Royal Portrush feeling the love from stars aiming to conquer it

Irish Examiner

16-07-2025

Stars. Stars everywhere. Even practice days are awash with the game's greatest at an Open Championship. You just can't walk a fairway or pass the putting green without spying a world-class golfer this week.
Some will inevitably dim and disappear before the weekend, but one seems guaranteed to shine, whatever the winner or the weather, because the love for the Dunluce Links course this first few days has been pouring in from all angles and accents.
'It's how the golf course flows,' said Robert MacIntyre. 'It's not so much the holes. It's not nine holes one way, nine holes the other way. There is everything on this golf course visually. It's obviously enclosed by the dunes either side. So you've got visuals off the tee.'
Scottie Scheffler might have summed the place up best, the world number one putting it succinctly. "Interesting, fun and fair,' he explained. This is not a lengthy brute like Carnoustie. It's not as brutally challenging to play as a Royal County Down.
The Dunluce is 7,381 yards of character playing to a par of 71, the surrounding dunes and spectacular Antrim coastline providing the backdrop on one end and the town of Portrush and its surrounds making for the wider canvas when you turn 180 degrees.
It's spectacular.
A prevailing west-to-northwest wind means that most of the holes play with a crosswind. Add in the 57 bunkers and the sort of undulating greens and false fronts that aren't everyday on a links setting and it makes for a challenging and changing test.
Scheffler's observations centred around his experience of the bunkers here. These aren't like some links traps where two players can play the same shot, one can have a great lie while the other has to play out sideways with one leg perched on a ledge.
Shane Lowry won here six years ago but he'd forgotten how well-bunkered the 18 holes actually are. Rory McIlroy went straight for the sand as well when asked for his perspective, and that cut to the heart of the mental gymnastics involved.
'It's like, okay, well, I can hit a 2-iron off the tee, but that brings this bunker into play. But then if I hit driver, it'll bring this bunker… So you have to take on the shot. You have to say, okay, I'm going to commit to hitting this shot and I just know I'm going to have to avoid…
'Like, some courses that we go to in the Open rota you can just take the bunkers out of play. You can lay up short of them or go beyond them. Here there's always one bunker or another bunker in play, so I think off the tee it provides a very, very good test.'
McIlroy's other observation was on those 'slopey' greens and how much movement they manufacture. Most of his putts at the Renaissance in Scotland last week were right or left edge efforts. Here he's seeing two feet of break.
The place has changed since its return to the Open rota.
The major differences were the elimination of the old 17th and 18th before 2019 and their replacement with the new 7th and 8th that had been transferred over from the Valley Course next door. Jon Rahm, another fan of the Dunluce, has his regrets there.
The Spaniard loved the old 17th in his amateur days and reckons his caddie Adam Hayes is sick of his reminisces on it already. But Rahm is still able to wax lyrical over the 4th and the 5th, the view of the coastline on the latter tee being a particular highlight.
Redesigns don't always find favour, especially when they are tinkering with courses with such long histories. MacIntyre, who played here in Home Internationals back in the day, said that the changes made here are 'as good as it gets' in the modern game.
'So many golf courses try to trick it up. It's a par-5 and a par-4. Par-5, from tee shot hitting down, bunker on the right, heading back up the hill with a wind that's normally off the right. Then you got onto a little shelf, then you hit across the top of the hill.
'I just think the whole golf course is absolutely beautiful to the eye but it also plays absolutely brilliantly. You've got holes that you've got a chance, and then you've got holes that you just try to hang on.'
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Added to all this are the usual vagaries of wind and links lies and tee times and the rest of it. Plenty of players will chuck out a predicted winning score ahead of tournaments but Lowry hadn't a clue what the needed mark will be come Sunday.
That's a very good thing.
What's remarkable when it comes to The Open is the long and illustrious list of American winners when links golf is a concept unique to Britain and Ireland. Three of the last four winners have been from the States. The other in that time was Australian.
What that proves is that familiarity with links golf is no guarantee for success. It never has been nor will be. The variations in terms of possibilities are too many and the ask, especially at a course like Portrush, are too many and different.
Sometimes from day to say and hole to hole.
'I think that's why this is an unbelievable venue,' said defending champion Xander Schauffele. 'It's everything. If you pick the correct club off the tee, you can maybe get away with a few loose drives, but then again, it's very lie-biased.
'Chipping is tricky. Greens are firm, and they're a little bit slower than what we played even last week. Thank goodness because, if they were faster, it would be even more difficult. Then putting: putting is always tricky with wind.
'There's some holes where the mounds cover the greens and some holes that are more exposed where the wind is going to affect the ball on the green. Whoever wins this week is an extremely well-rounded player.'