Speaker 1: Royal Port Rush is hosting the Open Championship for the
Speaker 1: third time. Let's dive deep. I'm Garrett Morrison and this
Speaker 1: is designing golf.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I'm here with my Frida Egg golf colleague Matt Ruschis.
Speaker 1: How's it going, Matt doing well, doing well? So Matt,
Speaker 1: you're gonna help me with this deep dive on Royal
Speaker 1: port Rush today because, unlike me, you've actually been to
Speaker 1: this golf course. You saw it last year on a
Speaker 1: trip that you Andy Johnson, Brendan Porath and Cameron Hurdis
Speaker 1: took for our Explorations series. People should check that out
Speaker 1: if they they haven't already. There was a podcast series.
Speaker 1: There are articles associated with it, a bunch of cool
Speaker 1: social stuff. Great trip that you took focused on northern Ireland.
Speaker 1: Where did port Rush sit in your itinerary? What was
Speaker 1: its role? Did you stay in the town of port Rush.
Speaker 1: I'm having trouble remembering that details of what you all
Speaker 1: did there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we came in through Dublin, made our way
Speaker 2: up the coast to Newcastle, which is where Royal County
Speaker 2: Down is, spent a few days there and then drove
Speaker 2: up to port Rush, which sits basically at the northernmost
Speaker 2: part of Northern Ireland and the entire island of Ireland.
Speaker 2: So it's way up there. And yeah, we stayed right
Speaker 2: there in town. Like you could basically see the golf
Speaker 2: course from our place. It's it's honestly like a pretty
Speaker 2: small town that sits on this peninsula that kind of
Speaker 2: juts out into I believe it's the North Atlantic Ocean,
Speaker 2: and from like there, like you have a great view
Speaker 2: kind of looking back in towards the dunes where Royal
Speaker 2: port Rush is. So we we got to see Port Marnick,
Speaker 2: Royal County down and ard Glass before we set our
Speaker 2: sights on Port Rush.
Speaker 1: Okay, so port Rush was kind of a culmination. You
Speaker 1: saw some other courses and then you're then you're able
Speaker 1: to see Port Rush.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Funny thing about the geography there you're describing how it's
Speaker 1: it's at this kind of northern most point of or
Speaker 1: a very northern point of the island. It's actually relatively
Speaker 1: not that hard too, if you were to take a
Speaker 1: boat trip to go right across to like where Macrahannish is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in Scotland, and.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's a there's a plan a foot among
Speaker 1: some of the Macrahannish owners and operators to maybe design
Speaker 1: some kind of situation where where people can go play
Speaker 1: Macrahannish and then take a little flight across to Northern
Speaker 1: Ireland and see Port Rush and County down. So these
Speaker 1: this this area is kind of it's all one area,
Speaker 1: even though there are different countries and not necessarily thought
Speaker 1: of as being that close together. Now, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the famous things about Royal Port Rush is that
Speaker 1: it sits right on this kind of entrance into town.
Speaker 1: Did you have that experience of coming into town and
Speaker 1: seeing the links for the first time? Was this part
Speaker 1: of the trip?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the entrance, I think when Rory was on
Speaker 2: our podcast he spoke to it in depth, like the
Speaker 2: first time he saw it, because it's like truly an
Speaker 2: amazing drive. So we were coming up the coast and
Speaker 2: we stopped up at the Giants Causeway, which is this
Speaker 2: really cool kind of like rare ecological like rock formation
Speaker 2: that's right on the coast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is like a major attraction. It's a
Speaker 1: World Heritage site famous for a long time. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But so we were coming from over there, which
Speaker 2: is I guess they'd be just east of the town
Speaker 2: of port Rush, and you're kind of up on these
Speaker 2: cliffs overlooking the ocean there, and you pass the Dunluce Castle,
Speaker 2: which is I think it's like a fourteenth century castle,
Speaker 2: really really old castle. So you kind of pass that
Speaker 2: and you come around on this corner and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden you have this like incredible view. You're
Speaker 2: probably a couple hundred feet above like the town of
Speaker 2: port Rush and the golf course because you're up on
Speaker 2: these like high coastal cliffs and you just like come
Speaker 2: around this bend and there's this amazing, amazing view of
Speaker 2: the dunes land right there, which shits in between you
Speaker 2: and the actual town of port Rush. So the reveal
Speaker 2: like when you're driving is really really spectacular and certainly
Speaker 2: increases your anticipation if you already weren't really really excited
Speaker 2: to go see Royal port Rush. Yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1: Love a love a good drive into town where you
Speaker 1: get a preview of the golf course. So our basic
Speaker 1: plan for this episode, Matt, is for us to tell
Speaker 1: our listeners everything they need to know about the Dunloose
Speaker 1: Links at Royal port Rush Golf Club. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: the land, the routing, the characteristics of the hairy cult design,
Speaker 1: the greens, the hazards, thex, the agronomy, the recent renovation
Speaker 1: work done by Mackenzie and Ebert, the overall architectural significance
Speaker 1: of the place, and then finally we'll talk about some
Speaker 1: specific holes to watch for during the open. So let's
Speaker 1: get into the history of rural Port Rush. I've done
Speaker 1: some research on this subject. There's a lot of really
Speaker 1: interesting bits and pieces of this history that I want
Speaker 1: to cover. So the club was founded in eighteen eighty eight. Now,
Speaker 1: by this point in the eighteen hundreds, Port Rush the
Speaker 1: town was a vacation spot and it was accessible by train.
