Driving into the town of Portrush, host of this week’s Open Championship, you’re greeted by a mural on the entire wall of a house that features two things: a smiling cherubic face — albeit one with a bright, ginger beard — and the claret jug, one of the oldest trophies in golf.
The jug goes to the winner of the Open Championship, who is otherwise known as the champion golfer of the year. The face belongs to Shane Lowry, who won the Open in 2019, the last time it was played in Portrush, a seaside town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
What that mural captures is more than a victory. It captures elation. It was the first time the Open Championship, also known as the British Open, had been played in Northern Ireland since 1951, when the English golfer Max Faulkner won it. In 2019, Lowry was a native son who led the tournament for the final three rounds, prevailing on a misty Sunday evening over Tommy Fleetwood, from England, who finished six shots back.
Lowry, who grew up in Clara, in the Republic of Ireland, was then dividing time between Dublin and Jupiter, Fla. He was already established as a formidable golfer in Ireland and Europe. As an amateur, he won the Irish Open in 2009; it was the first event he played on the European Tour (now the DP World Tour) and it started his professional career.
A decade on, his victory in Portrush did more than just add another great Irish golfer to the list of Open champions, which include Rory McIlroy, Padraig Harrington, and Darren Clarke. His win shined a light on a town and a region that an international sporting audience had not seen on such a grand stage.
What was an initial boost to golf tourism, though, was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic the following year. Now, six years after that emotional win, the Open is back in Portrush, and the town is ready.
The course, the Royal Portrush Golf Club, was founded in 1888 as the County Club and received its initial royal designation in 1892 under the Duke of York. The club was renamed the Royal Portrush Golf Club in 1895, with the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, as its patron. It has a long history of hosting major golf events, and the town has become synonymous with great golfers. In addition to the 1951 British Open, the club hosted the British Amateur Championship in 1960. It was won by Joe Carr, from Ireland.
The 1960s were the start of the political violence between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles, and Portrush ceased to be a venue for major golf championships.
In 1993, the club again hosted the Amateur Championship, won by the Royal Portrush member and five-time Amateur champion, Garth McGimpsey. The club also hosted several Senior British Opens in the 1990s. And when the Good Friday Agreement that effectively ended the decades of violence in the region was signed in 1998, interest in bringing international golf tournaments to Portrush returned.
In 2012, the club hosted the Irish Open as an audition for the British Open. Two years later, Jon Rahm lost the Amateur Championship in the final round at Royal Portrush.
“When I started in 1999, the Open coming back here certainly wasn’t in the cards,” said Gary McNeill, the head golf professional who at the 2019 Open also played as a marker (someone who plays with the last place player when an odd number are in the field).
“Portrush had hosted the Open in 1951, and it was a big deal. It really was,” he said. “Then nothing had come to Northern Ireland for a variety of reasons, least of all the Troubles and the political unrest. After the Good Friday Agreement, there was a move to bring it here.”
He credits some of the great Irish champions with putting Northern Ireland back on the radar of golf’s governing body, R&A. McNeill singled out Harrington, Clarke and McIlroy for their Open wins in the 2000s as well as the Portrush-native Graeme McDowell, who won a U.S. Open in the same time frame.
“A whole lot of stuff had happened in a short period of time,” said McNeill. “The question kept coming up of the Open coming back to Portrush.”
While the quality of the course was well known, he credits how people were moved in, around and out of town to assure the security of the Irish Open in 2012. “It proved that the golf course could handle the crowds, but also that we had the infrastructure,” McNeill said. “We still have a railway line that comes in here.”
At the heart of Portrush, the town, is the area around the harbor, and at the center of everything is the Harbour Bar. It has been open about as long as the club. These days, it is chock-full of golf memorabilia, with signed flags and photos covering the walls and hanging from the ceiling.
Matt McAlpin, a scratch golfer and former European Tour pro, took over the bar with a family member eight years ago; their parents bought it in 2000.
“It’s been more associated with golf since I took it over,” McAlpin said. “I played junior golf with Rory. I’m good friends with Darren Clarke and Ricky Elliott, who is a caddy for Brooks Koepka.”
McAlpin, whose family owns a half dozen restaurants around the harbor, said the town knows what to expect this time and is ready. “Because we’ve had fans before in 2019, everyone is really, really well equipped,” he said. “The R&A has done a good job of organizing car parks and traffic.”
He’s hoping that this time around the enthusiasm from the Open continues. “We missed a bit of the knock-on effect because we went right into Covid,” he said. “We want this Open to go around the world, to bring more tourism. Portrush is a very traditional town. It has that traditional Irish hospitality, with the old traditional barmen. Great nightlife and sports. Beaches to walk. It’s not a man-made place.”
Royal Portrush is also very much in the British tradition of having a membership but allowing a limited number of guests to play for a fee. While those prospective guests will see a lot of the course during the broadcast, what they might miss is the feeling and nuance.
Matt McClean, 32, an optician who still plays high-level amateur golf and is a member, said he first played Portrush when he was 15 and later played it more often during his university golf career.
“It’s a big golf course on a big piece of land,” he said. “It’s a bit intimidating when you first play it. The shots are right in front of you. The greens are big. There are plenty of pin positions. I think it’s very fair if you drive it well, if you hit good shots into the greens. The defining factor is the championship length.”
In 2022, he won the United States Mid-Amateur Championship, which got him an invitation to play in the Masters and, he said, helped his application for membership at Portrush. “It certainly didn’t do any harm,” he said.
The biggest difference between member and professional play is the length — it’s over 800 yards for the Open.
“One of the things I love about Portrush is it’s a golf course for Portrush,” McClean said. “It’s obviously a very high-class golf course, but it’s a members’ golf course. It’s a big thing to have that sort of facility up in that area.”
“A certain percentage are overseas members, and a good number live in Belfast. But the core membership lives right there and they’re just very lucky to have a world-class golf course in their backyard,” he added. “They see it as their Saturday golf course.”
As for McAlpin, the restaurant owner, he’s eager for the enthusiasm of the fans to return — even if not everyone can fit in his restaurants. “We’re hoping for that outflow into the streets, that carnival effect,” he said.
A feeling matched by the mural of Lowry grinning ear to ear.
Paul Sullivan, the Wealth Matters columnist from 2008 to 2021, is the founder of The Company of Dads, a work and parenting site aimed at fathers. He is also the author of The Thin Green Line: The Money Secrets of the Super Wealthy and Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t. @sullivanpaul
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