What’s it like to play Royal Portrush and visit Northern Ireland ahead of The Open?

You’ll find world class golf courses in plenty of places, so long as you know where to look. But nowhere does a warm welcome quite like the island of Ireland.

One of the most prestigious sporting tournaments in the world, The Open, returns to Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland in the summer of 2025, after the venue made such an impression in 2019. Back then, Shane Lowry won in battling conditions to lift the Claret Jug. On my visit to this extraordinary, yet still somehow partly unsung, golf country, it’s clear that the people couldn’t be prouder to be hosting once again.

We were lucky to be a part of a trip showcasing all things Northern Ireland before the tournament arrives – it’s not just the golf we were invited to experience during our visit, though. In fact, our time experiencing the city of Belfast, the landscape of Portrush an hour north of the capital, and sampling the local hospitality turned up a few surprises.

The capital seemed the best place to begin. The moving Titanic Belfast experience brings home the enormity and human impact of a much mythologized disaster, and the iconic yellow Harland & Wolff cranes looking imperiously over the city are always looming on the skyline.

In the city's Cathedral Quarter, not far from Titanic Belfast, you’ll find a leading name inthe city’s culinary scene, Waterman – an intriguing complex home to Waterman Bistro, a number of event spaces and Waterman Cookery School. What are the three best dishes to illustrate Northern Irish food, you might ask? According to our class from the school set up by acclaimed chef Niall McKenna, it’s Guinness wheat bread, seafood chowder and a rich beef stew. Hearty and wholesome is clearly the vibe we’re going for, and with the help of McKenna, my culinary skills which usually extend only to popping the lids of microwaveable ready meals, were made to look more than presentable.

No punter’s trip to the Cathedral Quarter is complete without following the neon signs down to Commercial Court and poking their head around the door of The Duke of York pub – an Aladdin’s cave of Guinness knick-knacks and old-school boozer paraphernalia.

Incredible pubs are things anyone might expect to find here, but the areas of truly outstanding natural beauty in this part of the world leave the longest impression. The famous Giant’s Causeway is a wonder to see in person, but there are less celebrated areas that deserve their fanfare too. Luckily, the enterprising Causeway Coast Foodie Tours helped us catch the very last of the year’s good weather on a trip down the river Bann estuary – a short sprint up from Belfast – in their charming, refurbished boat the MV Kingfisher. Drifting past cormorants drying their wings in the last sunbeams of the year, with golfers teeing off at Portstewart across the water and the low autumn sun casting it all in a golden glow brought home just how wonderful the landscapes in this part of the world are.

Ireland’s hospitality is famous for a reason, and it’s only natural, perhaps, that drink played its part in a jolly around some of the best golf courses on the island of Ireland. With a bar crawl in the capital the night before still fresh in our minds,spotting the wildlife along the riverbank seemed as fitting a spot as any to sample the botanical flavours of excellent signature The Shore Born gin from Dunluce Distillery in Portballintrae.

Food and drink spoken for, thoughts soon turned to golf. While you might picture windswept courses by the sea when you think of this place, it’s not just links on offer here. Our first stop was the newly renovated Templepatrick Golf Club at the DoubleTree by Hilton. Here, you’ll experience fantastic hotel facilities which were recently upgraded – unrecognisably so, I’m led to believe from previous guests along for the trip – and it offers an incredibly comfortable stay in tasteful, contemporary rooms, as well as a sleek dining area. The course itself is a tricky parkland track, which was still playing remarkably well despite the autumn conditions. The greens were the standout, rolling incredibly true and fast. Expect a quirky layout, with devilish par 5s that make golfers grind for their score.

Castlerock Golf Club, the first of the links courses we were lucky enough to play during our trip, though, was a different beast. Pull into the car park here on a glorious morning and you’ll be treated to one of the most appealing opening tee shots in the UK and Ireland – and excellent facilities to match. Caddy master Gordon Patterson greeted us and drove us up to the picturesque driving range facing down towards the Atlantic ocean, and the putting green by the first tee offered a good vantage point to watch the group tee off. The 9-hole Bann course has a strong reputation all of its own, but given its incredibly testing nature, Gordon recommends packing a few extra balls with you.

It might seem a welcoming drive off the first tee at Castlerock, but trouble awaits off every fairway, with thick gorse and out of bounds aplenty. One of the nicest stretches comes early on as the holes hug the edge of a rail track. The pretty 4th is often hailed as the signature hole, and playing as trains fly past you couldn’t feel any more like a traditional links experience. It’s the 9th hole that will stay in the memory the longest, though, sitting down in a ravine, with a small, devilish green surrounded by sand and scrub presenting a tricky target.

There are quirks throughout this excellent design from Ben Sayers, including the blind shots on the 8th, and the tee shot on 17th down an enormous hill which arguably offered the most idyllic view of the entire trip. The beautiful conditioning and pure, undulating greens are what you might expect of a course this well regarded. Coming onto the elevated 18th green by the clubhouse, looking back down the snaking fairway and out to sea, you know you’ve just played a special course.

