Course Preview: Royal Portrush
Almost everything you need to know about The 153rd Open host.
One of the world’s most magnificent courses returns six years after successfully hosting the 2019 Open Championship. The links takes players on an epic journey with multiple unforgettable holes, no dull moments, sweeping views, and every imaginable shot will be needed to raise the Jug.
The Quad’s course preview is sponsored by Holderness & Bourne and will again highlight the history, design, biases, and other details to look for during The 153rd Open.
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Royal Portrush By The Numbers
71: Par
6,802—7,344—7,381: Yardages for The Open in 1951, 2019 and 2025
500: Total property acreage
1888: Year of the club’s founding
3: Names of the club (The Country Club, 1888; The Royal Country Club (1892-1894), The Royal Portrush Golf Club (1895-present).
5/12/1908: Date Royal title officially conferred on the club by King Edward VII
2016: Queen Elizabeth II attends a civic reception at the Royal Portrush clubhouse, Her Majesty’s first-ever official visit to any golf club.
7: Architects with a hand in the design (Old Tom Morris (1889 expansion to 18 holes), Sandy Herd/Ben Sayers (1909), H.S. Colt (1929-33), P.G. Stevenson & Sir A. Babington (1946, current 8th and 9th holes), Martin Ebert (2013-Present).
78’: Highest elevation in relation to sea level (No. 3 tee)
23’: Lowest elevation (No. 7 fairway)
2016: New 7th and 8th holes opened for play
63: Revised course record score (Shane Lowry (2019))
The Evolution of Royal Portrush
Old Tom Morris stopped in to find 18 holes a day after he visited Royal County Down. Since then, Portrush has been a story of constant evolution. Holes have been massaged, replaced, and reimagined due to factors ranging from lost leases to chasing the needs of a modern Open. Through it all, Royal Portrush has managed to get better.
Starting with H.S. Colt’s extensive reworking of the two original courses, holes added over the years have gradually moved from the town toward the beach, culminating with the addition of new seventh and eighth holes to accommodate the needs of the 2019 Open. They replaced two finishing holes on less exciting land. But also meant saying goodbye to the old 17th fairway’s Big Nelly bunker, which was re-created on the new seventh).
Holes 1, 3-6 - H.S. Colt
Hole 2 - H.S. Colt & Martin Ebert
Holes 7 & 8 - Martin Ebert
Hole 9 - H.S. Colt
Holes 10 & 11 - P.G. Stevenson & Sir Anthony Babington
Hole 12 - H.S. Colt & Martin Ebert
Holes 13-18 - H.S. Colt
While the Ebert work prior to the 2019 Open was not as extensive as Colt’s makeover, Royal Portrush did get five new greens, eight new tee boxes, 10 new bunkers, and two new holes that became Nos. 7 and 8. Maybe the best part of all this? The world-famous Calamity became par-3 16th. Putting one of the most thrilling one-shotters near the round’s end only seemed to make it more popular (except to the field, which only made 24 birdies over four days, the least of any hole in 2019).
What Worked Last Time
Advanced statistics weren’t around for Max Faulkner’s 1951 win at Royal Portrush when Fred Carr was the home favorite. But 68 years later, and after Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy fell by the wayside, Shane Lowry emerged with a dominant, six-stroke winning margin. Following rounds of 67-67-63, the 32-year-old set a new 54-hole scoring record for The Open. He went around Sunday in a 72 under cold, windy conditions to finish 15-under-par. Lowry had enjoyed little recent form in The Open by missing his previous four cuts. (Since winning at Portrush he’s gone T12-T21-MC-6.)
A total of 29 players finished under par for the week (just nine did so last year at Royal Troon.) Rain softened the course to produce a record nine-hole score. Ryan Fox posted an opening round 29 coming in to set an Open record for lowest second nine. Fox made six birdies in a seven-hole stretch starting at the 12th. That was particularly stunning since the back nine featured four of the most difficult holes by rank including the 11th, 14th and 16th:
Don’t be fooled by the red numbers. Lowry won a war of (GIR) attrition. As with any major winner, he dominated with solid skills in every department but lapped the field by hitting more greens than anyone. According to the stats summary, only 13 players hit over 50 greens for the week, led by Lowry’s 57 (despite only hitting only 35 of 56 fairways.
Hint to hopefuls: greens, greens, and more greens in regulation.
Stats summary for the leaders:
The hole locations for the four rounds:
Since 2019
Compared to the many bunker additions, new greens and expansion of putting surfaces, the work this time around has been quite minor. The newly-added seventh green has since been modified and an additional 37 yards has been added, primarily at the fourth and seventh holes, with a notable reduction at the 14th.
Other notable changes detailed by Brian Keogh at the Irish Golf Desk and summarized here:
New front left pin position at the first hole after raising the front left of the green by four inches.
Mounding left of the second and right of the 12th green to discourage players playing the 12th from bailing away from the burn.
The fourth hole received a new tee.
Land acquisition to the right of the fairway to protect its boundary from future development.
The new Dunluce Lodge (unconnected to the club) is now right of the fourth green. It is owned by the U.S.-based Links Collection Capital.
Softening of the seventh green into a two-tier surface.
Fifteen yards added to the seventh with hopes of bring the (New) Big Nelly into play. Now it’s 316 yards to carry instead of 301.
Minor leveling work in the seventh and eighth fairways to eliminate collection areas and “divotting.”
New tee on the 14th shortens the hole by seven yards but moves to the right.
New tee at the 15th moved left to accentuate dogleg and blind carry over sand area reintroduced prior to the 2019 Open.
