Career Grand Slam winner and five-time Major Champion Rory McIlroy is looking to harness home advantage this week as he targets a second Amgen Irish Open title at The K Club.
The Northern Irishman secured victory on Irish soil for the first time as a professional at the County Kildare venue in 2016 after producing a stunning birdie-par-eagle finish to win the island of Ireland’s national open by three strokes, and he is hoping to double his tally as the event returns to the iconic Palmer North Course.
The World Number Two became the first European to win the career grand slam earlier this year when he added the Masters Tournament to his four previous Major victories at the 2011 U.S. Open, the US PGA Championship in 2012 and 2014 and The Open in 2014. The 36-year-old sits in pole position on the Race to Dubai Rankings and is looking to finish the season as European Number One for a seventh time.
McIlroy joins home favorites Shane Lowry, Pádraig Harrington and Séamus Power as a star-studded field assembles at the K Club, the host venue for the 2006 Ryder Cup, for the third of nine tournaments of the Back 9 phase of the 2025 Race to Dubai, as the end of the season comes into focus and it’s All to Play For.
Former Open Champion Lowry will also bid to win his national open for the second time after he claimed a memorable victory 16 years ago as an amateur on home soil at Baltray, and to date he is still the most recent amateur winner on Tour.
Three-time Major winner Harrington will make his 30th consecutive appearance in the Irish Open, having not missed an edition since his debut in 1996, while Ryder Cup Captain Luke Donald will also tee it up this week.
The Englishman made his Captain’s Picks at the start of the week, and will be joined by three of the 12 players who will make up his team in New York later this month – McIlroy, Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton.
Title Sponsor Amgen have once again partnered with the DP World Tour for the Birdies for Wishes campaign, with Amgen and the DP World Tour donating €300 combined to Make a Wish Ireland for every birdie or better carded by the field on the first hole during the four tournament rounds. The three Amgen ambassadors – Harrington, Lowry and Power – have also committed to the fundraising effort, pledging to donate €500 for every birdie and €1000 for every eagle they card during the week.
Player Quotes:
Rory McIlroy: It’s lovely to be back. I’ve got some great memories of the K Club. I came here to watch the Ryder Cup in 2006 with my dad and to win my only Irish Open here nine years ago. It’s got a lot of great memories for me, and hopefully I can add to them this week.
I guess this is the year that everything came together for me. It was basically the one piece of the puzzle that was left for me to complete. When I look at my career and my whole picture as a golfer, I basically, I’ve done everything I wanted to. I guess everything after that, it’s a bonus, but you have to reassess your goals.
Again, the one thing for me – obviously I’d love to win this week. I’d love to win next week at Wentworth. But the one thing for me this year to reassess my goals, an away Ryder Cup, after everything that’s happened this year, would be – I would look back on 2025, and there’s no way that I would – if I did have a better year in the game, I’d love to see it.
But if we were to win an away Ryder Cup with everything else that I’ve been through this year, 2025 would be the best year of my career.
Shane Lowry: I’m very excited. It’s good to be back here at a place I know pretty well. I get to stay in my own bed for a few days, which is nice. Things have been going pretty well and the week has been going very nice so far.
I’ve got an exciting few weeks ahead, starting with this week. I think, as a golfer, as an Irish golfer, as a European golfer, if I can’t get myself motivated and ready and up for what’s to come over the next month, starting with Thursday at the Amgen Irish Open, I should pack it in.
If we win the Ryder Cup in a few weeks, I don’t really care what’s gone on the rest of the season. It’s a big thing for me. Obviously, you go through the whole year and you’re trying to win and trying to play well and you’ve got lots of goals, but a big, big goal for me was win the Ryder Cup this year at Bethpage, and it hasn’t changed. As I get older, it’s getting even more and more important.
Séamus Power: I don’t get to play in front of Irish fans that often but when I do it’s always great. They’re cheering you on every step of the way. Seeing friendly faces and stuff in the crowd, it goes a long way. In the afternoon with a rough stretch or something like that, it will keep me going. I suppose it’s rare for me, so that makes it even more special.
