Every Hole at Royal Portrush Golf Club – 2025 British Open | Golf Digest

Every Hole at Royal Portrush Golf Club – 2025 British Open | Golf Digest

[Music] The Open Championship has been contested for over 160 years, but on only three occasions has it been played somewhere other than Scotland or England. Each time in 1951, 2019, and 2025, it’s gone to just one place, the Dunloose Lynx course at Royal Port Rush in Northern Ireland. Opens held at Royal Port Rush hit different. The dunes seem bigger, the contours wilder, the colors more intense. Fairways pitch and zag through tall, shaggy sand hills, making turns along the north Atlantic bluffs. Port Rush is visually stunning, but extremely demanding. It is the essence of Lynx Golf in the Emerald Isle. This is every hole at Royal Port Rush. Few opening holes in Major Championship Golf are more frightening than the first at Royal Port Rush. with out of bounds both left and right. Even drives placed safely in the fairway face an uphill shot over a cavernous bunker to a rolling green that plummets away on the left. In the 2019 Open, local favorite Rory Moy, who once shot 61 here as a junior, pulled his opening T-shot out of bounds, then took an unplayable lie left of the green on his approach and walked off with an eight, later missing the cut by a stroke. Port Rush’s par 5 second hole makes even the longest players grind through difficult choices. OB threatens the drive on the right and pot bunkers form a gate in the fairway at 290 yd. Three more deep bunkers in the second landing zone set up a go no-go decision and a new green built in 2016 by British architects Martin Eird and Tom McKenzie 40 yard beyond the original tapers left off a large dune. The green may be reachable in two for some, but plotting through the hazards in three shots is the prudent strategy for most. [Music] The high tea at the par 33rd gives players a commanding view of the Dunloo course, named for nearby Dunloo Castle, the ancient home of the Lords of Antrum. The shot plays to a green that sits up above its surrounds. This is quintessential port rush where offline shots tumble into bowls and bases below the surface, leaving touchy little recovery shots. Shane Lowry found the green and birdied the hole in the 2019 Open, kickstarting his defining Saturday course record 63 that gave him an insurmountable four- stroke lead going into the final round. Out of bounds lurks along the right edge of the fairway at the long par4 fourth. Now playing over 500 yd, the fairway is a sea of humps, hollows, and two bunkers nervously edging into the field, pushing T-shots toward the boundary. The greens at Port Rush alternate between open and exposed like the third and others like the fourth tucked into the surrounding dunes. The close coziness of this putting surface partially hidden behind two high fronting mounds belies the demands of this monstrous hole. The par4 fifth moving toward the ocean has long been one of Irish golf’s most beautiful walks. The T-shot beckons you to cut the drive across a desert of sand hills and long hitters can reach the green, though they must be wary of two flanking pot bunkers and a deep pit on the right. The slender stepped green recently expanded at the rear teeters on the edge of the Atlantic cliffs. And on a clear day, golfers can see the western regions of Scotland across the sea. Shane Lowry birdie this hole all four rounds in 2019. [Music] Compared to most courses in the open rotation, Port Rush has few bunkers, less than 60 overall, and its primary defense is ground contour, penal rough, and brilliantly shaped greens. At the sixth, bunkers aren’t needed since missing the valley short or into the depressions left to right leaves the kind of awkward recoveries that are often more difficult than sand shots, nibbling away strokes from even the best players. Golf at Royal Port Rush dates to 1888, but the current Dunloo course was created by architect Harry Colt in 1932 with new holes dogging through unused dunes northeast of the existing layout. Major changes came again before the 2019 open when architects McKenzie and Eert lengthened and remodeled the course, adding bunkers and tweaking several of the crowned greens. Colt’s original 17th and 18th holes on the opposite side of the clubhouse were replaced by two newly constructed holes over portions of the club’s valley course as well as an inviting section of Virgin Dunes. The first of these new holes named Curran Point was slotted into the routing as the seventh, a par five plunging along the foot of the site’s steepest sand hills with a gaping fairway bunker on the right that replicates the old big Nelly bunker that once framed the drive on Colt’s abandoned 17th. The fairway snakes upwards through the valley, tightening toward a green benched into a circular amphitheater with plateau and swale contours designed to emulate the rolls of Port Rush’s other putting surfaces. [Music] The new Atoll is another fierce addition to the Port Rush routing, doubling back in the opposite direction of seven. It was carved out of a field of sandy moguls that were melted down to form a playable fairway. And strong players will try to cut the corner in certain winds to set up short pitches into the green. This is another colt inspired exposed putting surface that slips off into hollows, including a particularly penalizing drop on the left, so careful approaching is mandatory. Royal Port Rush is one of championship golf’s great driving tests. If you don’t put your ball in the fairway, you won’t score. [Music] The par4 9th, formerly the seventh, begins a three-hole stretch of robust two-shot dog legs that loop through the heart of the Dunloose routing and put extreme emphasis on driving accuracy. Players must pick an aiming spot over the corner of the blind fairway and fit the ball between the rough and bunkers. Aside from the carveout short right, the green is low and subtly contoured, gently tapering at the edges to accept run-up shots if necessary. The mid-length tenth, switching directions back toward the bluffs and bending hard to the right, was added by a club professional during a reconfiguration in 1939. While not an original, it still demands the kind of strategic calculation Colt was known for. A conservative drive leaves a longer blind approach over the corner, but the view of the green opens to