Royal Portrush isn’t just a scenic links course — it’s a genuine site of golf history, responsible for one of the sport’s most universally used techniques and host to some of its biggest names.
From featheries to gutties
Early golf balls were “featheries” — hand-stitched leather stuffed with boiled feathers, expensive and time-consuming to make. In 1848, gutta-percha (sap from the Sapodilla tree) replaced them with cheaper, faster-to-produce “gutties.” Clubs adapted too, evolving into odd-sounding named irons like the “baffing spoon” and the “niblick.” Portrush’s club was founded in May 1888 as “The County Golf Club” (later Royal Portrush), with members of the Royal Belfast Golf Club travelling up by train for the opening — local newspapers reported residents staring in amazement at golfers playing in red coats. Old Tom Morris, the legendary St Andrews golfer and green keeper, played an exhibition match here in 1889 and recommended course alterations; by 1890 an eighteen-hole course had been laid out alongside a nine-hole ladies’ course.
The Vardon Grip
In September 1895, Harry Vardon played professional Sandy Herd in the first professional tournament organised in Ireland — at Portrush. It was here that Vardon developed a new way of holding a golf club, resting the little finger of the right hand on top of the index finger of the left. Still known as the “Vardon Grip” or the “overlapping grip,” it remains the standard grip taught to golfers worldwide today — a genuinely major moment in golf history that happened on this course.
Fred Daly’s Open
Fred Daly was born and raised in Portrush, learning the game as a caddie at Royal Portrush. In 1947 he won The Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, Hoylake — the only Irishman ever to do so — accepting the Claret Jug with the line, in his Antrim accent, “I hope the change of air will help it.” He returned to Portrush days later to play in the Irish Open, his hand still sore from all the congratulatory handshakes.
The 1951 Open — and 2019’s return
In 1951, Royal Portrush made history as the first club outside Scotland and England to host The Open Championship, golf’s oldest Major, first played in 1860. Englishman Max Faulkner won, finishing two shots clear with local hero Fred Daly tied for fourth. The Open’s traumatic absence that followed — decades shaped by the Troubles, when the club fought for its very survival amid collapsing visitor numbers — makes its return in 2019 a genuinely significant story: three Major wins by Northern Irish golfers in just 13 months (Graeme McDowell’s 2010 US Open, Rory McIlroy’s 2011 US Open, Darren Clarke’s 2011 Open) coming soon after a sold-out, first-time-ever 2012 Irish Open at Portrush helped convince the R&A the time was right.
A club used to hosting greats
Royal Portrush has hosted more than fifty British and Irish national championships — Ireland’s first-ever amateur golf tournament in 1892, its first professional tournament in 1895. Famous names who’ve played here include Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka, alongside a strong home-grown tradition: two-time Ladies’ British Amateur champion May Hezlett, already covered on our [Notable People of Portrush](/notable-people-of- portrush/) page, and modern stars Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke and Rory McIlroy.