Irish golf fans have been told to "rest easy" despite no new date yet being confirmed for the 2020 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open.
The European Tour today gave a rundown of the six behind closed doors 'UK swing' events that will restart the season - beginning with the Betfred British Masters hosted by Lee Westwood at Close House from July 22-25.
It also presented details for four Rolex Series events that have been rescheduled.
The Irish Open - coincidentally due to take place at Mount Juliet this week - is not among that quartet announced, which are the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open (October 8-11), the BMW PGA (October 15-18), the Nedbank Golf Challenge hosted by Gary Player (December 3-6) and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai (December 10-13).
However European Tour CEO Keith Pelley stressed that rescheduling that event is high on his organisation's list of priorities and an announcement is expected within the next month.
“The Dubai Duty Free Irish Open is still absolutely critical and is very much part of our plans," claimed Pelley in a teleconference this afternoon. "I don’t want you to think that the Irish Open, because it is not part of this announcement is less important because that would be the wrong message.
“It remains hugely important to us, so much that we currently have three or four options for it - now, we could have announced it today, but it wouldn’t have been 100% and I didn’t feel comfortable with that.
“Like all of the events, there are so many variables that come into moving an event from one date to the other - title-partner support, venue support, government support, the best possible date for that particular tournament.
"In the case of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, Rolex’s opinion would come in.
“So there are so many different variables that come into it and now the next one that comes into it is travel and how we can ease the travel, and what date can be decided both before and after in order to minimise the travel.
“I think what was one of the really fascinating aspects when I was privileged to be on the committee with Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour and the four majors was, I think, the four majors found it very difficult to move one event.
"But to move 30 events, the only event on our schedule that hasn’t moved at this particular time is the Alfred Dunhill.
"So they’ve all moved and it’s very very tricky to move events - but rest easy, the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open is critical for us and we’re having all those conversations right now.
Pelley added that the European Tour's schedule from July to December has 24 events provisionally included, including the Irish Open.
"I wish we were announcing them all today but truly the complexity of the discussions, the health guidelines in different countries and negotiations with many different partners who are going through many different things made it not feasible at this time," he said.
"We’re getting really close. But I think within the next month we’ll be able to announce the schedule.
"I’m very happy with the schedule but there are still four or five key details to work out and confirm.
"Moving 30 events, only one still in place has been very challenging".
