What to Know About Royal Portrush, Site of the 2025 Open Championship

Royal Portrush doesn't play by the genteel rules of its Open Championship siblings. While St. Andrews whispers its challenges and Carnoustie delivers surgical precision, Portrush screams from the clifftops of Northern Ireland. This is links golf gone rogue — lusher than Scotland, wilder than England, and more prone to dramatic gestures than both.

Built atop vertiginous bluffs where the Atlantic crashes against volcanic rock, Portrush represents everything distinctive about Irish golf. Shane Lowry's emotional victory here in 2019 wasn't just a triumph — it was validation that golf's oldest championship needed this jolt of Celtic energy.

Hole 1: "Hughie's" - Nothing prepares you for Portrush's first tee, where out-of-bounds flanks both sides like checkpoint sentries. This isn't a golf hole — it's a psychological evaluation demanding conservative play and climbing to a green that actively rejects mediocrity.

Hole 2: "Giant's Grave" - After the opener's mind games, this par-5 offers a peace treaty, practically begging for aggression with eagles not uncommon despite the lumpy greens' final negotiations.

Hole 3: "Islay" - Named for the Scottish island visible on clear days, this downhill par-3 reveals Portrush's schizophrenic personality — simultaneously gorgeous and treacherous among steep-sided collection areas.

Hole 4: "Fred Daly's" - Picture Mike Tyson in his devastating prime — that's the fourth hole at Portrush. This lengthened monster demands your absolute best from the tee, only to conceal its target behind rolling sand hills with all the cunning of a poker player hiding his cards.

Hole 5: "White Rocks" - Here, Portrush's Irish soul reveals itself. The hole dares spectacular attempts, theoretically reachable but surrounded by more danger than a Dublin pub at closing time. In 2019: four eagles, 111 birdies, 13 doubles or worse.

Hole 6: "Harry Colt's" - This clifftop par-3 showcases why Colt's 1920s renovation created something special, relying on gravity rather than sand, with natural contours funneling errant shots into collection areas.

Holes 7-8: The New Blood - "Curran Point" and "Dunluce," created for 2019, still feel like they're auditioning. The par-5 seventh tumbles down before climbing back up — ambitious but trying harder than classic holes that seem grown from the landscape.

Hole 9: "Darren Clarke's" - Named after the 2011 champion, this dogleg left will potentially prove problematic for today's modern fade-biased players while rewarding draws and punishing pushes.

Hole 10: "Himalayas" - Despite its name, this hole is claustrophobic, with a green just 10 paces wide at its tightest point, creating a target demanding surgical precision.

Hole 11: "P.G. Stevenson's" - The tournament's toughest test in 2019, generating more carnage than a medieval battlefield. The tee shot threads between sand hills while the approach climbs to a green with a false front claiming more victims than the Spanish Inquisition.

Hole 12: "Dhu Varren" - After the eleventh's brutality, Portrush shows mercy with its most generous scoring opportunity, though a hidden stream ensures no birdie comes without negotiation.

Hole 13: "Feather Bed" - This downhill par-3 begins one of golf's great finishing sequences, where club selection becomes as much about wind calculation as distance measurement.

Hole 14: "Causeway" - The approach is like landing a paper airplane on a pitched roof during a windstorm. The "hog's back" putting surface sheds shots in every direction while the deep left bunker sits so far below that recovery requires divine intervention.

Hole 15: "Skerries" - Named for rocky offshore islets, this hole combines spectacular views with surgical precision requirements, beautiful enough to distract from the difficulty — which is precisely the point.

Hole 16: "Calamity Corner" - The reputation doesn't do this hole justice — it's actually worse. Staring at a 236-yard shot across a gaping chasm to a green that sits at an angle, with nowhere to bail out. Come up short or push it right, and you'll find yourself in thick rough so far below the green that bogey becomes a score players will gladly take.

Hole 17: "Purgatory" - The 17th gives you one final shot at glory — or disaster. Around 300 yards out, the fairway drops so steeply that your ball can roll within wedge distance of the green. Sounds great, except you'll likely end up in the left rough with an awkward stance and no clear line to the pin.

Hole 18: "Babington's" - From the elevated tee, you're threading a needle between out-of-bounds stakes on the left and gnarly rough on the right. Reach the green, and you'll find it ringed by bunkers and steep slopes that punish anything less than perfect.

Royal Portrush doesn't just host golf tournaments — it stages theatrical productions where the course itself plays the starring role. The world's best will face not just another links course this weekend, but a living, breathing monument to golf's capacity for drama, beauty, and brilliant cruelty.