Speaker 1: The railroad arrived to this town in eighteen fifty five
Speaker 1: and this transformed Port Rush the town from just a
Speaker 1: small fishing village into a very popular, bustling seaside resort town.
Speaker 1: On its way into Port Rush, the train route passed
Speaker 1: the Duneland where the golf course now sits. So basically
Speaker 1: the train route was the current day highway route into town.
Speaker 1: So obviously people would would look out the windows of
Speaker 1: the train and see this duneland, and if there were golfers,
Speaker 1: they would see really obvious land for a golf course.
Speaker 1: So two of the most prominent founders of Royal Port
Speaker 1: Rush were George Lockhart Bailey and Thomas Gilroy. Both were
Speaker 1: Scotsmen born in eighteen fifty two, born the same year,
Speaker 1: and they were advocates of golf. Bailey was raised in
Speaker 1: East Lothian, became a school teacher and was posted as
Speaker 1: an English master at Belfast Academy. When he was twenty
Speaker 1: nine years old. He helped establish Ireland's first golf club,
Speaker 1: which was Royal Belfast in eighteen eighty one, and just
Speaker 1: went on to kind of become a Johnny apple Seed
Speaker 1: of golf in Ireland. He'd go on to help form
Speaker 1: Royal County Down and many other clubs. Thomas Gilroy grew
Speaker 1: up in Dundee and was trained in golf by Old
Speaker 1: Tom Morris's brother George, so Gilroy played a lot of
Speaker 1: his golf at Carnoustie, went to school at the University
Speaker 1: of Saint Andrews and regularly played with young Tom Morris
Speaker 1: while he was there, maybe encountered Cebe McDonald, who knows.
Speaker 1: He moved with his family to Ireland in eighteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: where they bought one of these kind of grand Estates,
Speaker 1: clearly from a wealthy family, and he went on to
Speaker 1: establish County Louth Golf Club or Baltray as it's more
Speaker 1: commonly known. He helped to design Royal Dublin and was
Speaker 1: just one of the best players in Ireland. Was kind
Speaker 1: of known as the golf guy in Ireland. So these
Speaker 1: two men, Bailey and Gilroy, joined with members of several
Speaker 1: leading local families to form a club in Port Rush,
Speaker 1: initially called the County Club. Now, this was the fifth
Speaker 1: golf club to be established on the island of Ireland,
Speaker 1: so this was early days of golf and Ireland and
Speaker 1: the first statement of the club's committee went like this.
Speaker 1: It said, the sandy hills or dunes around Port Rush,
Speaker 1: if properly laid out and cared for, will in a
Speaker 1: short time form excellent and attractive links. So the purpose
Speaker 1: of the club really from the beginning was to take
Speaker 1: advantage of this outstanding land that they were all familiar
Speaker 1: with next to this popular vacation town. So what happened
Speaker 1: next was was kind of clever and indicate some things
Speaker 1: about how golf developed during this period. George Bailey connected
Speaker 1: with the Belfast and Northern Counties, railway to lease the
Speaker 1: land from the Earl of Antrim. So the Earl of
Speaker 1: Antrim was kind of the administrator of this land and
Speaker 1: to lease the land from him, Bailey connected with a
Speaker 1: railroad company. So the railway influence on Royalport Rush and
Speaker 1: many other golf courses was absolutely critical. The construction of
Speaker 1: railroads in Great Britain and Ireland helped to create this
Speaker 1: culture of travel and a kind of fad for travel.
Speaker 1: Before this, most people rarely left the region where they lived.
Speaker 1: With the railroad in place, more and more people were
Speaker 1: using trains to escape from the congestion and the pollution
Speaker 1: of the cities where more and more of them now lived.
Speaker 1: This was happening at the same time as urbanization in Ireland,
Speaker 1: Great Britain and Europe. A lot of people moving to
Speaker 1: cities and access to the railroad gave them a chance
Speaker 1: to escape those cities from time to time to go
Speaker 1: visit these seaside towns. So it was just a lot
Speaker 1: easier to get from cities like Belfast in Northern Imla
Speaker 1: or what's now known as Northern Ireland to towns like
Speaker 1: Port Rush for a week or a weekend of recreation,
Speaker 1: and you know, around this activity was created an entire
Speaker 1: travel industry, or as they call it, a holiday industry
Speaker 1: in Great Britain and Ireland, especially along the coast. It
Speaker 1: was thought to be healthy to go to the coast.
Speaker 1: Cities were thought to be bad for you in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, and going to the seaside was thought
Speaker 1: to be good for your health. Golf became part of
Speaker 1: this industry. So the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway understood
Speaker 1: the potential of golf to attract tourism and motivate people
Speaker 1: to buy train tickets, so they agreed with George Bailey
Speaker 1: to lease the land for the golf course in Port Rush.