It would mean everything to win this week. We were talking last night and going through Shane Lowry’s win at this event in 2009, and winning that, it would mean everything for me. I feel like in Ireland we really, really appreciate our own sports people. Golf is actually a sport that’s so popular now, and just to be part of the heritage of the tournament would be amazing. It would be a dream come true.
Luke Donald: This week is always seen as a great week in terms of the reaction we get from the crowds and the welcome. This morning I played nine holes and hearing all the “good lucks” and “go win at Bethpage,” that’s a good feel factor.
This is a different Ryder Cup. It’s a different challenge. It’s certainly a little bit of a goal of mine to create something unique again. I don’t want to just bring everything that I brought to Rome and do the same things. Obviously, there are lots of things that I felt like worked very well, and those will be implemented again, but there are new things to look at and new challenges and new strategies. Hopefully it’s still a Ryder Cup with different themes, different motivations for the players, and yeah, different strategies for success.
Pádraig Harrington: It’s hard to believe it’s been 30 years. When I started out as a young lad, I would never have expected that, never have dreamt that. It’s a really nice milestone. It took me a good few years when it came to this – I used to get very stressed at the Irish Open. There’s so much going on, you’re busy and you’re afraid of letting people down.
I kind of now know that if I go out there tomorrow and I smile and don’t get too stressed, don’t get angry or anything like that, I pretty much can hit any shot, and they’ll still like me out there and still give me a few claps. I’m a little bit more relaxed about it. I’d love to play well and compete, but if that doesn’t happen, I will wave to the crowd, smile and wave at the crowds and enjoy it.
When I won in 2007 it was the start and it was part of that cycle of me winning bigger events, bigger pressured events. Winning an Irish Open, I’ve always said the stress coming in feels like a Major. You tend to over-practice at your national open, just like every Major. It’s very hard to stand back and relax and let it all happen. 2007 was part of my process of getting better in the bigger tournaments and a steppingstone to winning those Majors in 2007 and 2008.
About the DP World Tour
The DP World Tour is the main men’s professional golf tour of the European Tour group.
As golf’s global tour, we showcase global talent in global destinations and use our platform to build, entertain and connect our global community.
GLOBAL TALENT: We provide pathways and a platform for the leading international talent, bringing together golfing icons, national heroes and emerging stars from around the world.
GLOBAL DESTINATIONS: We stage tournaments in iconic cities and locations around the world and each week we celebrate and showcase the rich diversity of the courses, cities and cultures we visit.
GLOBAL COMMUNITY: We build, entertain and connect communities through our commitment to innovation, creative content and having a positive social and environmental impact.
Our 2025 Global Schedule features 42 tournaments in 26 different countries and comprises three distinct phases: five ‘Global Swings’, the ‘Back 9’ and the ‘DP World Tour Play-Offs’. It features five Rolex Series events – the premium category of events on the DP World Tour – and four Major Championships, all of which count towards the Race to Dubai Rankings, the Tour’s season-long competition which concludes at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
DP World, the leading provider of global smart end-to-end supply chain and logistics solutions, has been the title partner of the DP World Tour since the start of the 2022 season, the Tour’s 50th season following its formation in 1972.
We also enjoy the support of many of the world’s leading business brands with DP World, Rolex, Aldar, BMW, Buffalo Trace Distillery, Emirates, Fortinet, Nexo and Vestas as Official Partners.
About the European Tour group
The European Tour group administers the DP World Tour, the HotelPlanner Tour, the Legends Tour and the G4D Tour and, as the Managing Partner of Ryder Cup Europe LLP, stages golf’s greatest team contest, the Ryder Cup, in partnership with the PGA of America.
The European Tour group has Strategic Partnerships with the PGA TOUR, the Sunshine Tour, the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia, the China Golf Association (CGA), the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO), the Korea Professional Golfers’ Association (KPGA), and the TATA Steel Professional Golf Tour of India. These partnerships provide global pathways for players from across the world to compete internationally on the DP World Tour, the main men’s professional golf Tour of the European Tour group which was established in 1972, as well as the HotelPlanner Tour.
