Royal County Down Golf Club in Newcastle, Co Down, has submitted a planning application for a major upgrade of its championship course, prompting speculation that the club could bid to host the Open in future.
The club is working with Mackenzie & Ebert, the architects who worked at Royal Portrush before the 2019 and 2025 Opens and at Royal Birkdale ahead of this year’s Championship. The plans also use the same planning consultants as the Portrush project.
The proposals include new and adjusted tees, new bunkers, reshaped fairways, alterations to greens and re-profiling of the duneland. Sand for the work will come from existing areas of the property. The changes on the Championship course focus on holes 1, 3, 5, 11, 12, 16, 17 and 18. They include three new tees on the first, a new green on the fifth, and more extensive work on the 16th and 17th, where tees and fairways will be remodelled and the 16th green reshaped. The application also covers the club’s Annesley course.
The planning statement says the aim is to “significantly upgrade the course” to reflect the club’s status as one of the best in the world and a major golf tourism asset for Northern Ireland. It adds that the changes would help the club continue to attract and host large events, building on the 2024 Amgen Irish Open, which drew around 70,000 spectators.
The application also sets out the economic case. The club says it attracts about 10,000 international visitors each season, which makes it one of the most significant tourism drivers in the Mourne area. It cites independent research for the R&A and Tourism Northern Ireland putting the economic impact of last year’s Open at Royal Portrush at £89.2m, with a further £191m in destination marketing value. The construction phase itself is expected to bring only modest economic gains.
The plans have already been through a public consultation and will now go to the planning committee of Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. Subject to approval, work could begin in the 2027 off-season.
The state of the course is only one of the factors in staging the Open. The R&A also needs evidence that a venue has the infrastructure to host tens of thousands of spectators safely, and capacity and logistics have so far kept the Open from Royal County Down.
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