Royal Troon is set for its tenth staging of the Open Championship with six Irish hopefuls gunning for Claret Jug glory and some recent results in South Ayrshire suggest that someone might make a move into contention heading down the closing stretch.
Troon has been a happy hunting ground of sorts for our professionals, while Alan Dunbar reigned supreme at the 2012 Amateur Championship.
The Northern Irishman became the eighth Irish winner of the Amateur Championship. Dunbar won one of the most thrilling finals in recent memory defeating Austrian teenager Matthias Schwab by one hole.
Dunbar and Schwab exchanged the lead five times in the 36 hole final. Schwab led by 1 hole after the morning round but after 5 holes of the afternoon Dunbar was 2 holes ahead. However, Schwab was again 1 hole ahead with 2 holes to play, but Dunbar won the last two holes to gain a narrow victory.
Irish amateur success extends just under five miles up the road in Prestwick where Michael Hoey also won on the 18th in 2001, beating Welshman Ian Campbell in the decider.
Neither player managed to make a professional appearance in the Open Championship at Royal Troon while many Irish players before and after the pair’s Amateur Championship success have had some close shaves in this part of Scotland so can this week be the week an Irishman does a jig with the jug?
In the nine previous editions of the Open at Troon, Irish players have racked up seven top seven finishes.
Dating all the way back to 1950, the great Fred Daly carded a final round of 66 to take a share of third place on two-over, just three shots shy of eventual winner Bobby Locke. Daly pocketed a cool £87 for his efforts. Third place this week will collect just over $1.1 million.
Twenty three years later Christy O’Connor Snr claimed a share of seventh while David Feherty was sixth in 1989 but it was sandwiched between those editions that Ireland had its next great chance of ending a hoodoo here.
In 1982, the legendary Des Smyth finished just two shots behind Tom Watson in a share of fourth place, his best effort at the Open.
After Feherty in 1989 came the one that got away in Darren Clarke.
1997 saw Justin Leonard pull away to a three-shot win with a superb final round of 65 but sitting in a share of second place was Clarke.
Clarke was in a position to win his first major championship after he held the lead with American Jim Furyk after the first round and then pulled two strokes clear of the field after a 66 in the second round, but a third-round 71 put him two strokes behind leader Jesper Parnevik going into the final day and although he managed to bridge the gap and finish level with the Swede, Leonard had other ideas.
Pádraig Harrington also performed well that week, finishing in a share of fifth place.
While the above top-10s for the Irish can be categorised as near misses, Rory McIlroy’s share of fifth in 2016 wasn’t in the same postcode as Henrik Stenson who edged Phil Mickelson in one of the great major championship duels.
McIlroy finished a staggering sixteen shots behind Stenson and although he has had a number of near misses and heartache moments in major championships over the last decade, this was not one of them.
Can McIlroy gather himself after his US Open disappointment? Or will Shane Lowry, a much improved player since a missed cut here in 2016 and a major champion, come back fighting?
What of Harrington? Is this the week where he gives us one last back nine hurrah in a major and claims an unlikely third claret jug?
Or can debutants Liam Nolan (amateur) and Tom McKibbin spring a surprise?
The Irish record at Royal Troon is a very good one and proves that this is a suitable course for our horses but if there was a gun to Donald Trump’s head (again) he would have to side with the Americans who are looking for a seventh winner in eight Opens here.