Speaker 1: They helped to create Royal Port Rush because they knew
Speaker 1: it would be a nice little tourist attraction that would
Speaker 1: motivate people to use their railroad. So the County Golf
Speaker 1: Club formally opened on May twelfth, eighteen eighty eight. The
Speaker 1: original course consisted of nine holes occupying a forty acre
Speaker 1: plot called the Big Triangle. This is right next to town,
Speaker 1: right under that peninsula jutting into the ocean that you
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, Matt. So this is a triangle kind
Speaker 1: of formed by different roads that you can still see
Speaker 1: on Google Earth Maps of port Rush. Now today there
Speaker 1: are no holes golf holes remaining within the Big triangle.
Speaker 1: But originally the course was just there, and the course
Speaker 1: was pretty well regarded at first. I guess there was
Speaker 1: pretty good land within the Big triangle, because this is
Speaker 1: what the Belfast newsletter. The newsletter was a different thing
Speaker 1: at the time. It was a newspaper. This is what
Speaker 1: that paper said about the course in eighteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: It said, port Rush, the town has many attractions. It's
Speaker 1: beautiful situation, its bracing air, its proximity to the Giant's Causeway,
Speaker 1: together with its extensive sands and excellent sea bathing, have
Speaker 1: rendered it a favorite place of resort. Golfers will be
Speaker 1: delighted to learn that to these has just been added
Speaker 1: one of the finest golf course of the three kingdoms.
Speaker 1: So right away what would become Royal port Rush was
Speaker 1: a well regarded golf links. Now the ground on which
Speaker 1: the nine holes had been laid out was close to
Speaker 1: the railroad, the railway station, it was right there, and
Speaker 1: so it had all just the elements of good golf
Speaker 1: right away. Old Tom Morris ended up visiting port Rush
Speaker 1: in the summer of eighteen eighty nine, so this was
Speaker 1: just a year after the club was established. Old Tom
Speaker 1: Morris visited and he ended up providing some on the
Speaker 1: expansion of the course to eighteen holes. Initially just had
Speaker 1: nine holes within the Big Triangle. Old Tom Morris came
Speaker 1: to town and gave some guidance on how to expand
Speaker 1: the course outside of the Big Triangle and into the
Speaker 1: actual more dramatic duneland that was to the east of
Speaker 1: the Big Triangle, so more away from town, deeper into
Speaker 1: the links. Old Tom Morris was saying, 'ro oute your
Speaker 1: course there now. The specifics of the advice that Morris
Speaker 1: gave were never recorded. It was just assumed. I guess
Speaker 1: that they were followed. And Morris never returned to Port Rush,
Speaker 1: so it's not like he built this course. This is
Speaker 1: not like Prestwick where it was Old Tom Morris's course.
Speaker 2: He was just there.
Speaker 1: We know that he provided some advice and an eighteen
Speaker 1: hole course was soon built. So the club acquired the
Speaker 1: land to the east this more dramatic duneland in eighteen
Speaker 1: and the eighteen hole course opened that year. This new routing,
Speaker 1: presumably recommended by Old Tom Morris, had a classic loop
Speaker 1: out and back structure. It started in town, ventured out
Speaker 1: into the dune land, looped back around in a counterclockwise direction,
Speaker 1: and then visited the coastline before returning to town. So
Speaker 1: this is what old Tom Morris did in many courses.
Speaker 1: I think we can assume that this is basically what
Speaker 1: he recommended. Just take the golf course out there inland,
Speaker 1: loop back around, you know, graze the coast, and then
Speaker 1: come right back. There was a hole on this course
Speaker 1: called the Crater, which played directly over a massive blown
Speaker 1: out dune. Now I'm not entirely sure which hole this was.
Speaker 1: The sources that I've read from the eighteen nineties and
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundred it's about the course, are a little
Speaker 1: bit confusing. It They seem to indicate that the hole
Speaker 1: was on the back nine, somewhere like in the middle
Speaker 1: or towards the beginning of the back nine, maybe hole
Speaker 1: thirteen or fourteen. But the photos of the hole that
Speaker 1: I've seen have show the hole being fairly close to
Speaker 1: some houses in Port Rush, which would indicate that the
Speaker 1: hole was more on the front nine. So I'm a
Speaker 1: little bewildered as to what the exact routing of the
Speaker 1: course was and which hole this was, But it was
Speaker 1: a very memorable hole. It was a bit like kind
Speaker 1: of like the maiden hole at Royal Saint George's which
Speaker 1: no longer exists, just playing right over this obstacle, and
Speaker 1: it made certainly a very striking photo. So at this
Speaker 1: time the course was still called the County Golf Club.
Speaker 1: It was renamed Royal County Club in eighteen ninety two
Speaker 1: under the patronage of the Duke of York, then renamed
Speaker 1: again Royal Port Rush Golf Club in eighteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: now under the patronage of the Prince of Wales. And
Speaker 1: by the nineteen twenties it was still this golf course
Speaker 1: that was Royal Port Rush Golf Course, this old Tom
Speaker 1: Morris routing. But a lot of advances in ball and
Speaker 1: club technology had happened. The course had fallen behind the
Speaker 1: times and the club leaders saw the need for a redesign.
Speaker 1: They were especially anxious to attract the best players in golf.
