Adare Manor to be confirmed as host of 2026 Ryder Cup

Adare Manor in Limerick will be officially confirmed as the venue for the Ryder Cup in 2026 on Thursday morning.

The PGA European Tour has decided that the golf resort owned by financier JP McManus will host the blue riband event, some 20 years after the event was held for the first time in Ireland, at the K Club in 2006.

The decision is contingent on the Government signing a memorandum with the PGA European Tour as well as a licensing and marketing agreement. It has also agreed to make funding available to support the biennial event, which involves matchplay between the top golfers from Europe and the United States.

Minister for Sport Shane Ross will seek approval for the arrangements at the last Cabinet meeting before the summer recess, which is being held in Co Donegal.

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Once that approval has been given, Adare will be officially confirmed as the venue for the event.

Discussions

It is understood that PGA European Tour officials first approached the Government last autumn to discuss holding the event in Adare.

Mr Ross attended a meeting in Paris last September. There was a subsequent meeting in Ireland in November, involving the PGA European Tour, Mr Ross and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Adare Manor was one of several venues vying to hold the tournament, which has a TV audience of close to a billion people.

The 2018 Ryder Cup in Paris had an attendance of 270,000, which made it a bigger live event than last week’s British Open in Portrush, attended by 237,000 spectators.

The other leading contender was The Belfry in Warwickshire, which has hosted the event four times, the most recent in 2002. That course has also had a major upgrade.

The Ryder Cup will be held in Whistling Straits in Wisconsin next year, before returning to Europe in 2022, where it will be held in Rome.

While the level of investment by the Government has not been disclosed, sources said the return for the investment for hosting this prestige event would be enormous.

In all, there will be 5,000 hours of broadcasting around the event, and it could be worth €90-€160 million to the Irish economy. The event will also be a significant publicity platform for tourism in Ireland, particularly the lucrative golf and sport tourism markets.

Mr McManus has campaigned publicly in the past year for his golf resort to host the event.