{"id":54219,"date":"2026-08-22T05:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T05:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/54219\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T05:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T05:18:15","slug":"royal-county-down-golf-club-urged-to-hand-back-1-5-million-covid-grant-after-hiking-green-fees-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/54219\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal County Down Golf Club urged to hand back \u00a31.5 million Covid grant after hiking green fees \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Royal County Down Golf Club<\/a> has been urged to consider repaying a \u00a31.5 million Covid support grant from Stormont amid a significant hike in its green fees since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The Newcastle club received \u00a31,526,452 from the Sports Sustainability Fund in 2021.<\/p>\n

The payout was the largest single award made under the \u00a323 million scheme, which was designed to help sporting organisations in the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Visitors will pay \u00a3495 (\u20ac577) for a round of golf on the course in 2027, up from around \u00a3300 (\u20ac350) in 2022, a rise of 64 percent. <\/p>\n

\"Arrest<\/a>\"Jeffrey<\/a><\/p>\n

SDLP MLA<\/a> and leader of the Opposition Matthew O\u2019Toole, who grew up near the course, said the club should now consider handing the money back.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoyal County Down<\/a> is a major and amazing asset for the town of Newcastle and the wider area,\u201d he told The Irish News.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s consistently ranked one of the best golf courses in the world. It is an amazing place.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s true to say that it is exorbitantly expensive to play a round of golf there. Unless you have a connection or a membership, which vanishingly few people have, it\u2019s far beyond the means of most ordinary golfers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The South Belfast MLA said the scale of the grant was hard to justify given the subsequent fee increases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s defensible for a club which has gotten such a huge, significant sum from the taxpayer to have then ramped up their green fees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoyal County Down has increased its green fees more than virtually every other elite golf course on the island. In a context where they have used public money, that is uncomfortable, and I think they should consider their response to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should consider paying all or some of the grant back, to demonstrate to the public the worth of that grant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, the grant was heavily criticised by Stormont\u2019s spending watchdog. <\/p>\n

A June 2021 report by then Auditor General Kieran Donnelly found the club had a \u201cvery significant bank balance and a high level of reserves\u201d when it received the funding from the Department for Communities.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Toole said the \u00a31.5 million sum \u201crepresents the wages of many teachers or nurses or bus and train drivers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we all want to see tourism assets supported, that particular grant in retrospect is hard to justify when you\u2019re seeing the vast increase in green fees at Royal County Down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an elite institution which is completely closed off from ordinary people and ordinary golfers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The club said at the time that the grant would fund improvements to the course\u2019s drainage system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fair enough, they needed to change their drainage system,\u201d Mr O\u2019Toole said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut given the huge increase in green fees they\u2019ve instituted since, presumably they would have been able to pay for that new drainage system out of the increased green fees they\u2019ve been charging people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Opposition leader said the club could instead make a gesture towards ordinary golfers and struggling grassroots clubs<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are grassroots golf clubs all over the north that are struggling for members and struggling to invest, and there are other grassroots sports clubs in the GAA, soccer and cricket who really have to stretch to make ends meet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re doing a lot for participation, getting people into sport and supporting communities. So I would ask Royal County Down to reflect on what they\u2019re doing, not just in terms of the tourism impact for hospitality in the area, which is really important, but in terms of widening participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could think about offering some discounted rounds at different times of the year, or some other method of allowing people to see what the public has effectively invested in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not in any way attacking Royal County Down, it\u2019s a jewel in the crown, and I want to see them hosting more tournaments. I\u2019m just saying that given they have received this public money and they should think about how that looks to the public, particularly to the ordinary person who\u2019s struggling.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Royal County Down Golf Club was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Royal County Down Golf Club has been urged to consider repaying a \u00a31.5 million Covid support grant from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[591,20488,20490,2094,44,747,20489,13545,4089],"class_list":["post-54219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-business","tag-co-down","tag-covid19","tag-economy","tag-golf","tag-golf-course","tag-newcastle","tag-sdlp","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}