Portrush to Host the 2025 Open

[Jamie Pyper]

The R&A have just made the official announcement that Portrush will host the 153 rd Open Championship in 2025, only 5 years after the tremendously successful 2019 Open. The return is much sooner than anticipated, but a ringing endorsement of the quality of the links, and the way the local community hosted the 2019 event. Wonderful news for the Causeway Coast region and all of Ireland.

[Jamie Pyper]

Sorry about the typo - meant to be 6 years, not 5 between Opens !!!

[Paul Jones]

Sorry about the typo - meant to be 6 years, not 5 between Opens !!!

Jamie,


WOW - that is great news.  Also, you can modify previous post.

[Rob Marshall]

Great venue. I loved that area and the course. Harbor Bar!

[Dan_Callahan]

The Open in 2019 was the best-run sporting event I've ever been to. I will definitely be back in 2025.

[Adrian_Stiff]

and I think it is there in 2030 as well. Great news.

[Adam G]

Augusta, Quail Hollow, Oakmont, Portrush. One of these is not like the others...

[Niall C]

The Open in 2019 was the best-run sporting event I've ever been to. I will definitely be back in 2025.

Yes, you possibly will be if you are lucky in the ballot.


Niall

[Tony_Muldoon]

The Open in 2019 was the best-run sporting event I've ever been to. I will definitely be back in 2025.

Yes, you possibly will be if you are lucky in the ballot.


Niall

I think there will be tickets available if you're in quick.  The "Sold Out" claims are aimed at getting money in faster.  Just register with The One Club (R&A Website) and you'll get lots of notice.


Niall I thought I was the cynical one about the R&A?


Have only spectated at one other Open venue and Portrush was a far superior experience. Maybe because it was the first one for LOOOOONG time but it was special. Moving around was good and "resting" in the grandstands behind the 9th&11th greens or alongside them at 13&17 offered perfect vantage points.


The trains from Belfast worked very well as did the park and ride.


Got a text from my cousins this morning saying I got first claim on the spare room July 2025...I guessed what was about to be announced.

[Paul Dolton]

and I think it is there in 2030 as well. Great news.

I'm hoping Royal Liverpool for 2030  to mark Bobby Jones's Impregnable Quadrilateral.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Yes that would be good.

[Niall C]

Tony


I've been signed up for The One Club for a while and have already put my name down for tickets for next years event at St Andrews. They make it clear there is no guarantee of getting tickets and as I'd be going with 3 friends we have all individually applied for four tickets. We are committed to buying the tickets if successful in the ballot. In the scenario that more than one of us is successful then I'm not sure if they will allow us to offload the tickets or that they will take them back to sell on to someone else.


To me the Open has lost its "build it and they will come" appeal and now is overly corporate. I can understand why given the The Open is the golden goose that pays for all the other good stuff that the R&A do but it is still a shame IMO.


Niall

[Sean_A]

It was fantastic to roll up and buy a ticket. We indeed too corporate.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

The cables are in the ground.
Atb

[Tim Gallant]

David Jones penned this article, which brings up a few of the points made here:


https://www.ukgolfguy.com/golf-blog/open-rota-doubts

[David Jones]

David Jones penned this article, which brings up a few of the points made here:


https://www.ukgolfguy.com/golf-blog/open-rota-doubts

Thanks for sharing Tim.


I’m a little torn about it.


I went to Portrush for the Open and had the most amazing time. There can be no doubt the event was a huge success. But it does seem a very quick return.

Tony Dear had a good build on my piece. Maybe we are moving to a world where certain courses are regular hosts - TOC, Birkdale, Portrush, Hoylake (?) and RSG. The cash cows. Then they sprinkle in the others for special occasions, almost as niche opens. They could extend the ‘pool’ of courses a little too possibly, so the likes of Porthcawl could get it without having a rota obligation.

I hope whatever they decide the R&A don’t just follow the money but tries to have a little balance. They are investing so much into the women’s, amateur and junior game, which is hugely beneficial, and I am a big fan of the current management. But if they only go to the venues where they can guarantee 200,000+ admissions a week that seems a bit of a shame.

[Dan_Callahan]

Is Portrush the only Northern Ireland course that logistically makes sense to host an Open? Could RCD handle it? Or is Portrush the de facto site anytime the Open goes outside England/Scotland?

