When you’ve spent 20 years as a senior executive at the Home of Golf, it’s fair to say you know a thing or two about what makes a world-class golfing destination tick.
Now that he’s moved from St Andrews to the Causeway Coast as the new General Manager of Royal Portrush, Danny Campbell is excited about the opportunity to make it one of the world’s great golf destinations.
The Dunluce links at Royal Portrush will be at the centre of the golfing universe from July 13-20 when it hosts The Open Championship for the third time, just six years after Shane Lowry memorably lifted the Claret Jug there.
After working for the St Andrews Links Trust for more than 20 years, Mr Campbell was responsible for delivering the St. Andrews experience to over 3,000 local club members and the thousands of visitors who play there every year.
He negotiated four Open Championship host venue agreements when he was there and the details leading to the staging of the Senior Open, the Walker Cup and three Women’s Open Championships.
But he’s now focussed on making Royal Portrush a world-class hub for visitors to these shores. Following the recent redesign of the club’s Valley links, which now rates as one of the best in the country in its own right, Royal Portrush is now considered one of the world’s great multi-course destinations for golf.
“I think it has a huge potential,” he says of the north coast venue where 278,000 spectators are expected to watch the final men’s major of the season.
“One of the main attractions for me coming here was the opportunity to develop this place as a go-to golf destination. We’re blessed with some unbelievable golf courses on the island, and here we have an Open venue. We have Royal County Down a couple of hours away and the Valley now here.
“And then, I think the investment into Portrush with the hotels, the guest houses, the restaurants, shows the confidence, not just from us as a club, but investors, that this is a place where you can invest money and look at getting a financial return.
“We’re all here to deliver an experience that people can remember— memories that last a lifetime. And all of us must collaborate on that. So we need to do our job well.”
The two links courses arguably make Royal Portrush the top links venue in the country, alongside Lahinch, Ballybunion, Rosapenna, and Ballyliffin, which also offer 36 holes of links golf, and more.
But the club’s decision to purchase a property overlooking the fourth fairway on the Dunluce Links has also proved an inspired one.
Know as The Rosses, this luxury, 8-bedroom self-catering property can sleep 12, making it one of the most sought-after accommodation options in the country.
“We need to collaborate and celebrate what we have here and make sure it’s a success,” Mr Campbell added. “We can’t do it on our own. The hotels can’t do it on our on their own. So we need to be to be joined up. We need to be excited. We have ambition, and we need to provide an experience that’s a memorable one.”
Northern Ireland has changed utterly over the past 30 years and that transformation is evident in the return of The Open to Portrush.
Ian Kerr, the Chairman of the club’s Open Championship committee, has seen firsthand the transformation of the country, the club, and the courses and still marvels at the fact that The Open will be beamed into 600 million homes around the world.
Recalling how the club hosted the Senior Open in 1995, he recently attended a club event where attendees saw a video featuring Gary Player and Arnold Palmer, and was struck by the transformation he had seen in Portrush in the intervening 30 years.
“This was 11 months after the ceasefire, so having the Senior Open come back here was like normality coming back to a country that had been through civil strife for 30 or 35 years,” he said. “It showed Gary Player and Arnold Palmer being asked if The Open could ever return to Portrush. They were very positive about the course but if you looked at the quality of the turf that they were playing on, there were daisies everywhere. The practice ground had divots. It was quite shocking, and our head greenkeeper, Graeme Beatt, looked at it and went, ‘Oh, my God, I’m glad I wasn’t the head greenkeeper here at that time’.
“We then showed a three-minute clip summarising the 2019 opening with Shane Lowry winning, which was just like a carnival affair that made your hair stand on end.
“It just showed how far we had come as a country and a community, never mind a golf club. Therefore, The Open coming back here is more than a golf event.
“It is a rejuvenation, a rebuilding of our international reputation. To showcase this part of the world, as we will do to over 600 million homes over one week of July, is just the most unbelievable opportunity. So we’re very fortunate to be in the middle of it.”
