Royal (Don't forget the 'Royal') Portrush

Thursday, Jul 24^th – Royal Portrush (#15 in the world ranking)

 

Lines you might have missed from yesterday about The Prestwick Experience:

This place is just like Carmel only worse.

This place makes Carmel look down-to-earth.

Even the noses at Prestwick were ever-so-slightly more upturned than in Carmel.

 

OK … on to today.

 

We awoke to another very sunny, warm day at the Bushmills Inn where we had a great breakfast and excellent service. At breakfast Paul did say he was a bit tired and, “I wish Jack would have slept in his own bed.”

 

It was on to Royal Portrush (don’t forget the ‘Royal’) which was 15 minutes away on one of the narrow ‘country roads.’ Along the way we passed the ruins of Dunluce castle where we stopped after our round, but time and space do not permit more explanation. Suffice to say it was built on a cliff overlooking the ocean and was a spectacular setting.

 

Royal Portrush was a friendly place (I say this because each course seems to be distinctly stuffy or friendly). It was a bit more windy which is typical of Irish golf. The course was a links course but different than in Scotland. The courses in Scotland are very old and just grew up on goat pastures and they still reflect that quality today. The Irish courses are newer (i.e. only 50-100 years old) and are designed a bit more like we are used to – a great combination of links with more kept fairways and greens and a few less deep pot bunkers.

  

The course is a gorgeous course right along the ocean which you can see from almost every hole. It had  very difficult rough that included every species of grass or plant on the planet (tall grass, gorse, heather, spinach and cabbage – did I mention rough?). We had very good caddies, and after Chan birdied the first hole with a 25 foot putt (again), the caddies reminded us that the course record was 61 … shot by Rory McIlroy from the tips (we were 2 sets of tees forward from that) AT THE AGE OF 15!! That’s when the now famous ₤50,000 bet was made by his father that Rory would win the Open Championship by the time he was age 25 … which he did while we were on this trip. Rory wanted to be a member at Royal Portrush, but because his father was a bartender (that’s the folk story), the family was not admitted to membership, which is why Rory joined Royal County Down.

 

The course is famous for The Calamity (hole #14) which is a 200+ yard par 3 over a large chasm (at least 50 feet deep into the rough - did I mention how difficult the rough is at Royal Portrush?) and slightly uphill. Of course, Chan parred it. The rest of us took 4, 5, 6 – but I won’t say in who did what. We had a drink on the second floor deck of the clubhouse and relaxed watching out over the beautiful scenery. We were all pretty hot and sweaty as temperatures were near record high once again.

Final scores –Chan 84; Paul 87; Jack 89; Steve 93 (in a revolting display of poor putting better known and “the yips”).

We went back to the Bushmills Inn and relaxed with a few drinks on their open air patio where Paul couldn’t set off the fire alarm. Later we had dinner at the Mermaid on the harbor in Portrush where we shared an incredible meal with 3 platters of seafood and meats with all the fixings.