The Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush has been described as a course that rewards pure golf and rejects bad shots with harsh consequences. A Harry Colt masterpiece, the Dunluce will play as a challenging Par 71 at 7,401 yards – extended by 64 yards since 2019.
Set within amazing dunes which frame holes perfectly, the course has undulations across its routing but also on the green complexes too. It’s a course which is well known as being ‘right in front of you’ and not ‘tricked-up’ in golfing parlance, but to play well around here you need a game which is totally on point. Oh yes, and a 17-year old at the time by the name of Rory McIlroy held the course record on the old course with a 61 shot in 2006. His compatriot and close friend Shane Lowry then shot -8/63 on Saturday of the 2019 Championship to set the current course record on the current format.
Padraig Harrington knows a thing or two about the Open Championship. The 2007 and 2008 Open Champion, Harrington is synonymous with playing links golf to the very highest standard. Asked back in 2012 about the green complexes on the Dunluce course, he answered, “The greens are reasonably receptive, which is a godsend for us, because we are just not used to the ball moving around inside the green complexes and trying to cut the ball into a right‑to‑left green, and you have to trust that, yes, the wind will move it and things like that. When you are playing in warm weather, the ball doesn’t do anything like it does here. I think having had the rain over the last couple of weeks, it’s going to help us out a little bit that the greens are not too firm. It would certainly ‑ it’s not that the golf course wouldn’t play well if the greens were firm or the course was firm.”
The greens are undoubtedly the star here on the Dunluce Links as they are undulating and devilish when firm. Naturally the R&A will have control over them, but a dry build-up would turn this into a hugely technical challenge. Royal Portrush though is also known for its weather. You can experience all 4 seasons in a single day on this stretch of the North Atlantic coastline, and this part of the world is well-known for strong winds. As we always say in the build-up to any Open Championship, the weather will be the key to unpicking the Open Championship, and undoubtedly this is the kind of venue where a player’s chances can be severely impacted if they are the wrong side of the draw weather-wise.
With only 64 bunkers on the course, Royal Portrush has the lowest number of sand traps on the Open rota, however its difficulty is generated by the wind, the creativity of Harry Colt’s masterful greens, and the courses length which has been extended to 7,401 yards for 2025.
As ever though the challenge really will be as difficult as the weather which presents itself across 17th to 20th July 2025. If the turf is soft and the wind is down then this is a scoreable course where mid-to-high teens will be the target required. If the Northern Irish weather is unkind then a repeat of 2019 when the Dunluce Links turned into a real brute is very possible.
Below are some revealing comments about the course from the 2019 Open Championship:
Justin Rose (2019): “The 17th is an interesting hole, especially for a 17th hole of an Open. I feel like it’s a quirky hole, for sure, because it’s not really drivable. You hit driver over the top there about 300 yards and it gets down within 20, 30 yards of the green. It plays quite narrow because of the way the camber tilts right-to-left. You’ve got to really thread the driver up the right edge of the fairway to get it down short of the green there. But it’s very tempting. If the wind is — unless the wind is hurting I’ll hit driver. Pin placements will be a factor. I think the only tricky pin if you do hit driver is the left pin where they can stick it behind the bunker, that may be better to lay up on top of the hill and have something where you can control your spin coming into that pin. But it’s a really sort of unique hole, especially at that point of the championship.
To this point I’ve only played the 18th closer with no wind. 300 yards is a good number off that tee. There’s still plenty of room at 300. Now, 300 down a little bit of a breeze is probably an iron. But I thought it was a 3-wood hole for me. Because you want to be far enough on that hole to be able to get a full, clear sight of the green. It makes it a much more inviting second shot. It’s a great hole if you have four to win. By hitting an iron, even if you pull it left, you’re not reaching the trouble. Obviously if you hit driver and pull it left you are reaching the trouble. So I feel like 3-wood was a hedge there somewhere in the middle. But if you need birdie to force a playoff, for example, you’d probably hit driver.”
