Royal Portrush Golf Club Course Review

Royal Portrush Golf Club Fact File:

• Location: Portrush is 60 miles north of Belfast on the northern tip of the country
• Year Established: Portrush Golf was founded in 1888 as the County Club, four years later it became the Royal County Club and assumed its current name by 1895
• Par: 71
• Length (yards): 7,381
• Green Fees (weekdays): £420
• Signature Hole: The brutish par 3, Calamity Corner, is something else and requires a long iron of 230 yards
• Website: royalportrushgolfclub.com

Within the space of seven years the club went from The County Club to The Royal County Club to Royal Portrush in 1895. Harry Colt laid out the course as it is today, save for two new holes that were added by Martin Ebert ahead of the 2019 Open.

The course that we'll all be watching at the 153rd Open features the 7th and 8th as the new kids on the block with the old 17th and 18th making way for them.

There are two world-class courses at Portrush with the Dunluce sitting on the higher and more open ground while the Valley Course is also featured in many Top 100 lists.

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For years Max Faulkner was the outlier as the only winner to win the Claret Jug outside of Great Britain while Rory McIlroy did something very special at the age of just 16.

Padraig Harrington had held the course record for years with a 65, then McIlroy whipped round the Dunluce in just 61 shots during the qualifying rounds for the 2005 North of Ireland Championship.

Fast forward 14 years and The Open rolled into Portrush again, 68 years on, and Shane Lowry produced a week for the ages with a six-shot success.

McIlroy's race (79-65) was almost run after an opening eight before very nearly making the cut but Lowry was imperious all week and nobody else really got a look in.

Royal Portrush GC Course Review

Former Walker Cup captain Garth McGimpsey said that Portrush is a driver's course while County Down is an approach-shot test and it's easy to see why. 

Straight from the off everything is ahead of you, the 1st is a gentle opener despite the out of bounds on both sides and it eases you in. 

Then it catches alight at the brilliant 4th – 'Fred Daly's' – the 1947 Open champion who hailed from the town before the short dog-leg 5th, a risk-and-reward par 4, which features probably the most photographed bench in the game.  

The tougher holes sit on the back nine, with a host of lengthy two-shotters, and it's brilliantly bunkered. Brilliant for the fact that there are just 62 of them, fewer than any other course on the Open rota.

"The two things I noticed is I have a real appreciation for how well bunkered it is off the tee. I can hit a 2-iron off the tee but that brings this bunker into play. But then if I hit driver, you have to take on the shot. You have to say, I'm going to commit to hitting this shot. 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," explained McIlroy in his press conference.

The Masters champion also made a great point about the putting surfaces. While the likes of a Carnoustie have large, flat greens, this is not the case at Portrush.

"I'm always surprised when I come here how much movement there is on the greens. The greens are quite slopey here for a links course. You compare that to even Renaissance where I had a lot of putts that were like right edge, left edge, not a lot of putts that were really outside the hole that much. You get here, you're having to play two feet of break, or it's a little bit different than maybe what you face on some other links golf courses."

There isn't a single trap at the mighty Calamity Corner, the par 3 with the huge chasm to the right of the green. 

Here Bobby Locke would play it short and left all four days in the '51 Open and make four pars, Lowry played it the conventional way and was one under for the week. Get it wrong, go right and your ball may well finish 50 feet beneath the green, the more likely miss is left which leaves a nasty chip – in 2019 there were just 24 birdies all week.

There's a brilliant quote from Bernard Darwin on Portrush: "The challenge is unique. It's a course that tests not just your game but your ability to read the wind and land. It's truly magnificent and Mr HS Colt, who designed it in its present form, has thereby built himself a monument more enduring than brass."

That was written in 1951.

Final Verdict

What's it like to play Portrush?

This is a slightly strange one as most of us have got a fairly encyclopaedic knowledge of all the Open courses from over the years.

Now we have slightly fuzzy memories of 2019 and maybe the Irish Open before that. This is very much an Irish links and there aren't as many holes where the ball will feed in.

We all have a memory of Lowry's approach getting ever closer at the 10th on the Saturday but, generally, as we are shown immediately by the 1st hole, it's more of an elevated second-shot test.

Having played it once before and once after the changes it's hard not to admit that the new holes make it a much better course though you do wonder if we're all happy to repeat one another's opinions on how weak the closing holes were previously.

What did stand out was that the old 18th was the only flat hole on the course. Portrush will thrill you but only in smaller doses than some of its Open peers.

The 5th, from start to finish, is spectacular and you get some help from the land, elsewhere this isn't the case. The word 'honest' pops up a lot when reviewing links layouts and Portrush fits this very well.

It is very much a driver's course, you can see where you're going and the lack of bunkers means there will be a lot of putting from off the green.

If you are lucky enough to play Portrush it's almost impossible to be disappointed by the whole thing, it's consistently very special and you'll very few grumbles from the players.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

For more information, please visit the club's website here