Limerick Golf Club to showcase course improvements by hosting 116th TouchStore Irish PGA

Pictured at the Irish PGA launch at Limerick Golf Club were, Ian Madden, MD, Supply Chain and Retail, Uniphar, Ger Cassidy, MD TouchStore, Marie McConn, Women’s Captain, Ivan Morris, Club President, Conor Dillon, Irish PGA Manager, Paul Bourke, Mens Captain, Lee Harrington, PGA Professional, Niall Collins, TD and James Crowe, Junior Captain. Picture: Alan Place

Limerick Golf Club will host the 116th TouchStore Irish PGA Championship from August 3-5.

It will be just the second time the Championship will be held at Ballyclough, 53 years after defending champion Jimmy Kinsella closed with a 66 and went on to beat Paul Leonard in a play-off to claim the second of his two domestic titles in 1973.

“I was an interested observer in 1973 when Jimmy Kinsella ‘caught fire’ during his last nine holes to make up eight shots on the field and join Paul Leonard in a play-off where Kinsella calmly holed an awkward four-footer to win on the first hole,” said club President Ivan Morris.

The 54-hole Championship will have a €60,000 prize fund, and defending champion Simon Thornton will be looking to match the great Michael Moran by claiming his fifth win.

Thornton, recently installed as the PGA in Ireland Captain for 2026, secured a wire-to-wire victory last year in Monkstown in a year in which he also won the season-long Elavon Order of Merit title.

He’ll face stiff competition from Irish golf’s top PGA professionals, including Limerick Golf Club’s own Tim Rice, winner of the Championship in 2017 and seventh last year.

The club will also stage the “1976 Memorial Scratch Cup” on 1 June to mark the 50th anniversary of its Senior Cup-Barton Shield double and give players a chance to play the course before it stages the Regional Senior Cup finals.

The club has spent €800,000 on the course improvements since 2024, building five new sand-based greens, improving drainage on six fairways and 25 of the 41 bunkers. It has also created a new par-three 16th, removing boundary issues.

The Championship will be preceded by a Pro-Am on August 2.

Sponsor TouchStore – a Limerick-based provider of pharmacy and Retail management software - has backed the event for 2026 only.