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Dan, I think RCD is just too tight. There are so many holes surrounded by gorse. You can get a good idea viewing the course flyovers here:
https://www.royalcountydown.org/championship_1

The other issue could be safety. If you had a really hot July, it's likely that there might be one careless smoker that drops a cigarette butt and causes a fire. Dry gorse is unbelievably flammable (I know from first hand experience  )

I'd say they'd make a nice profit hosting it at Portmarnock. If they can play the Amateur Championship there, then why not the Open?

[JohnVDB]

8 or us from the USGA (past and present) are playing Portrush tomorrow. We got to town today and played Portstewart.


We’ve already had a couple of locals say how happy and excited they are that it is coming back so soon.

[Jeff Schley]

Dan, I think RCD is just too tight. There are so many holes surrounded by gorse. You can get a good idea viewing the course flyovers here:
https://www.royalcountydown.org/championship_1

The other issue could be safety. If you had a really hot July, it's likely that there might be one careless smoker that drops a cigarette butt and causes a fire. Dry gorse is unbelievably flammable (I know from first hand experience  )

I'd say they'd make a nice profit hosting it at Portmarnock. If they can play the Amateur Championship there, then why not the Open?

I wholeheartedly agree with that Donal. I simply didn't have the accuracy off the tee to enjoy my round much at all, even with a caddie spotting for me. An average 20-25 mph day I'm told, but a punishing slog for us mere mortals. I would like to see the best in the world experience some of that pain however.

[Jamie Pyper]

Jeff,
That pain was experienced by some the best in the world during the 2015 Irish Open at Royal County Down. According to a few members I talked to, the professionals were apoplectic about the "unfair" eyebrow bunkers, or as the locals call them " the features".

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Jeff,
That pain was experienced by some the best in the world during the 2015 Irish Open at Royal County Down. According to a few members I talked to, the professionals were apoplectic about the "unfair" eyebrow bunkers, or as the locals call them " the features".

I hadn't realised that 282 (-2) was the winning score at RCD
https://www.europeantour.com/european-tour/dubai-duty-free-irish-open-hosted-by-the-rory-foundation-2015/results?round=4

[Adam Lawrence]

Sorry about the typo - meant to be 6 years, not 5 between Opens !!!

There's precedent for going back to new or rediscovered venues rather quickly. After Royal St George's returned to the rota in 1981 (Bill Rogers's year) it went back only four years later (Sandy Lyle, 1985). And both Carnoustie and Hoylake got the championship back quite quickly (eight years in both cases) when they returned to the rota in 1999 and 2006, respectively.

[Richard Fisher]

To Donal's point, it is a fairly safe bet that no further R&A events will go to Portmarnock if it remains a Men Only club: the contract for the 2019 Amateur had been signed long before equal membership access for men and women became a sine qua non of hosting R&A championships.


Lytham's days as a regular Open venue seem over, certainly for the time being: five Lytham Opens between 1973 and 2001 is, in retrospect, remarkable, given the space issues on the Lytham site, although I have heard members of the championship committee argue, robustly, that as a test of shot-making RLStA remains overall one of the two or three best challenges on the rota.


The other 'marginal' course in spectator-number terms is, arguably, Muirfield. But finding another Open venue south of Hoylake that isn't RStG remains perhaps the biggest imperative in terms of the demographic composition of the UK as a whole. And also much the toughest.

[Adam Lawrence]

To Donal's point, it is a fairly safe bet that no further R&A events will go to Portmarnock if it remains a Men Only club: the contract for the 2019 Amateur had been signed long before equal membership access for men and women became a sine qua non of hosting R&A championships.


Lytham's days as a regular Open venue seem over, certainly for the time being: five Lytham Opens between 1973 and 2001 is, in retrospect, remarkable, given the space issues on the Lytham site, although I have heard members of the championship committee argue, robustly, that as a test of shot-making RLStA remains overall one of the two or three best challenges on the rota.


The other 'marginal' course in spectator-number terms is, arguably, Muirfield. But finding another Open venue south of Hoylake that isn't RStG remains perhaps the biggest imperative in terms of the demographic composition of the UK as a whole. And also much the toughest.

I think the Muirfield issue is all about access. The courses that get the really big attendances (apart from St Andrews) tend to have reasonable train service. Certainly that is true of the Lancashire courses, and Sandwich is best accessed by train for sure). Muirfield is a pig to get in and out of. When Ernie won at Muirfield in 2002, it took me four hours to get out of the car park and into Edinburgh (where I was staying with friends). It's four miles down some very little roads from Drem station to Muirfield.