Rory McIlroy (2019): “I think there’s a lot of approach shots here that are visually a little more intimidating than they play. Thomas Bjorn walked a few holes with me yesterday, and I hit sort of a nice little draw over the right-hand bunker on 3, it looks like it’s going to miss the green by a mile, and then he gets up there and the ball is in the middle of the green. He said, I wouldn’t have thought that’s where the ball would end up. But just little things and knowing where the lines are. I’m maybe a little more comfortable doing that stuff around here than some of the other Open venues.
And then with the rain, you know, I think when this course gets crosswinds, so today it’s out of the south. I think the rest of the week it’s sort of southwest. And there’s a lot of crosswinds in that sort of wind direction, and that’s what’s going to make it tough. Because you’re already hitting across a lot of fairways, sort of slight doglegs. So that will make it tough.
And I think the big key this week is just to keep it out of the fairway bunkers and keep it out of the rough. Even if you’re giving yourself a little longer second shots in. You’re able to play this golf course from the fairway. And with the way the rough has grown over the past couple of weeks, you’re not going to be able to score hitting it off line.
As you know in links golf, different wind conditions and different wind directions can completely change what you do and how holes play. For example, the second hole here you’ve got those collection of the three bunkers, around 280, 290 off the tee, but then you’ve got a bunker on the left-hand side that’s 310. And the only way I’d ever hit driver there is if I knew I could carry that bunker on the left. For the most part I’ll lay it up.
I think one of the great things about this golf course is, and I sort of realised this last Saturday when I came to play, off the tee it makes you challenge at least one bunker. If you try to take all the bunkers out of play, it’s going to be very difficult. You’re leaving yourself a lot of long shots. I think a lot of tee shots here you challenge one bunker but you sort of stay short of the next. You sort of have a little area to hit it into. So you still have to concentrate on the tee shot.
But, yeah, there is flexibility. There’s some holes in certain winds I can hit driver, in certain winds I’ll just hit an iron and play it that way.”
Shane Lowry (2019): “Yeah, I hit the ball well. I hit it in play. You really need to hit it in play out here. If you start finding the rough off the tee, you kind of start chasing it a little bit. On the downwind holes you need to be clever where you hit it, because the ball is going quite a long way downwind. You don’t necessarily need to hit a lot of club off some tees.
It’s a course where I feel confident around here. Look, I’ve played all right here in the past. Yeah, I suppose I was quite anxious going out there this morning. The wind was up early. I felt very unconfident on the first tee, I’m not going to lie. I was very happy it was downwind with only a 3-iron. I hit a good tee shot and from there on I was off and running.
I’m sitting here after shooting 63, which is incredible. And look, obviously, it is one of the best scores I’ve ever shot, but I think the golf course, we got very lucky with the weather today. The wind laid down and it played quite easy towards the end. The greens are perfect and we’re playing links golf in no wind. It virtually had no real protection out there. If you were hitting decent shots you were getting good results.
On Calamity (par-3 – 16th Hole) I’m not going to lie, I pushed it about five yards, ten yards. But it was a perfect 4-iron, to be honest. I knew I couldn’t go long. I knew if I pushed it on to the flag that it would carry. I decided to hit a little fade up the green. It came — the moment it came off the club face I knew it was pretty close. I thought it was close walking up there and it was about maybe 8 or 10 feet. And to roll the putt in was really nice, as well. Every time I had a putt today I just wanted to hole it because I wanted to hear that roar, it was just incredible. It was an incredible day.”
Henrik Stenson (2019): “We played plenty of golf in kind of similar toughness over the years. But it was certainly a very tough day out there. I said this when I first saw this golf course, If you get winds like this, it’s going to be a tricky one because you’ve got to flight the ball in, you can’t run it in like you can on a lot of other links courses.
A lot of greens have big runoffs, sits a bit higher, and big elevation. You’ve got to flight the ball in at the same time you’ve got to keep it down and into these winds. It’s not an easy golf course when the wind starts pumping. I think overall we got lucky with the rain. We didn’t play that many holes in the downpours as I feared or expected. But the wind got extremely strong here.
The last couple of holes you’re hitting, you barely touched the ball from 170 yards downwind with a sand iron and then you can’t get a 2-iron anywhere when you turn around. So it’s tough enough.”
Royal Portrush hosts its third Open Championship.
