The 2026 Irish Open will be played from Thursday to Sunday at Trump International Golf Links Ireland in Doonbeg, Co Clare, with Donald Trump expected to watch on Sunday. For Thomas Higgins, it is the first professional event of his career after he just missed out on the Walker Cup team for Lahinch.
The timing matters because the tournament has landed at a course that will host an event the size of the Irish Open for the first time, and because Trump’s planned arrival brings a security operation that could reach 1,000 people, including up to 200 Secret Service officers. Rory McIlroy returns as the defending champion and is chasing a third Irish Open title, while Shane Lowry, Pádraig Harrington, Tom McKibbin and Séamus Power are among a 10-strong Irish contingent in the field.
Doonbeg itself has been part of Trump’s orbit for years. The course was designed by Greg Norman and opened in 2002 before Trump bought it in 2014 and rebranded it in his own name. Now it is set to stage the Irish Open at a scale it has never seen, with the weekend already sold out and tickets for the earlier days priced at €40 for Wednesday’s pro-am, €50 for Thursday and €60 for Friday.
The schedule also brings a television wrinkle. Coverage will run on RTÉ 2 on Thursday from 1.30pm to 7pm and on Sky Sports Golf, then begin at 9.30am on Friday, 2.30pm on Saturday and 1.30pm on Sunday, with some rounds moved to Sky Sports+ because of a clash with the Solheim Cup. That means the championship will not be watched in one clean block, even as the field starts in briskly stacked groups, including Thomas Higgins alongside Tom Vaillant, Jack Senior and Mark Power at 7.55am and 12pm off the 1st.
The sport’s bigger names are here too. Jon Rahm won the last time he played in the Irish Open in 2019 at Lahinch, Rasmus Hojgaard returns after winning at Royal County Down in 2024, and the field also includes Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka, Tyrrell Hatton and Bob MacIntyre. The winner will collect €880,000 from a total purse of €5.17 million, but the more immediate question is how the weekend will feel on the ground once Trump arrives in Ireland on Saturday night and the tournament becomes as much about access and security as golf.
For Higgins, the week is a personal milestone. For the Irish Open, it is a test of how a major domestic event works when politics, travel restrictions and elite sport all arrive at once in Doonbeg.