Speaker 1: This has been a through line in the history of
Speaker 1: Royal Port Rush, the desire to host big tournaments and
Speaker 1: the emphasis on competitive play. They got to a point
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties where they felt they weren't attracting
Speaker 1: the quality of players that they wanted, so they needed
Speaker 1: to improve their course somehow during this time, during the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, the club actually figured out a way to
Speaker 1: cut out the railway company that had helped them secure
Speaker 1: the lease of the land initially and they negotiated their
Speaker 1: own ninety nine year lease on the land from the
Speaker 1: Earl of Antrim or whoever it was, yeah the Earl
Speaker 1: of Amtrim in nineteen twenty eight. Around this time, the
Speaker 1: club also engaged Harry Colt to design two new eighteen
Speaker 1: hole courses. So they had one eighteen hole course, but
Speaker 1: they had a lot of Duneland. Harry Colt was brought
Speaker 1: in to show them how they could make full use
Speaker 1: of it create thirty six holes of golf. So Harry
Speaker 1: Colt quick sidebar on him. He's in the discussion for
Speaker 1: the most influential golf architect of all time, no doubt
Speaker 1: about that. He started designing courses in the first decade
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Among his first projects were the
Speaker 1: design of Rye Golf Club and the redesign of the
Speaker 1: old course at Sunningdale. Went on to design Swinley Forest
Speaker 1: Saint George's Hill in the new course at Sunningdale. All
Speaker 1: in the English Heathlands, also renovated and redesigned much of
Speaker 1: the modern open Roda, including Mierfield Royal Liverpool. Made key
Speaker 1: contributions to golf architecture on the European continent, particularly with
Speaker 1: a couple of great Links courses in the Netherlands. In
Speaker 1: North America, he designed Toronto Golf Club, Hamilton Golfing Country Club,
Speaker 1: Old Elm Club, and he provided really important assistance to
Speaker 1: George Crump in the design of Pine Valley Colts. Changed
Speaker 1: the way that golf courses were built. He changed the
Speaker 1: way that golf features were built. He was one of
Speaker 1: the first architects, maybe even the first golf architect, to
Speaker 1: blend artificial features into the natural landscape in an intentional way.
Speaker 1: He also adopted the strategic ideas pioneered and promoted by
Speaker 1: John Lowe, Tom Simpson and others, emphasizing options and angles
Speaker 1: rather than straightforward punishment for poor strikes. He just brought
Speaker 1: a new level of sophistication and artistry at a golf
Speaker 1: course design trained Charles Allison and Alistair McKenzie, who then
Speaker 1: exported this approach to golf architecture.
Speaker 2: Across the world.
Speaker 1: So the Allison and McKenzie courses that you see have
Speaker 1: a lot of the characteristics that early Cult courses had
Speaker 1: embodied his philosophies to a great degree. So Harry Colt's
Speaker 1: influence on architecture just spread all over the world by
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, and by that point his career was
Speaker 1: really winding down. Royal Port Rush was one of his
Speaker 1: last really well known designs. Now, it wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two that the new courses were built, the Dunloose
Speaker 1: Links and the Valley Links. Essentially nothing that I can
Speaker 1: see was kept from the old Tom Morris course, maybe
Speaker 1: a whole corridor here and there, but these were brand
Speaker 1: new courses that really didn't take much inspiration from the
Speaker 1: Tom Morris course. The company Frank's Harris and Company had
Speaker 1: worked with Cult previously carried out the construction and members
Speaker 1: played the new championship course the Dunloose Links for the
Speaker 1: first time on Eastern nineteen thirty three. The core of
Speaker 1: Colt's Dunloose Links still exists today with some modifications that
Speaker 1: will discuss, and he also designed, of course the Valley Links,
Speaker 1: which although owned by Royal port Rush is home to
Speaker 1: Rathmore Golf Club and the Royal port Rush Ladies Club
Speaker 1: is a primary course for those clubs.
Speaker 2: So the first.
Speaker 1: Major change to Royal port Rush came in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: The first major change to Colt's design, that is this
Speaker 1: is when the town of port Rush purchased the remainder
Speaker 1: of that big triangle near town and they wanted to
Speaker 1: build a new school, so that purchase included the first
Speaker 1: and eighteenth holes of Colt's course. So Cult returned in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties to advise on some replacement holes, but
Speaker 1: the club's professional PG Stevenson, ended up actually designing them.
Speaker 1: Stevenson's holes were different from what Colt suggested, but Colt
Speaker 1: apparently said that they were better. These holes, the old
Speaker 1: eighth and ninth and the current tenth and eleventh, were
Speaker 1: completed in nineteen thirty nine, so the routing had already changed.