those who risk pushing driver farther into the narrows. The seductively shaped green crafted by McKenzie and Eert presents accessible hole locations in the front with rear pins snuggled into a pocket of dunes. The four most difficult holes during the 2019 Open came on the second nine, beginning with the 11th, the toughest that played to a stroke average of 4.35. A par five for members, it’s a par4 during the open with the tightest T-shot on the course that must be threaded through fescue hummocks with no bailout. Though long players can drive over the corner in normal conditions, the approach across a deep valley that years ago contained a drainage berm is equally exacting since the slope of the land and the green’s false front will send any shot coming up short rolling back down to the bottom of the basin. The fairway bunkers on most links courses typically set off to the sides to catch offline drives or those swayed by the wind. At Port Rush, they tend to live inside the fairway lines, like at the short par 512th, bottling down the already narrow landing strip to a mere 22 yd. The hole moves straight over mild terrain and with little danger around the convex pinehurstike putting surface other than a small water canal lurking short right. You can get an aggressive second shot on or near the green if drives can find the fairway. This was the easiest hold in relation to par during the previous open. The downhill 13th continues to advance Royal Port Rush’s case for having one of the best sets of par 3s in all of golf. Playing off a high shelf, the T-shot drops nearly 100 ft to a gorgeous green surrounded by five deep bunkers. Whole location matters. The green falls away slightly toward the back, so it’s difficult to get shots close to front flags, especially a newly expanded front left position. This was the only green from the original layout that Harry Colt kept. The personality of a golf hole is sometimes defined by a great or fearsome hazard. That’s the case at the par414th, where a 10-ft deep bunker left of the green impacts the thinking all the way back to the tea. The problem on the approach is the threat of the bunker, but also how the narrow green pours shots into it off the left edge and repels shots away from all the edges. So, the effective size of the putting surface is about 70% of the actual size. This made the 14th the hardest screen to hit in 2019 and only fractionally less difficult than the 11th. [Music] Heading back north into the big dunes, the 15th gets its name scaries from the rocky islands visible off the coast. The drive uphill to the platform fairway is one of the few that gives players a choice off the tea. Either take a more direct but volatile line up the left side of the dog leg or a safer line to the flatter right portion of the fairway. From either side, it sets up one of Ireland’s most breathtaking short shots down to a green framed in the dunes against the North Atlantic backdrop. Yet not without peril, as the small putting surface topples off the right and into a pot bunker on the left. The long 16th has one of the most apt names in golf, Calamity Corner. Curling around a ravine that plunges over 50 ft, it’s arguably the most dramatic and intimidating par not set on a body of water. Golfers might prefer there were water to the right. They could at least take a drop if they hit into it here. If they go right, they have to go down into the crevos and find it and play it where it might take two or even three shots to get back to the high ground. Almost everyone, even the pros, ba left at Calamity Corner. The drive at the 17th is played straight out toward the aiming pole in the distance. And when the turf is firm and the wind is helping, T-shots can roll past the crest of the fairway and down the hill to leave approach shots of just 100 yards. McKenzie and Eert added a bunker at the bottom of the hill on the left to keep things honest. But the hole’s best defense is the green that backs up to the 13th with a putting surface broken by spines and waves that create tight, precise hole locations. [Applause] The tough 18th with out-of- bounds running down the left has always been a consequential hole, even when it was the 16th. In the 1951 Open, Max Falner began the final round with a six-stroke lead, but bogeied three of the last four to open the door for Argentinian Antonio Sera, who’ cut his lead to two. But at the then 16th, Sera pulled his drive left, where it came to rest against a fence, then struggled to a double bogey six, ultimately losing to Falner by two. Playing as the third most difficult hole in 2019, the drive is hit directly toward the OB line. So many players will club down for safety, then hoist longer clubs over the cross bunkers into a smooth green that spills into yet one more low chipping basin on the left. That’s the story with Royal Port Rush, a course of spectacular beauty and indomitable challenge. Its dog leg fairways, golden fescues, strategic bunkers, and confounding contour make it menacing for professionals and mesmerizing for everyone else. 68 years passed before the Open Championship came back to Port Rush. Then only six until it returned again. That’s about as long as we should have to wait. Let it be that these emerald links are never farther from our eyes than that. [Music]

The Open Championship has been contested for over 160 years, but it’s only been played somewhere other than Scotland or England three times. On each occasion in 1951, 2019 and 2025, is gone to just one place…The Dunluce Links course at Royal Portrush. Opens held at Royal Portrush hit different. The dunes seem bigger, the contours wilder, the colors more intense. Portrush is visually stunning, but extremely demanding. It’s the essence of golf in the Emerald Isle.

This is Every Hole at Royal Portrush.

Narration: Derek Duncan
Cinematography: Carlos Amoedo
Script Writer: Derek Duncan
Editor: Nicholas Grieves
Production Manager: Emily Turner
Executive Producer: Christian Iooss

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:53 Hole No. 1
1:24 Hole No. 2
1:56 Hole No. 3
2:29 Hole No. 4
2:59 Hole No. 5
3:30 Hole No. 6
3:56 Interlude
4:33 Hole No. 7
5:01 Hole No. 8
5:36 Hole No. 9
6:02 Hole No. 10
6:36 Hole No. 11
7:10 Hole No. 12
7:46 Hole No. 13
8:14 Hole No. 14
8:49 Hole No. 15
9:23 Hole No. 16
9:55 Hole No. 17
10:34 Hole No. 18
11:08 Outro