Mount Juliet expecting good turnout for Irish Legends event
Adilson DaSilva poses with the trophy after a playoff during day three of the OFX Irish Legends in 2024. Pic: Phil Inglis/Getty Images
Two years on from a successful staging of the DP World Tour’s Irish Open, Mount Juliet Estate is starting to gear up for its next professional tournament, next May’s OFX Irish Legends.
The OFX Legends Tour trophy was proudly on display at the Co. Kilkenny resort on Tuesday as Mount Juliet Estate and the Marriott Business Council raised more than €30,000 for its charity partner Barretstown, an organization which provides free, medically supervised camps and programmes for children and their families living with serious illness.
Mount Juliet ambassador and touring pro Mark Power and celebrity illusionist Keith Barry, an ambassador for Barretstown were joined by 128 amateurs on the renowned Jack Nicklaus Signature Design golf course, which has played host to the likes of Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Rory McIlroy across two stagings of the American Express World Golf Championships and five Irish Opens, most recently in 2021 and 2022.
With Legends Tour officials set to visit the course on Friday for their first official pre-tournament visit, Mount Juliet Estate director of golf Matt Sandercock is hoping to welcome back a sprinkling of veterans from those events when the over-50s tour returns to the Thomastown venue for the first time since 1999 and he told the Irish Examiner: “It will be really good, and good to have the guys back on site, particularly given so many of them possibly played here in the Amexes, so it will be bringing a few memories back for a few players, which is great."
“It will be great to have a tournament back on site again after the Irish Opens,” Sandercock added.
"It’s always good to have that buzz around and everyone enjoys it, because it’s good fun the tournament world. Some people get a little bit scared of it but for us here, we’re made for this size of event here in the resort and everything here lends itself to a big tournament and a big name.”
Sandercock says compared to those post-Covid Irish Opens, he is expecting a more relaxed, more relatable golf for the spectators he hopes turn out next May 12-18.
“For us it’s going to be very different, a lot simpler, calmer experience and a really good experience for the locals, children, families. Ticket prices aren’t going to be anywhere near a high figure so it’s always good to get people coming in to see the golfers and experience it locally.
“It’s been brilliant in Rosapenna and Seapoint the last couple of years, we know we can host big events and the golfing public around us are really supportive, in Kilkenny, Cork, Waterford. We’re easy to get to so I’d imagine we’ll have a really good experience and a really good turnout, which will be great for the event.
“It’s going to be a nice way to kick off the season, we’ll be open the week before and the week after so people will get to play the same course as the Legends and it’s not set up to the degree of an Irish Open where the course becomes very, very tough for weeks on end in the lead up. It still remains playable.
“They’ll play off our main tournament, black tees, not the very back tees so it’s great that members and guests will actually be playing the same golf course as the Legends, only days later, which is always a nice experience as well.”