Speaker 1: The first and eighteenth holes original holes had been chopped
Speaker 1: off and more holes had been built deeper into the
Speaker 1: lynx Land rowport Rush hosted the Open Championship in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, the first time it Open had been held
Speaker 1: outside of the island of Great Britain. It was won
Speaker 1: by Max Faulkner, an English golfer who apparently did most
Speaker 1: of his damage in the late forties and early fifties,
Speaker 1: and it didn't host another open until twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 1: of course won by Shane Lowry. So we'll talk about
Speaker 1: some more kind of recent history of Royal Port Rush
Speaker 1: a little bit later in this episode, but that's the
Speaker 1: basic story of the formation of the course, and in
Speaker 1: a minute will dive into the architecture. But first a
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Speaker 1: the USGA Green Section Shop. All right, Matt, let's let's
Speaker 1: dive into some characteristics of this golf course that Harry
Speaker 1: Colt designed and has been altered in some ways, but
Speaker 1: basically still embodies what Harry Colt envisioned in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties. When you think about the land at Royalport Rush,
Speaker 1: what are the main features of the property. What's the
Speaker 1: structure of the property, Where's the interesting stuff, where's the
Speaker 1: less interesting stuff? How is it all kind of laid
Speaker 1: out out there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the land is like far and away
Speaker 2: one of the best assets to Royal Port Rush. It's
Speaker 2: such an incredible variety of links land and it took
Speaker 2: me a while, like I actually kind of just recently
Speaker 2: understood this because this was actually this trip that we
Speaker 2: went on last March. It was my first time like
Speaker 2: making a trip to Scotland or island or to play
Speaker 2: you know, these classical links type golf courses and Portmarnick
Speaker 2: I guess is more like the Scottish Links where it's
Speaker 2: kind of this low lying land with smaller undulations, and
Speaker 2: then we went up to Royal County down which is
Speaker 2: like these incredibly dramatic like landforms and huge sand dunes,
Speaker 2: and it, like, I guess it like surpassed my thoughts
Speaker 2: of what real links golf was in this like kind
Speaker 2: of more low lying and less intricate land. And that's
Speaker 2: what Royal Port Rush has is which is why it
Speaker 2: makes it so great. It has huge, long, broad slopes
Speaker 2: alongside really choppy dunes that kind of layer on top
Speaker 2: of each other and create these really amazing peripheries on
Speaker 2: holes like nine, ten and eleven kind of in the
Speaker 2: middle section, but in general it's just like a very
Speaker 2: very good variety of land and at the same time,
Speaker 2: like you're set right on the water there and the
Speaker 2: land like really goes up high once you go inland
Speaker 2: there to kind of this rolling farmland, so you have
Speaker 2: really long views up the coast of the rocky coastline
Speaker 2: you can see the farmland inland and then just some
Speaker 2: of the most incredible sand dunes you'll ever find where
Speaker 2: the two golf courses, the dunes SLINKs in the valley
Speaker 2: course sit so I really do think that the land
Speaker 2: is one of the greatest assets. It's so different than
Speaker 2: what you see a lot of the other ROTA courses,
Speaker 2: at least from my perspective seeing them on TV, and
Speaker 2: what I haven't visited very many at all, but that
Speaker 2: was the definitely something that stood out so much to
Speaker 2: me is just how good the land is at Royalport Rushing.
Speaker 1: That distinguishes Irish Links Golf from Scottish Links golf or
Speaker 1: even most English Links golf, just the sheer scale of
Speaker 1: the land, the size of the sand dunes, it's just bigger.
Speaker 1: And then another interesting aspect of Royal Port Rush is
Speaker 1: that it has like that spectacular coastline as well that
Speaker 1: you can actually see. Although there is a big dune
Speaker 1: ridge along the coast, there are places where you can
Speaker 1: kind of get through it, get up and over it
Speaker 1: and really see the ocean. So it's almost it's like
Speaker 1: more of a site that Mike Kaiser would like, you know,
Speaker 1: and would be attracted to for one of his resorts,
Speaker 1: more so even than a lot of the sites we
Speaker 1: see for Scottish Links. So in general, the land toward
Speaker 1: the town, my understanding is that the land toward the
Speaker 1: town is more subtle than the land that you get
Speaker 1: too deeper into the links land. So how does that
Speaker 1: all function? Is there more detail there that I should
Speaker 1: know about?
Speaker 2: Not really, I would say you're pretty correct in that
Speaker 2: kind of the further west you go on the property,
Speaker 2: the more subtle the land is. It's still like exceptional
Speaker 2: land to build golf on. It just doesn't really compare
Speaker 2: to how dramatic and choppy and really really undulating the
Speaker 2: land is more towards the center, and then kind of
Speaker 2: the coastline where the fifth hole plays too, So that
Speaker 2: includes like holes one and two kind of play over
Speaker 2: these more broad slopes and it climbs you up to
Speaker 2: kind of a high point on the most inland side,
Speaker 2: which is definitely the highest point of the course. And
Speaker 2: then also kind of the eighteenth hole sits in a
Speaker 2: little bit more I guess gentle land, which is still
Speaker 2: obviously very very good land for a golf course.
Speaker 1: All right, So that's the land. Let's talk about the routing.
Speaker 1: Take me through how the current routing of roll Port
Speaker 1: Rush basically works, and then we can get to about
Speaker 1: the past routings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the current routing, you have the first I
Speaker 2: would say four holes are kind of climbing up around
Speaker 2: the perimeter of the property. So based on on the
Speaker 2: two courses, the clubhouse kind of sits in the middle
Speaker 2: for the dunlost links, and.
Speaker 1: You on the southern end of the property farthest away
Speaker 1: from the coastline, which is on the north.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're yeah. One one is essentially the furthest
Speaker 2: inland hole that you play, So you're starting about as
Speaker 2: far inland as you can and you make this direct
Speaker 2: b line towards the ocean. Per se, you play up
Speaker 2: the hills kind of on one. Two, three is pretty level,
Speaker 2: and then four is slightly down towards the water. But
Speaker 2: once you get up to the fifth t it's this
Speaker 2: like it's this high vista. You have this very very
Speaker 2: panoramic view of the North Atlantic Ocean, the entire fifth holes.
