It’s huge for the women’s game here and with Leona Maguire now likely to be relieved of the pressure of carrying the tournament on her shoulders thanks to the arrival of young pros like Lauren Walsh and Sara Byrne, the future looks bright.
It’s hoped that a new early July date, the week before the Evian Championship, could significantly improve the field. However, with the prize fund set to remain at €400,000, that could prove a challenge.
Maguire made waves at Carton House this year when she said the reason why she and Georgia Hall were the only members of the world’s top 50 taking part was because the prize fund was just €400,000 compared to the $3.8 million on offer on the LPGA’s FM Championship in Boston.
“It might sound harsh, but we’re only playing for a fraction of what the guys are playing for,” the Cavan star said. “We’re playing for four hundred grand this week. They’re playing for nearly $4 million in Boston this week on the LPGA, so it was a choice to be here.”
Maguire praised the quality of the venues used since 2022 and said KPMG’s support was key to making the event great again.
But she warned that the date and the prize fund must change to bring back the glory days of the Women’s Irish Open when all the big European stars took part.
“I think I’ve said this every year, but you just want that world-class field and both the purse and the schedule is a big part of getting that world-class field, which I feel like this event deserves,” she said.
While Carton House remains the front-runner to host the event again in 2025, the new date will have to do the work in terms of getting a better field as there will be no change in the purse.
Stephen King, a partner at KPMG Ireland, made it clear that drastically increasing the prize fund is not “sustainable” if the event is to survive and become a mainstay on the LET for another “10 or 15 years”.
“I think the change in date for next year, the week before the Evian Championship in France, will hopefully make things a bit easier to try and attract some other names as well,” King said.
“We obviously had Georgia Hall there this year. But if you’re aiming for some US-based players to come across and get acclimatised to the time difference, the week before the Evian is not a bad idea. It’s easier to get people to come a week earlier, we hope, than a week after.”
With Anna Foster and Annabel Wilson now in the pro ranks and Aine Donegan likely to follow, the home contingent will likely be far bigger in 2025.
Getting the star names is the challenge and while that often comes down to money, KPMG wants to spend its cash on make the tournament itself more attractive – and sustainable financially.
“Our initial inquiries with various people would suggest that they will be more amenable to it,” King said of getting the stars to travel.
“Obviously, no one’s finalised their itineraries as yet, but obviously, with Georgia Hall there this year, we would be very hopeful that we will make some good announcements in the run-up to it next year, and there’ll be a few other big names as well.
“The prize money is something we’ve obviously looked at, and we’ve been asked about as well.
“Our aim here is to build something that’s sustainable over a number of years, rather than having a one-hit wonder where the prize money is really high for a year and then there’s no Women’s Irish Open again for a long period of time.
“So we do hope to make progress over the next two years on it but the first three years were about putting in the foundations and stabilising an event that is going to be on a fixture list.”
Making the event a top-class one is key for KPMG, and much of the budget goes into ensuring the players are looked after and given excellent practice facilities, great food and other bells and whistles.
So while it’s nominally a €400,000 event, it costs closer to three times that amount to stage, which means significant commitments, not just from KPMG, but from “premium partners” Sports Direct, Amundi and Amgen as well as “host partners” Carton House, Failte Ireland, Forefront Group, Sport Ireland, Kildare Tourism and co-sponsors Hiscox, BMW, Novellus and Nespresso.
“If you’re comparing it with other LET events, it compares pretty favourably,” King said of the purse, which is the biggest on the LET outside the Majors, the co-sanctioned Scottish Open, the Armaco Team Series events backed by the Saudia Arabia’s PIF and the €700,000 season-ending Spanish Open.
“You can argue whether you’d prefer to have it all at the prize fund or prefer to have everyone looked after,” King said of the budget. “But we’ve gone with the idea we want everyone looked after as well, and the prize fund will hopefully follow.
“As I said, we want this to be on the LET calendar for the next 10 or 15 years rather than having a bump for a year when it’s not sustainable and falls off the cliff.
“We see the way things have gone over the last three years as positive, and hopefully, we will keep building on it over the next few years.”
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