Irish PGA heads for Roganstown with charity element
Roganstown Hotel Golf and Country Club, venue for the 103rd PGA Irish Championship. Ireland’s tour stars might give it a miss but the €30,000 Cassidy Golf PGA Irish Championship will benefit a good cause when it’s played at Roganstown Hotel Golf and Country Club from October 10-13.
Set to clash with the European Tour’s Portugal Masters and the Frys.com Open on the PGA Tour, the 103rd staging of the championship will be sponsored by Cassidy Golf with the Down Syndrome Centre to benefit.
Staged at Mount Juliet last year when Waterville’s David Higgins beat Massereene’s Noel Murray and former European Tour player Gary Murphy at the third hole of a sudden death playoff, the move to the stunning Swords venue will help the Down Syndrome Centre with the establishment of its first facility in Dublin.
”The Down Syndrome Centre are delighted to have the opportunity to work with the Irish PGA for the next three years,” says founder Peter Gaw. ”We look forward to developing our relationship with the many members around the country and putting together schemes which will be mutually beneficial to the charity and the PGA.
“We are currently in the process of opening our first Centre in Dublin, which we hope will assist the Down Syndrome community in every aspect of their life and, I have no doubt, our relationship with the PGA will help us to do so.”
There will be a curtain-raising Pro-Am on Wednesday, October 9.
Roganstown was founded in 2004 and already staged a number of PGA events, including the Southern Branch Championship. It has also hosted GUI and ILGU tournaments.
As part of the agreement between Down Syndrome Centre and Roganstown, Ireland’s PGA Professionals are being asked to support a voucher scheme, agreed and arranged by Mr Gaw, from leading brand names and outlets with the vouchers being sold at distinctive discount to all amateur golfers.