Royal Portrush changes ahead of '19 Open

[Tim Gavrich]

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/redesign-of-royal-portrush-will-test-the-worlds-best-when-the-open-comes-to-town-31411400.html


Looks like the current 17th and 18th will be scrubbed to provide room for the "tented village" and Mackenzie & Ebert will be adding two new ones.

[Bill_McBride]

I thought they were using holes from the Valley course. 

[Bart Bradley]

I thought they were using holes from the Valley course.

2 brand new holes that will use ground currently part of the Valley course


Bart

[Tom_Doak]

So how do they fix the Valley Course back up to 18 holes?  Are they using the old 17th and 18th of Dunluce for the Valley?

[Jonathan Mallard]

So how do they fix the Valley Course back up to 18 holes?  Are they using the old 17th and 18th of Dunluce for the Valley?

Last I read, they were leaving the 2 valley holes revised. Folks will have the option of playing the 'original' Dunluce routing, or the '2019 Open Championship' routing.

[Jon Wiggett]

Won't that just end up with two holes being played by all the players on both courses and two holes hardly seeing anyone. How will the 'Open' course tie up with the clubhouse? Won't it be quite a distance away?

Jon

[Adrian_Stiff]

I expect most people will play the 2019 routing, leaving the old 17 & 18 Dunluce redundant. Far better IMO to use the 17 & 18 in the Valley course and make the change. They will probably take two years to realise they have wasted a lot of money if they build two new holes to replace the two holes lost to the new rota. Not untypical though.

[Ally Mcintosh]

So how do they fix the Valley Course back up to 18 holes?  Are they using the old 17th and 18th of Dunluce for the Valley?

17 and 18 on Dunluce become redundant along with 5 and 6 on the Valley. In fact, there will be 4 completely new Valley holes including a brand new 18th playing back to the clubhouse from the seashore utilising some of the existing par-3 course.... Can't recall full details off-hand but search "Portrush Open" on here and there is a 6 page thread with quite a lot of detail