Kildare , Ireland – 2 September 2025; Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland during a practice round in advance of the Amgen Irish Open Golf Championship 2025 at The K Club in Straffan, Kildare. (Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
Sportsfile via Getty Images
In the annals of professional golf, the majors are the sure-fire blockbusters—globally resonant, historically revered, and able to draw the widest audience. By contrast, regular tour events are more like generics or biosimilars: reliably entertaining and essential to the calendar, but seldom command the same fanfare.
Nestled in the middle ground are the National Opens—well-regarded events steeped in tradition, fully capable of producing indelible moments that propel a player into golf’s top tier.
We start to get into the heart of the DP World Tour’s back nine stretch with the Amgen Irish Open, which tees off Thursday at the K Club in County Kildare. A $6 million prize purse is up for grabs at the Emerald Isle’s flagship golf championship, where the winner will pocket a tidy $1,020,000.
The shamrock nation’s golf championship will showcase myriad stellar shot-shapers in action headlined by six-time Race to Dubai title-holder Rory McILory, who earlier this season joined the Career Grand Slam club. The Northern Irishman, who clinched the title here back in 2016, leads the field alongside Team Europe Ryder Cup teammates Tyrrell Hatton and native son Shane Lowry, who triumphed in this tourney as an amateur in 2009. Waterford-born Séamus Power, who sports the title sponsor’s logo on his chest, will also draw outsized galleries.
Adding further firepower to the field are Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka and World Golf Hall of Famer Pádraig Harrington, ratcheting up the major victory tally represented to 16. The total could have been a smidge higher, had Sergio Garcia not withdrawn from the event, reportedly citing his chagrin at not being a captain’s pick for the Ryder Cup team.
National Opens received a prestige boost last month when Augusta National and the R&A announced new pathways for competitors to earn their way into the field of both organization’s marquee tournaments. Couched as bid to bolster international representation, the Masters and Open Championship is awarding invites to players not previously qualified who win select national championships. The winner of the Australian, Hong Kong, Japan, Scottish (merely formalizing a preexisting path) South African and Spanish Open will punch a ticket into both majors. Meanwhile, the winners of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Fall series of events no longer score automatic Masters invites.
While the Irish Open was snubbed from this latest National Open status upgrade wave, the golf-mad nation’s key event remains a highlight on the DP World Tour calendar, with venues that as usual stir a bit of wanderlust among golf travelers. This year’s stop at the K Club is no exception.”
Before the abbreviation stuck, the property was known as the Kildare Hotel and Golf Club. The 550-acre estate, which features a pair of Arnold Palmer designs, has held a baker’s dozen European Open tournaments but is perhaps most fondly remembered on the continent as the site of team Europe’s 18½-9½ drubbing over the United States in 2006 to complete their first Ryder Cup Three-peat—a feat the Euros would repeat from 2010-2014. The Golf Channel will air the Irish Open live from Thursday, September 4 through Sunday, September 7.