Speaker 2: There you get to see like all the dunes in
Speaker 2: their in their whole glory. The massive un ridge that
Speaker 2: kind of protects the seventh hole from the ocean there
Speaker 2: is right there in view. So that's like the start,
Speaker 2: which I really really enjoy because it builds this anticipation.
Speaker 2: We're up on this high ground. You look down to
Speaker 2: all the holes in the center of the golf course
Speaker 2: and you see people playing down there, and it's building
Speaker 2: this anticipation to get down into this really dramatic looking
Speaker 2: duneesland to play all these holes that go through the
Speaker 2: center of the property. And then from there you got
Speaker 2: to play down to the coast edge, which is almost
Speaker 2: like a cliff edge. It sits up probably maybe forty
Speaker 2: feet above the actual beach, so you can get up
Speaker 2: onto the edge of the green there you're overlooking the water,
Speaker 2: you can look down on the beach. There's always people
Speaker 2: down there. That's something that stood out to me very
Speaker 2: quickly is how much the locals just utilize the beach
Speaker 2: and the dunes on the perimeter of the golf course.
Speaker 2: There's these little hiking trails. Actually spent one just walking
Speaker 2: the beach and going up on that main dune ridge
Speaker 2: and looking at the course from up there, which is
Speaker 2: a really cool perspective. So it's really cool to see
Speaker 2: how integrated this golf course is with the town and
Speaker 2: how many of the locals are using it even if
Speaker 2: they're not out there to play golf. And then the
Speaker 2: new holes that were added, which I'm sure we'll dive
Speaker 2: into a little bit deeper in a little bit are
Speaker 2: seven and eight, which took up the land that the
Speaker 2: old fifth and sixth holes of the Valley course played over,
Speaker 2: So that's the seventh pole, kind of playing through this
Speaker 2: valley up against that main large dune ridge that borders
Speaker 2: the ocean there, so you play out along the coast
Speaker 2: there again, and then you start coming back inland, and
Speaker 2: then there's these little loops that you play throughout the
Speaker 2: center of the property in holes in nine through eleven
Speaker 2: per se, and there you're just kind of playing now
Speaker 2: in one direction through these very very choppy dunes, and
Speaker 2: then you come back, you cross over, you loop around,
Speaker 2: and then one more time. So it's really kind of
Speaker 2: interesting when you compare it to other old Links courses.
Speaker 2: It's not a true out and back. It is in
Speaker 2: some fashion where you're going out and you don't return
Speaker 2: back until the eighteenth hole, but there's these these different
Speaker 2: types of loops, and it's a little bit more intricate
Speaker 2: and complex of a journey going through the natural terrain.
Speaker 2: And then after that you you kind of reach this
Speaker 2: other climax after you get through the middle section of
Speaker 2: the course and you come to the perimeter where the
Speaker 2: fifteenth hole you crest up over a hill and that's
Speaker 2: where you get another really awesome panoramic view of the water.
Speaker 2: The fifteenth Green kind of sits a little bit down
Speaker 2: from where you're hitting your approach shot, and then obviously
Speaker 2: you turn the corner there to one of the most
Speaker 2: famous part of threes in the world, the sixteenth Calamity Corner,
Speaker 2: and then from there you're playing over some very very
Speaker 2: dramatic land. The sixteenth and seventeenth there are really really
Speaker 2: cool golf holes that play over some very undulating terrain,
Speaker 2: and then the eighteenth, I would say, brings you back
Speaker 2: into kind of that more gentle land for kind of
Speaker 2: like a smooth landing to the under year round.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of kind of mirrors the first hole
Speaker 1: in some way as a return to the broader slopes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such an interesting routing. Basically, I like to imagine
Speaker 1: it as a journey out the climaxes on the fifth green,
Speaker 1: right out on the cliffs, and then you kind of
Speaker 1: turn back, but really you're doing these squiggles around the
Speaker 1: choppy dunes there in the middle. You're just kind of
Speaker 1: looping around those and taking turns and exploring them, and
Speaker 1: then eventually you find your way out through Calamity Corner
Speaker 1: and Clambity Corner. The whole sixteenth hole plays over a
Speaker 1: massive orge basically it's just a really impressive land form.
Speaker 1: And then the seventeenth hole plays up and over a dune. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these these two big, uh pieces of the terrain
Speaker 1: are are kind of what you're what you're going for
Speaker 1: in the routing and as they provide a re entry
Speaker 1: into the more subtle land. So you know, when you
Speaker 1: consider just the the overall quality of this routing, what
Speaker 1: do you think the big strengths are. What are your
Speaker 1: big takeaways from why this is a good routing.
