The Irish Legends has become one of the mainstay events on the Staysure Legends Tour calendar, but this week marks a new departure as it ventures north of the border for the inaugural Black Desert NI Legends at Galgorm Castle.
And Legends Tour CEO, Phil Harrison, believes that it has all the ingredients to be another wonderful event.
“It’s fantastic,” he said. “Coming here, with this golfing heritage, it’s great. It’s fantastic to have a venue of this quality and with a great sponsor like Black Desert, that’s icing on the cake.”
A high-quality field, headlined by former world number one and 1991 Masters champion Ian Woosnam is assembling, with the likes of 2024 Legends Tour Order of Merit winner, Adilson da Silva and numerous former Ryder Cup stars also set to tee it up.
And, to Harrison, that comes as no surprise.
“Talking to a lot of the players, the Irish Open was probably their favourite place to go and play because you always had great crowds, always had great golf courses, and always had great hospitality,” he said.
“And our tour is all about entertainment. Entertaining the supporters, entertaining the amateur players, and of course, putting on a great event for our professionals, both on and off the course. So I think going to the right venues – venues like Galgorm and the venues in the Republic of Ireland – is great and everybody will enjoy it… and the functions afterwards, of course.”
Galgorm Castle’s golf course has provided extremely stiff opposition in recent years, with Conor Purcell winning the Black Desert NI Open on the Challenge Tour circuit at -13 in 2024, Dan Brown winning by five at -15 in the ISPS World Invitational in 2023 having shot a seven-under on round one at Castlerock, and Alexa Pano taking the women’s bracket at -8.
But Harrison expects the scoring to be impressive when the Legends tackle it, providing the weather is somewhat cooperative.
“The standard of play on the Legends Tour still surprises me,” he said. “It’s really incredible how good these guys still are. Back in May, at a difficult golf course like Mount Juliet, they were shooting 65s, 66s, and 67s, and that was from pretty close to the back tees.
“The majority of these guys have great pedigree, whether from the European Tour in the past, or like the likes of Adilson who was successful and still competing on the Sunshine Tour and Asian Tours before joining the Legends Tour.
“So you’ve got guys like him, Australian Scott Hend, James Kingston from South Africa, and many others that give the tour a great international flavour as well and add a lot of value to it.”
While the Legends Tour might be officially based in Europe, it’s very much a worldwide affair, with Barbados, China, and Vietnam all hosting events prior to the season-ending MCB Tour Championship in Mauritius. And this is something that Harrison feels is crucial to the tour’s development.
“It is very much a global tour even though it started as the European Seniors Tour,” he said. “We felt that, looking at the European Tour and how it developed by going to the Middle East, Asia and all over the world, with co-sanctioned events South Africa, we thought we need to give our players the same opportunity.
“Plus it’s great for our brand, legends touring around the world. It’s a lot of traveling for our players and I get that, but at the same time it’s helped to elevate the prize money, give us the profile that we want as a tour and it seems to be working.
“Part of our business model is to go to beautiful, five-star, iconic venues because we’re trying to attract sponsors, market our TV package and so on, so the better the venue, the better for our brand.
“So, it’s not just the amount of tournaments or the prize money levels that we’re improving, it’s our venues too. That’s a big part of it and I think our players really respect that. In fact, Colin Montgomery who’s playing about five or six of our events this year, told me the main difference between the Legends Tour and the PGA Tour Champions is that our venues are way better.”
The Black Desert NI Legends kicks off with a Celebrity Pro-Am on Wednesday, featuring the likes of legendary jockey Tony McCoy, former Irish Rugby International Ian Humphreys, and Golden Globe nominated actor, James Nesbitt. And the tournament itself runs from Friday through Sunday.
Tickets are available at the following link, and all children under 16 are admitted free of charge.
