yet. It’s 12 minutes well spent, and will set you up very nicely for this week’s Irish Open.
We’re really proud of this one (special shoutout to Cameron Hurdus), and if listening to Andy break down why the first 13 holes at RCD make for one of the best stretches of golf in the world doesn’t get you excited for this last links golf hurrah of the year, nothing will.
And now, the news and notes you came for.
What a nice autumn-adjacent windfall of interesting professional golf we will get this week. Obviously there’s the Solheim Cup, with the U.S. side looking to snap a losing streak on home soil and all that team match play brings. I will be on the ground in Virginia with Fried Egg Golf’s Med Adkins for that later this week with a full preview in the newsletter. But also, we’re getting a DP World Tour event at Royal County Down, arguably the greatest course in the world and host to the 2024 Irish Open.
The event is not going to deliver some monster rating. But it does keep the people who matter most — the fans you want proselytizing to the rest of the world — engaged for a week in mid-September. The Irish Open last came here in 2015. It’s the first time the course will really be shown in full-flight for a modern broadcast, and here’s hoping we get ample coverage of its nonpareil front nine. Call us hipsters or niche diehards, but some RCD with a mix of top-flight Euros and the eclectic B-side names we get used to during early coffee golf mornings is a delightful bonus for the fall. We were quite fortunate to loop around there earlier this year—watch our video on the golf course above.
Shocking news: Royal County Down photographs well (Fried Egg Golf)
It’s no secret professional golf is in a precarious place. I can’t decide if there is no adult in the room, or if it’s just too many overzealous sports parents trying to get their way that’s resulting in a bit of chaos no one feels good about. It’s not clear where the DP World/European Tour fits into the picture. Speaking at the Tour Championship, Rory McIlroy expressed his frustration at the pace of discussions between the PGA Tour and the Saudi PIF, which still backs and operates LIV Golf. “I think if it doesn’t happen soon, then honestly, I think PIF and the Saudis are going to have to look at alternative options,” he said of the stalled progress. An article in Sports Illustrated last week did not make it sound like talks are hot, progress is being made, and a resolution is in sight. Speaking on the subject in Atlanta, Jay Monahan sounded resigned, almost despondent. So is an “alternative option” some sort of Saudi-injection into the European Tour?
The pro game seems destabilized as factions pick for crumbs or try to motivate progress toward their version of a best outcome. In the current reality, what should the DPWT faction do? This week’s Irish Open feels like a part of whatever future they should carve out for themselves. Like the EPL or various F1 races, capture the diehard golf fan minds with primo events that stand out in the mornings. The ratings will never be monsters or soothe all the American money behind pro golf, but it’s something more than the scattershot approach now taken. In the fall, it’s a window that gets you out of the way before football truly takes hold in the afternoons. Lean in to an identity as the best golf tour in the world in one of the best times of the year to play it. Try to get four to six events across a couple months in pockets of the schedule that could well and truly be considered among the best conditions of the year by real golf fans. Now is one of those times. Pro golf has spent a lot of time pandering and trying to invent some entirely new iteration of its product — playoffs, a team tour, a screen-golf tour, made-for-tv matches — and not spent enough time making the product it already has as good as it can be for the audience that actually exists. This week is a nice reprieve from that and great coffee golf before football and the women’s match play of the weekend.
Royal County Down is truly an elemental experience (Fried Egg Golf)
One thing that the Irish Open is not: whatever the vapid Cardigan Classic is. It’s a force-multiplier of pointless phoniness that probably appeals to some non-golf segment of the population. That is not for you, dear reader of this newsletter.
This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