Speaker 2: I really think it's the variety, because you're getting to
Speaker 2: such different like types of land within this very diverse
Speaker 2: links land. Something I was actually just thinking about too
Speaker 2: that I'm kind of thinking about, like why Harry Colt
Speaker 2: shows this specific section for the Championship dunloose Links and
Speaker 2: then the other one for the valley, And I think
Speaker 2: it's because of maybe potentially this like high ground where
Speaker 2: you come up high, you're overlooking the golf course. You're
Speaker 2: playing this really like you're just on top of the
Speaker 2: world almost. It feels like when you're walking those fairways,
Speaker 2: you can see the entire rest of the two golf
Speaker 2: courses there. You can see into the town. There's a
Speaker 2: ferris wheel in town that is kind of like it's
Speaker 2: almost like a beacon, like you keep seeing it on
Speaker 2: the horizon line as you're playing the course. And I
Speaker 2: think why he did that is because of the journey
Speaker 2: out to the ocean. It builds the anticipation. And then
Speaker 2: the land is just so good in that middle section.
Speaker 2: It has such amazing undulations that are smaller scaled and
Speaker 2: create such unique different kind of undulations in each fairways.
Speaker 2: And then he just found such amazing natural green sites.
Speaker 2: So I really think it's the variety. And none of
Speaker 2: the holes play in the same direction, so the wind
Speaker 2: is affecting it in such different ways. And then when
Speaker 2: you look over to the valley course, it's called the
Speaker 2: valley for a reason. The state sixteenth hole is kind
Speaker 2: of one of the edges. The sixteenth on the dum
Speaker 2: loose links that is, is kind of one of the
Speaker 2: rims of the valley, kind of the high points and
Speaker 2: the steep sides of the valley. So when you look
Speaker 2: down to the right on sixteen, you see how like
Speaker 2: it's much flatter. It's kind of this flat bottomed valley
Speaker 2: in between the dune ridge that the sixteenth plays over
Speaker 2: and then that large dune ridge that is on the
Speaker 2: border of the shoreline that I spoke about earlier. So
Speaker 2: you have these two massive dune ridges and the valley
Speaker 2: just kind of sits in this low lying land in
Speaker 2: between it, and it's it's perfectly great land for a
Speaker 2: golf course. It's just maybe a little bit less interesting
Speaker 2: and not quite as complex. The complexity of the dunlus
Speaker 2: Lynx Land is just it's so good, Like there's there's
Speaker 2: never a spot where you're like, oh, this kind of
Speaker 2: looks the same as this over here. It's always constantly changing,
Speaker 2: and then the journey in which you experience each of
Speaker 2: these different types of kind of dunes within the site
Speaker 2: is constantly changing. So it's just such a dynamic golf course,
Speaker 2: if I had to put it in one sentence.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's a cool contrast between the two courses,
Speaker 1: the dun Loose and the valley, because one is kind
Speaker 1: of on the high ground, on the really dramatic land.
Speaker 1: One is more on the low ground, the low section
Speaker 1: of the property, on perhaps less complex land, but still
Speaker 1: really good. And you can assume that on really windy
Speaker 1: days the valley course is probably a little more protected
Speaker 1: from the wind by that big dune ridge and the
Speaker 1: other dune ridge on the other side inland, and so
Speaker 1: maybe that would be a more pleasant place to be
Speaker 1: during the bad weather days. It does serve its purpose.
Speaker 1: Tom Doak, and one of my favorite phrases that I've
Speaker 1: seen from him refer to the valley course at royal
Speaker 1: Port Rush as the dun Loose Lynks's hot little sister.
Speaker 1: So that's I guess you can imagine it that way
Speaker 1: as well. We could say this for our renovation work
Speaker 1: section when we talk about what Mackenzie and Ebert have
Speaker 1: done with the dumb Loose Links in preparation for these
Speaker 1: modern Open championships. But I want to just quickly refer
Speaker 1: to the changes of the dumb Loose Links as routing overall,
Speaker 1: which I think are really interesting. The original Harry Cult
Speaker 1: routing of the dumb Loose Links started much closer to town.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned earlier, it started in that big triangle
Speaker 1: it's basically abutting the town of royal Port Rush, and
Speaker 1: so there was a first hole in that big triangle.
Speaker 1: Then you cross the road and play another hole, which
Speaker 1: until fairly recently was the first hole. No, it was
Speaker 1: the eighteenth hole. Teenth on the dumb loose links that
Speaker 1: used to be the second hole, and then finally you
Speaker 1: get to the third hole, which is today's first hole. Essentially,
Speaker 1: what this means is that the journey out to the
Speaker 1: fifth green to the edge of the cliffs took longer.
Speaker 1: The fifth hole used to be the eighth hole, and
Speaker 1: then there was a longer journey back, and then in
Speaker 1: the middle of the round when you're kind of exploring
Speaker 1: this really good links land, it was a simpler route
Speaker 1: through those. Basically, from the fifth Green in Harry Colt's
Speaker 1: original routing, you turned directly back inland, went inland for
Speaker 1: a couple of holes, and then looped around and went
Speaker 1: back toward the coast to hit Calambity Corner, and then
Speaker 1: finally you turn inland again to make your way all
Speaker 1: the way back to town. This was not a pure
Speaker 1: out and back routing. There's a little kind of loop
Speaker 1: or almost em the shape in the middle, if you
Speaker 1: can imagine it as these two kind of curves of
Speaker 1: a m. But it did have that out and back
Speaker 1: character a little bit more and somewhat more in common
Speaker 1: with kind of classic links courses that would often start
Speaker 1: on very dull land closer to town and take you
Speaker 1: out to the interesting stuff. The modern Royal Port Rush
Speaker 1: starts much closer to the really interesting land. It gets
Speaker 1: you much quicker to the cliff, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people might like that better. A lot of people might say,
Speaker 1: I prefer to spend all this time, to spend most
Speaker 1: of the round in this fascinating dune land. But there's
Speaker 1: something about that original routing that is kind of pure.