It was then onto the town of Portrush itself, always with an eye to our round at Royal Portrush which would bring an end to our stay. Portrush, with its amusements and charity shops, ostensibly looks a pretty, but typical sleepy seaside town, but there's a buzz here even on chilly, midweek Autumn nights.

Restaurant and wine bar Shanty is a beautifully repurposed lifeboat station with an assured menu specialising – as you might expect being so tantalisingly close to the ocean – in excellent seafood, which is nice and busy on our weeknight visit. Venture a short walk into town and you’ll inevitably wind up in Harbour Bar, which is bustling with punters every night midweek – think live music, golf paraphernalia all over the walls and Guinness stacked three-pints high in pyramids on the bar. It’s standing room only, with a snug acting as a haven for those lucky enough to grab a seat. When the nightclub upstairs closes a younger crowd filters down in time for last orders too. It might just be the best little pub in the world, and this place is going to be flowing out into the street during The Open.

In previous years, the lack of space and facilities might have held Portrush back when it came to hosting major events like The Open. But that is changing.

Our home for two nights was the characterful Elephant Rock hotel, around a mile from Royal Portrush, which was booked up more than two years in advance for the upcoming Open. The boutique hotel is run by a family team and the personal touch came across throughout. There are 18 generously sized rooms with expansive bathrooms onsite as well as a nice big art deco-style bar by reception and a hearty breakfast offering. The thing that defines this great little hotel is the quirky and characterful decoration, with bold print designs throughout, as well as its location on a windswept terrace that provides wonderful ocean views.

There are more options for people looking to stay in style in Portrush, too. New development Dunluce Lodge is being heralded as something of a game changer ahead of the Open, with true luxury on offer for prospective guests. With the building still being worked on, we were given a glimpse of what was to come ahead of it opening in 2025. The view from the bar onto the 4th fairway of Royal Portrush is enough to make anyone envious – that much was obvious even with the site still under constitution. There’s a heavy American influence in the décor and lodge styling, and we’re told the enormous 8-room lodge on site has been booked by one of the biggest names in golf for Open week itself.

Here, and elsewhere, plans are clearly afoot ahead of the tournament, and it’s clear that Northern Ireland is grateful to be in with the big players hosting this event. While other places might have come to expect such an honour, Portrush and its people seem to be embracing this tournament with open arms at every turn – and when you have a golf course as glorious as Royal Portrush, it’s little wonder they’re keen to show it off.

And glorious, it is. Even on one of the most blustery days imaginable when we turned up to play, it has an aura all of its own. Anticipation builds even from snatched views of the property as you drive in. In fact, seeing it from afar reveals just how special and expansive the piece of land is – and its adapting all the time too. There was significant remodelling to a number of holes on the flagship Dunluce Course before the 2019 Open, and ambitious refreshes to the Links Valley Course are now taking place as well.

Francois Nel/Getty Images

The allure of these great links is immediately evident. What would otherwise feel like a fairly regulation tee shot is made far trickier by internal out of bounds, with stakes on the left and right (although only the out of bounds on the left will be in effect during the Open). The coverage on TV doesn’t do justice to the severe slope up to the first green, either, but just getting a drive in play here feels like an achievement before you worry about your approach.

The 5th might be one of the best par 4s in the world, and certainly one with the most dramatic views. There’s a choice off the tee - bail out left or take on the green with the driver. Then, there’s the approach onto an incredible raised green, backing right onto the beach far, far below. For golf fans, it’s nothing short of awe-inspiring, but tricky too – thin your wedge off the back of the green and you’ll be looking for it 100ft below the cliff face.

The stunning 5th hole at Royal PortrushMike Ehrmann/Getty Images

The 7th is one of the newly renovated holes and while the green might feel a little more deliberately constructed than most others, the tee shot is one of the most striking on the property - which is really saying something, given the frequency with which players are confronted by stunning vistas.

There are plenty of blind shots and some devilishly tricky holes – especially when battling the course in 40mph winds, as our group can attest to. The fairways are artfully contoured, with almost laughably big bunkers designed to hoover up tee shots on some holes. On more than one occasion I bent down to pick up my tee, satisfied with the strike, only to turn round and see the ball scuttling along an unseen hollow and straight into the sand. Without the help of our forecaddie Gary we’d never have spotted some of the subtle breaks on the greens, either.

Risk and reward holes like the 5th, delicate par-3s like the downhill 13th – called ‘featherbed’ given the softness of landing which is required to hold the green – and monstrously challenging ones like the formidable 16th (210 yards playing into a three club wind during our visit) will help ensure a brilliant Open again in 2025 - of that, there’s no doubt.

Shane Long tees it up on the 16th hole at the 2019 Open championshipStuart Franklin/Getty Images

Walking in, slightly soggy after an elemental round, we knew we’d seen Royal Portrush bare its teeth, but nothing could detract from the grandeur of these links. We spoke for a while with one of the club’s officials in the pro shop with his sleepy old Labrador – who looked just as comfortable at one of the finest golf courses in the world as he would have done in front of the fire at home – and walked in from the cold through the warmth of the history-filled clubhouse. It felt like we’d discovered the heart of golf in the island of Ireland; world class courses complementing the beauty of the land, and a welcome like nowhere else.

For more information, head to ireland.com

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