DID YOU KNOW? – DUBAI DUTY FREE IRISH OPEN HOSTED BY THE RORY FOUNDATION
• The K Club’s Palmer Course is staging the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Hosted by the Rory Foundation for the first time. This will be the first time the Palmer Course has been used for European Tour competiton since the 2006 Ryder Cup. The last official European Tour event on this course was the 2005 European Open.
• Should Søren Kjeldsen make a successful defence of the crown he won at Royal County Down in 2015, he would become the first player to achieve this feat since Colin Montgomerie in 1996-97.
• No Danish player has won the same European Tour event in back-to-back years.
• Shane Lowry’s victory as an amateur in the Irish Open in 2009 came on his European Tour debut. He was the first player to achieve this feat since Ben Curtis at The Open Championship in 2003.
• Lowry became the third amateur to win in European Tour history, following Pablo Martin Benavides (2003 Open de Portugal) and Danny Lee (2009 Johnnie Walker Classic)
• The Irish Open has a rich history of winners, dating back to 1927, the year it was first played. In all, 14 Major Champions have triumphed in the event. They are: George Duncan (1927), Alf Padgham (1932), Reg Whitcombe (1936), Bobby Locke (1938), Fred Daly (1946), Ben Crenshaw (1976), Hubert Green (1977), Seve Ballesteros (1983, 85, 86), Bernhard Langer (1984, 87, 94), Ian Woosnam (1988, 89), José Maria Olazábal (1990), Sir Nick Faldo (1991-93), Michael Campbell (2003) and Padraig Harrington (2007).
• Kjeldsen’s extra-time victory over Eddie Pepperell and Bernd Wiesberger in 2015 extended the event’s record for most European Tour play-offs – a total of 12 since The European Tour’s first season in 1972,
Should Jeunghun Wang win again this week he would win for the third consecutive event. He would join Sir Nick Faldo in 1983 (Paco Rabane French Open, Martini International and Car Care Plan International) and Seve Ballesteros in 1986 (Carroll's Irish Open, Johnnie Walker Monte Carlo Open and Peugeot Open de France), as the only players to achieve this feat in European Tour history.
• When winning the 1992 and 1993 Irish Open, Sir Nick Faldo created European Tour history by becoming the only player to win the same event in consecutive years, via consecutive play-offs. In 1992 he beat Wayne Westner and 12 months later defeated José Maria Olazábal.
• Thomas Björn’s 78 in the first round of the 2006 Irish Open matched the highest first round score by a winner in European Tour history. This was first established by George Burns at another Irish tournament, the 1975 Kerrygold International.
