If you fancy playing a golf course that hosted an Irish open, what can you expect to pay? A fair amount. The average price of a green fee is €185.
Why is this? To start, these are well regarded courses if we are to judge by their rating on Tripadvisor. All these courses were rated above 4.5 by Tripadvisor out of 5 stars. The only 5 star rated course was Royal County Down which has been voted the number one golf course in the entire world in 2020 and 2021 by Golf Digest.
Hosting an Irish open is a huge honour which only 21 golf courses actually managed to do. This may be a factor that increases prices. These courses are listed in the table below.
Portmarnock Golf Links has hosted the Irish open an incredible 19 times, its closest challenger was Royal Dublin golf club which hosted the Irish open 6 times. Many of these golf courses were founded before the 1900s, with the average year of the golf course being founded being 1931. An interesting point is that there was never a course in the province of Connaught to host an Irish open.
In recent years, as can be seen towards the end of the table, the Irish Open has moved between venues. This has also coincided with the Rolex Series.The Rolex series started in 2017, with each tournament in the series having a minimum prize fund of $7 million.
*Sean is currently registered as an MSc by research student in Sports Economics at UCC. His masters thesis considers pricing models for Irish golf courses.