Where does Portrush (Dunluce) rate?

[TEPaul]

David Tepper:

Maybe the two courses of Portrush are the best 36 holes in the world---at least in the context of an interesting architectural laboratory.

I played the Valley course first and the next couple of days the Dunluce course. We had this inter-club competition going with Portrush and my course in the US and when I first got to Calamity's tee and looked down on the Valley course below and that incredible and interesting broken and rugged ground it just about made me weep it was so dramatic!

The guys from Portrush I was playing with then told us the story of Gary Player looking down on the Valley course below from the tee of Calamity and his reaction to it.

He told them that if they'd give him a fleet of D-8s it'd only take him a couple of weeks to fix that mess down there.

Of course they laughed about that with us but I could tell that was a remark they were prepared to never forgive Player for!

[Brian_Gracely]

The guys from Portrush I was playing with then told us the story of Gary Player looking down on the Valley course below from the tee of Calamity and his reaction to it.

He told them that if they'd give him a fleet of D-8s it'd only take him a couple of weeks to fix that mess down there.

Of course they laughed about that with us but I could tell that was a remark they were prepared to never forgive Player for!

When I was at Royal County Down, just after they had played the Senior British Open a few years back, the caddies were talking about similar comments Player had made about all the blind tee-shots, and apparently he gave a BBC interview where he talked about bulldozing the course and starting over.  Apparently he's enamoured himself all over the Emerald Isle  

On the original question, Portrush is outstanding.  I enjoyed RCD more, but Portrush is still the most difficult course I've played in the UK.