Portrush Agronomy By The Numbers
Storm Darragh created an unwelcome invasion of beach sand for Course Manager Graeme Beatt. The December 2024 “extratropical cyclone” covered the fifth and sixth holes in sand from nearby dunes. The sand reached as far as the elevated fifth tee and seventh tee. Beatt, in his 11th year, hopes to have the course to be drier than last time.
“Be nice to see the course kind of burnt up a bit this time,” he said. “Whereas last time it had torrential rain and then it was quite green on TV. It wasn’t really how I pictured it looking. So I think, this time it would nice if it was that little bit drier, but we still want some wind to challenge the players.”
The spring was very dry before the rainfall returned to normal.
Beatt said the rough will remain healthy, particularly after the recent rains.
Beatt has a permanent green staff of around 30 for the property encompassing the Dunluce, Valley, and The Skerries (pitch and putt). Another 16 or so volunteers from will join the crew, with bunkers raked during competition by the BIGGA Volunteer Support team walking with the groups.
75%: Percentage of fescue in greens, most of all Open venues
.157’ (4mm): Green mowing height
3.75 mm: Height greens were cut in 2019
5.400 sq. ft: Average green size
10 feet: Expected Stimpmeter speed (Slowed to 9 fee 11 inches for 2019 final round due to wind forecast)
.236” (6mm): Tee cut height
.315”: Fairway cut height
22: Acres of fairway
2” (50mm): First cut of rough, approximately 2 yards wide
59: Bunkers (raked Melbourne style)
2: Holes with internal out-of-bounds in play (first, 18th)
5: Holes with out-of-bounds in play (first, second, fourth, fifth, 18th)
2: Streams
1: Stream in play(ish) between the 12th and 13th (piped under fairway ☹️)
1: Golf course dog named Bella (a beagle)
Bernard Darwin On Portrush
From his 1951 Open story:
It is truly magnificent and Mr. H. S. Colt, who designed it in its present form, has thereby built himself a monument more enduring than brass. The course does not disdain the spectacular, such as the one-shot hole called Calamity Corner, with its terrifying, sandy cliff and its gadarene descent into unknown depths to the right of the green; for the most part the course does not depend on any such dramatic quality, but rather on the combined soundness and subtlety of the architecture. There is a constant demand for accuracy of driving, the more so at present as the rough is really worthy of its name and the approaches are full of varied interest. In particular there or two holes of the despised length called a ‘drive and a pitch’ which are entirely fascinating, such as the fifth, with its green almost on the brink of the sea, and the 15th. The greens are full of interesting undulations and altogether I find it hard to imagine a more admirable test of golf.
GANP Questions
Golf Architecture For Normal People presents three questions revolving around the most vital design questions that help make it easy to assess a course.
👨🏻🏫 Remember all the holes after you play? The course goes out playing uphill and out to the cliffs and starts with a series of unforgettable shots culminating at the 5th green. It then meanders down into the dunes for the new 7th and 8th with the White Cliffs in the distance. The stretch of Nos 9-10-11 play through a different portion of some less extreme-but-still-interesting dunes, before the 12th to 15th keep the change of direction just diverse enough to be exciting. Then comes the big finish, starting with the epic Calamity. Only quibble: the par-5 12th feels a little too much like some holes in its stretch and would be more exciting if a natural stream were allowed to front the green instead of getting piped under. On your first time there, the bartender could ply you 12 shots of Bushmills and you could still pass a quiz question explaining the routing while remembering the design twists of every hole. (10/10)
😄 Could you play it every day and enjoy it? Shane Lowry and a few others may have scored well, but the dispersion of scores in 2019 reinforced how crew Royal Portrush can be. Then again, if you want less intense golf, the club offers the Valley and Skerries Courses. So in an everyday sense, that could make the difficulty factor more tolerable, as does the variety of shots called upon and the constant changes of direction, which rarely leave you playing into the wind for anything longer than a three-hole stretch. The course offers a nice mix of classic links holes, a few extreme dunesland holes, and a few all-or-nothing moon shots, particularly at the four par-3s. Played from the proper tees, the par-4s are more character-rich than tests of launching. The par-3s offer a good mix, even if one of the two front nine short holes would really mix things up better played shorter. Neither would get “easier.” There is a one-point deduction for the frustratingly chintzy internal O.B. that has no place on such a regal design. (9/10)
🦮 Is this a place you’d want to take your dog for a walk? Portrush is going to get you and Hooch plenty of exercise. The views, changes of directions, and unusual-for-a-links flow of few holes high above to start offers a tease of what’s to come. That’s not always necessarily compelling and could even make the walk in the park feel like it peaks early. It does not. Some of the few pronounced features on the two new holes have been softened to better match the H.S. Colt era and make the underfoot feeling seem more natural. The course is GEO Ceritifed, so the native plant material matches the surrounding sense you are at a place like no other. Despite the grandeur, the course still feels connected to the town just enough to remain neighborly while still sending you out on an otherworldly adventure. (10/10)
Watch
The Fried Egg’s Portrush film:
Thanks again to H&B for supporting the fourth of six Course Previews this year.
Well done Geoff. As always, your links lead to wonderful rabbit holes.
One quibble = a course rating for normal people should ask if normal people can afford to play there. When the greens fee is > than the Old Course and > my annual dues at home (Fortrose & Rosemarkie) the answer is in the neighborhood 4/10.
Thank you for this comprehensive preview, Geoff. My dad and I are flying from the States to Ireland for our first Open and am beyond excited. Your preview raised the level of anticipation by quite a bit.