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European Tour postpones Irish Open, scheduled for late May

The Irish Open has become the latest European Tour golf event to be postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The tournament was scheduled for May 28-31. There will now be no play on the tour until June at the earliest. The next possible tournament is the Trophee Hassan II in Morocco scheduled for June 4-7.

The Irish Open is one of the high-profile events that make up the tour's Rolex Series and had prize money of $7 million this year. It was due to be hosted by Graeme McDowell at the Mount Juliet Estate in County Kilkenny.

Regular tour events in Kenya, India, Malaysia, China, Spain, Portugal and Denmark have already been postponed or canceled.

European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley said: "We will continue to evaluate all aspects of our 2020 European Tour schedule, and discussions on the rescheduling of postponed events will remain ongoing until we have clarity on the global situation."