Scottie Scheffler’s imperious march to victory in The 153rd Open Championship will go down as one of the highlights of an already incredible career.
Yet there was far more to remember about Royal Portrush’s third staging of the game’s oldest major, and it started with a reminder of what may lie ahead for Irish golf.
Pádraig Harrington memorably struck the opening tee shot at Royal Portrush and mentioned not once but several times that while it was a “special” moment, it didn’t preclude him from doing it again.
The Dubliner didn’t say he was referring to an Open Championship at Portmarnock, but it didn’t need to be said.
The R&A uses the revenue generated from The Open to fund its investment in the game worldwide, and if there were 278,000 spectators in Portrush, which was a record for an Open held outside St Andrews, a Dublin staging would likely prove to be just as lucrative.
For the first time ever, all Practice Days were sold out with a record 90,000 fans attending, while 19,000 children were able to enjoy The Open as part of the long-running ‘Kids go Free’ initiative. More than 1.2 million applications were received in the Ticket Ballot.
With the Irish government pulling out the stops to help with a feasibility study into Portmarnock’s bid, the R&A’s Chief Executive Mark Darbon confirmed that the governing body hopes to have clarity on that possibility by year’s end.
“Yes, we are thinking about Portmarnock,” Mr Darbon said. “We think it’s a wonderful links golf course, and we’ve been really encouraged by the support that we’ve had in principle from the Irish government to work with us to understand whether we can stage an Open Championship there in the future.Â
“We’re knee-deep in the feasibility work to help us answer that question fully. We expect to have a clearer picture by the back end of this year.”
As a two-time Open champion, Harrington knows the Claret Jug is special.
“American golfers will feel differently, but for the rest of us, the Open is No. 1,” he told The Athletic before this year’s Championship. “It’s the original, isn’t it?”
The democratic nature of Irish golf makes it unique and that would make The Open in Dublin one of the biggest sporting spectacles ever seen on this island.
“I grew up in a golf club full of policemen and everybody will tell you their golf club, it’s taxi drivers, it’s barmen, and you only have to look at the players who have succeeded in Ireland,” Harrington said. “None of them have come from, in any shape or form, a country club. We’ve done well. It’s very accessible.
“Obviously, GAA is the biggest sport in the country. We all love our GAA and we have to thank the GAA for being good at golf. The GAA really takes up that physical education all the way through the country, I played hurling growing up and there’s no doubt that hand-eye coordination starts there.
“It is a sport that can be loved in Ireland. We do well at it and it is one for everybody. It’s very accessible. You look at the prices of other sports, and especially if you start comparing to the US, it’s pretty damn cheap to play golf.”
When Harrington won The Open for the first time, Rory McIlroy claimed the silver medal as the leading amateur.
He won the title at Royal Liverpool in 2014, and while he couldn’t quite keep pace with Scheffler in Portrush, finishing seven strokes behind in a tie for seventh, he knows it’s a winning venue for the R&A.
“Honestly, I think Portrush has quickly turned into one of the best two or three venues that The Open goes to,” McIlroy said. “Talk to every player this week, and they won’t say one single bad thing about the golf course.”
Tom McKibbin played in the first group with Harrington and while he missed the cut, he knows he may get the chance to make history at a venue like Portmarnock.
“I think Portmarnock is a great links course, probably one of the best in the country, and again, it’s a very special, special place, special golf club with a lot of history,” McKibbin said. “It’s a very pure form of golf. The Open there would be pretty cool, and to have two Open venues on the island would be pretty cool.”
What rates as Irish golf’s best links course is a matter for debate, but it’s clear that Portmarnock ticks many boxes.
“As somebody said to me about whiskey, there’s no such thing as a bad whiskey, just some whiskeys are better than others,” Harrington said. “And when it comes to links golf, that’s the truth of it. There are no bad courses, here’s just some that are better than others.”
Shane Lowry wanted to put up a better showing in his “defence” of the title he won in such impressive fashion at Royal Portrush in 2019.Â
He finished tied for 40th on two-under par but prepared assiduously on Ireland’s best links courses. Portmarnock was one of his first ports of call.
