Following on from the excitement of July’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club, there’s no let-up in the top golf action on the Emerald Isle as attention shifts to the Amgen Irish Open at The K Club.
The Irish Open doesn’t have a permanent venue, and this year it heads to the Palmer North Course at The K Club. The tournament runs from 4th to 7th September, and a mix of top home and international talent will be taking to the Kildare course. Here, Tonybet previews what’s to come at the 2025 Irish Open Golf Championship.
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About the tournament
The Irish Open is a national celebration of golf, and the inaugural edition in 1927 was at Portmarnock, where George Duncan overcame a remarkable 14-shot deficit at the start of the final day to win by three strokes. The very first Irish winner was Harry Bradshaw in 1947, and he remains one of a small handful of homegrown talents to have ever claimed the top honour.
The profile of the tournament grew enormously in 2007 when Padraig Harrington raised the roof at Adara to become the first Irishman to win the title since 1982. Shane Lowry then delivered the high-profile golf honour with a remarkable 2009 victory as an amateur at County Louth. This remains one of the greatest moments in the history of the Irish Open and is also the last time an amateur won a DP World Tour event.
Venues that have hosted the Irish Open more than twice
- Portmarnock 19
- Royal Dublin 6
- Royal County Down 5
- Mount Juliet 5
- Royal Portrush 4
- Killarney 4
- Druids Glen 4
- Fota Island Resort 3
- Carton House 2
About The K Club
Some famous golf memories have been recorded at the stunning K Club, where the Liffey highlights Ireland’s beauty. The venue hosted the European Championship between 1995 and 2007, but easily the biggest moment in the course’s history was when Europe beat the USA there in the 2006 Ryder Cup. Team Europe, which included Irish players Darren Clarke, Pádraig Harrington and Paul McGinley, hammered their opponents by 18 and a half to nine and a half points.
The 2016 Irish Open was also held in Kildare, and it’s where Rory McIlroy opened his account for the season with a fantastic finish. With three holes to play, McIlroy, who had been on a run of three missed cuts at the tournament, was trailing Scotland’s Russell Knox by one shot. However, a superb birdie on the 16th and an incredible eagle on the 18th saw him snatch the title, and afterwards, McIlroy donated his winnings to charity.
Top Irish stars
The home charge at the 2025 Irish Open will be led by two former winners, Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy. Lowry has been battling well in the recent FedEx Cup playoffs, making his presence felt in the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club. He won the 2009 Irish Open as an amateur in a remarkable finish when he battled through the pressure of a playoff to defeat Robert Rock. Lowry has knocked on the door in search of a second title in recent times, finishing T3 two years ago and T12 last year.
Rory McIlroy has confirmed his place at the 2025 Irish Open, and, like Lowry, has been competing in the FedEx Cup playoffs in the US. This, of course, has already been a big year for McIlroy, who became just the sixth man to record a career Slam of winning all four of golf’s majors with his success at The Masters in April.
Home Irish Open winners
- Rory McIlroy (2016)
- Shane Lowry (2009)
- Pádraig Harrington (2007)
- John O’Leary (1982)
- Christy O’Connor Jnr (1975)
- Harry Bradshaw (1947, 1949)
McIlroy recently went close to earning his second Irish Open title last year, when he was just edged out by Rasmus Højgaard by one stroke at Royal County Down. While both McIlroy and Lowry have the games to make a tilt for the title on the links-style course, McIlroy will be one of the front-runners in the Irish Open golf betting market.
The 2025 field also includes three-time major champion and crowd favourite Pádraig Harrington and Seamus Power.
International competition
Reigning champion Rasmus Højgaard is back for a title defence, which is a rare feat to pull off at the Irish Open, as it hasn’t happened since Colin Montgomerie achieved it in 1997. A good T5 at this year’s Open Championship could put Højgaard in good standing in Kildare.
The only two non-Europeans to have won the tournament since 2004 are the USA’s John Catlin in 2021 and Australia’s Lucas Herbert the following year. A star-studded trio of LIV players enter the field, one of them being Brooks Koepka, a five-time Major winner. Koepka is one of the biggest names in the field, despite lacking form for most of the year, and he tackles the Irish Open for the first time.
Other LIV Golf players turning up at The K Club this year are Sergio García and Tyrrell Hatton. There’s also a strong crop of younger players taking part, including Martin Couvra, Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra, Marco Penge and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, who have all won silverware this year.
Palmer North – course preview
Palmer North is the setting for the 2025 Irish Open. It is a spectacular inland links course, ranked as one of the top three in Ireland, and includes a potential round-breaking seventh hole guarded by water, and a monster 16th. Water is a huge feature of the course, as are the tempting par fives, which practically beg the bigger hitters to gamble. There are plenty of dogleg fairways on the Arnold Palmer-designed course, and the 18th is special as it is littered with bunkers and a green that is guarded by the lake. The links-style conditions are likely to play into the hands of McIlroy and Lowry.
Our expert predictions
There are many exciting storylines surrounding the build-up to the 2025 Irish Open. Will Rasmus Højgaard, who recently claimed the last automatic spot on Europe’s Ryder Cup team with a T2 at the British Masters, keep his hands on the title? Can an Irish player win it? The Open Championship 2025 in Royal Portrush was won by the USA’s Scottie Scheffler, so is that an indicator that the Irish Open title may be heading abroad? You can track along with all the latest odds at Tonybet, from the pre-tournament outright winner options to round winner bets and more.
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