Royal Rewards

As expected, The R&A has announced its intention to bring the Open Championship to Royal Portrush.  From Allistair Tait:

Golf’s worst-kept secret has been confirmed: Royal Portrush will stage a future Open Championship. 

The R&A made the announcement today in a press conference at Royal Portrush. The course is back on the rota of the game’s oldest major 63 years after Max Faulkner won the first, and so far only, Open Championship held over the links of Portrush. 

Northern Ireland was off limits after Faulkner’s win because of the political situation. The sectarian violence, The Troubles, began in the 1960's and made Northern Ireland a no-go area for the R&A.

By now the reader knows how much I love this golf course, and how excited I am to have it host the Open.  It does need to be said, however, that it's not a done deal.  The members still need to approve the arrangements, and Peter Dawson, the R&A's majordomo laid down these markers:

"Much work lies ahead to prepare for the Open’s return with the planned course enhancements and infrastructure developments which will require ratification by the club’s members and by the planning authorities," he said, referring to the course and infrastructure changes that are required.

"And so we will no be able to announce a date for the first event until these permissions are in place — 2019 is the earliest it can be, but it may be that we have to wait a year or two longer than that.

Dawson danced around what was considered the biggest problem with a Northern Ireland Open during Marching Season:

“As the first minister has said, the political situation here has caused some reputational damage,”

Mr Dawson explained, “I think everyone knows that, but we are very happy that that is in the past… If we thought there was a security problem here we wouldn't be making this announcement.”

"Reputational damage" might be a candidate for the euphemism Hall of Fame,  so understating the hellishness of what these good people survived.  But that's also part of what makes this move so exciting, as one can only hope it creates a surge of visitors to play their world class links.

Dawson went on:

"I don’t think their badgering had any great influence although we did have the craic about it several times," he said with a grin. "I think their performances on the golf course and the staging of the Irish Open here was something of an eye opener in terms of the strength of the fan base fo golf in Northern Ireland and in Ireland altogether and that was certainly part of it as well as the wonderful golf course here and the great support and welcome what we have been receiving from the Northern Ireland Executive. It is a lot of things."

I added the above excerpt because craic is such a great Irish word, roughly meaning fun or enjoyment.  The first few times our buddy Lowell used it with us I had no idea what he was trying to say, or if he perhaps had a substance problem...

Here's video of Peter Dawson discussing the move:

It's a truly spectacular links, that will combine a great test of golf with some of the best eye candy to be found in the U.K.

For new readers, I'll again link back to my post on Royal Portrush from our 2012 trip, which can be found here.