That is just one of the arresting statistics from Tourism NI, which has given a breakdown of some of the numbers behind the upcoming Open contest in Portrush. The News Letter spoke to John McGrillen, the CEO of the body, about who will be coming to watch the competition, how much it is all worth to the Province, and about it the fact it is his own final career milestone. It is the second time the competition has come to Portrush, the last time having been in 2019, and "we now have the benefit of hindsight for this event," said Mr McGrillen. Effectively, Tourism NI's job was to chair an "organising committee" including government departments, police, ambulance, local hospitals, and Royal Portrush Golf Club itself. "The detailed planning and execution of it really did commence almost 12 months ago," he said, though there had been "high level" planning before that. "There were some changes made to the golf course for example to allow it to be a little bit more challenging and to allow more people onto the course so we could have a greater number of spectators there to enjoy it," he said. Nonetheless, there was never any chance of being able to cater for the sheer level of demand for the competition: almost four people applied for every one ticket that was available. In the end, 278,000 day tickets were sold to about 140,000 people. And where are those people coming from? "Just less than half" of ticket sales were to people living in Northern Ireland, he said. Much of the rest were sold to people from GB and the Republic, whilst "America makes up about one-fifth of the number of people coming" from outside Northern Ireland. He does not know the furthest-flung place from which tourists will come this year, but said that during The Open in 2019, "tickets were sold in virtually every county in the world, and the furthest-flung place was an island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean". For comparison, the number of tourists typically coming to Northern Ireland in 2024 was about 3.1m (of which 1.4m are from GB, 1.1m are from the Republic, and about 570,000 are from elsewhere). HIGH NET-WORTH VISITORS WITH PRIVATE JETS: "Part of this is trying to promote Northern Ireland as a golf destination all year round, so it's not just about getting people to come as spectators to this event – it's also about having people come then be encouraged to come back,” said Mr McGrillen. "Typically a golf visitor, say they're spending £1 on green fees – they're typically spending £4 somewhere else over and above what they'd spend on the golf course.” He said that a typical golf tourist would be expected to spend perhaps three to four times “what an average leisure visitor would”. "So they are very high value. Many of these people are coming from the United States, a lot of them are high-worth individuals. Quite often these people might come in their own private jets, you know – that's the nature of that segment of the market. "It is really lucrative. And the value of golf tourism here has more than doubled over the last 10 years. "In fact, the amount of money spent by golf tourists here has gone up by 66% since The Open was held back in 2019, and it's worth around 86m quid per year." He said that there is a team within Sheffield Hallam University that routinely tries to work out the value of major events like the Euros and the Olympics. "They reckon the direct economic benefits of those people coming [for the Open] to be around £63m," he said. "But the media value beyond that, in terms of if I were to go out and buy the media coverage that we get, would cost in excess of £150m." Whilst he would not say how much the Northern Ireland government has put towards the event (on the grounds of commercial confidentiality) he said "the return on investment for us on this is huge". What about the pressure he feels to get everything right? "I've been in senior jobs for the last 30 years, so I've sort of got used to it,” he said. "But I think it'd be fair to say we feel a very significant level of responsibility to make sure this gets delivered and is as successful as it could possibly be. "If anything, I'd say there was more pressure the last time round, in that we hadn't done it before. "I think we'd be somewhat more confident what it's going to look like this time… "Quietly confident. You don't want to be overly confident." GOLFING HEALTH SCARE: It was while playing golf that Mr McGrillen recently had a massive health scare. He has been in post for 10 years, and will step down after The Open, on August 1, aged 63 (though he prefers the term "going to do other things" over "retiring"). His preparations for The Open however were interrupted by a triple heart bypass – something which, he stressed, “has nothing to do with” pressure of the event itself. He had been at Spa Golf Course, outside Ballynahinch, when he felt unwell. "I stupidly played on,” he said. "I played the full round of golf, then afterwards thought to myself: hmm, that wasn't really that smart. I didn't feel really well there, I should just go and get myself checked. "And I was told: looks like you need a triple bypass.” Mr McGrillen’s own father had died of a heart attack aged just 48, but “never in a million years did I expect I was going to be told what I was told” when he had gone to get looked at. "If I hadn't gone to hospital, I probably would have had a heart attack,” he said. "And if I hadn't had the bypass, who knows what that may have brought." He told the News Letter: "I've been here 10 years. I think an organisation needs a change in leadership every 10 years or so. "I've got other things I want to do in life, and if I don't do them now, I'll never get to do them. So I thought you couldn't pick a better time. "What I didn't expect was having to spend two and half months off just before with a health issue, but these things happen.”