Speaker 1: You can really see the intention of the routing and
Speaker 1: Harry Colt's initial plan for the course, which which lasted.
Speaker 1: It only was in the ground for only six years
Speaker 1: because it was nineteen thirty nine when they took out
Speaker 1: those the first and eighteenth holes that were right close
Speaker 1: to town. But in that original routing you really see
Speaker 1: that Harry Colt's intention was to take the plays on
Speaker 1: a journey out to the cliffs, loop around back through
Speaker 1: the interesting duneland inland, and then loop you back around
Speaker 1: to hit Calamity Corner. Those are the two things that
Speaker 1: he was going for. The two magnets of the routing
Speaker 1: cliff side on on that current day fifth hole and
Speaker 1: the big gorge at Calamity Corner for the current day
Speaker 1: sixteenth hole. It's I think it's such a fascinating routing
Speaker 1: because it is so simple in that way. It's like
Speaker 1: he clear he saw those two landforms and or saw
Speaker 1: those two points on the property and was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going there. That's the whole point of the golf course.
Speaker 1: That's muddied a little bit. Now you can't see that
Speaker 1: as clearly because basically they've put a lot more holes
Speaker 1: in the in the middle of the links land of
Speaker 1: of of the course, and that's just, you know, it
Speaker 1: is what it is. The courses evolve, and this is
Speaker 1: how that course has evolved. And I guess to be
Speaker 1: clear for people, it is a little preview of our
Speaker 1: renovation work. Section Mackenzie Ebert's seventh and eighth holes, which
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, Matt, were added for the twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: Open Championship, and as part of that they eliminated the
Speaker 1: seventeenth and eighteenth holes, which in Harry Colt's original routing
Speaker 1: were actually the second and seventeenth holes. But that's starting
Speaker 1: to get confusing. They basically eliminated the seventeen and eighteenth holes,
Speaker 1: which were on subtler land near the clubhouse, and pushed
Speaker 1: the whole course more into the dune land. And now
Speaker 1: they're using that land by the clubhouse formerly occupied by
Speaker 1: the seventeenth and eighteenth holes for spectator infrastructure, championship infrastructure
Speaker 1: staging area. I guess that's probably where you enter the
Speaker 1: venue for the Open Championship, and you know it serves
Speaker 1: its purpose for championship golf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they actually built they actually built a kid's
Speaker 2: course kind of where the seventeenth and eighteenth hole used
Speaker 2: to be on the old dune list link. So it's
Speaker 2: just a very simple kind of pitch and put style
Speaker 2: course there for children. I saw this on the Google
Speaker 2: Earth aerials.
Speaker 1: Is it cool? I mean, the land is obviously it
Speaker 1: doesn't give you much there, but is it kind of
Speaker 1: a cool thing to have that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it's great for kids obviously. I know when
Speaker 2: we talked with Gary McNeil, who's been the head professional
Speaker 2: there since I think nineteen ninety nine, like almost thirty
Speaker 2: years now, he said it was a great asset for
Speaker 2: you know, warming kids up when they're little to try
Speaker 2: and like build up the kind of the gamesman to
Speaker 2: get onto the championship links there. It's mostly just kind
Speaker 2: of flat land, open holes, no bunkers, So it's just
Speaker 2: great for you know, children who can hit it on
Speaker 2: the ground and roll it around and kind of pick
Speaker 2: up the game.
Speaker 1: Right. All right, we've talked about land and routing. Let's
Speaker 1: just mention quickly what we think the general design philosophy
Speaker 1: of this course is now cult is generally regarded as
Speaker 1: golf architecture history's great naturalist. Natural features is what he emphasized,
Speaker 1: and looking built features is also a big point of
Speaker 1: emphasis with most of his work, and he's also known
Speaker 1: as a proponent of the strategic school of golf architecture
Speaker 1: as opposed to the penal. Do you think those things
Speaker 1: come through in Royal Port Rush's design.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely, very very evident. The natural aspect of
Speaker 2: the design, that's definitely something that sticks out right away
Speaker 2: is just the amazing natural green sites that he selected,
Speaker 2: and inherently that then creates strategy on a lot of
Speaker 2: the golf holes based on angles or direction, green orientations
Speaker 2: or fronting dunes and mounds, kind of like the fourth hole.
Speaker 2: So I think inherently, Yeah, creating these awesome natural green sites,
Speaker 2: finding them, placing greens there then kind of helps to
Speaker 2: drive strategy back to the tee alongside, you know, the
Speaker 2: creation of the bunkers. So it's definitely very evident that
Speaker 2: those two things are present. And then there is there
Speaker 2: is like some I guess I don't know if you
Speaker 2: could consider it one hundred percent penal design, but there
Speaker 2: there's a lot of you know, false fronts and runoffs,
Speaker 2: crown greens, bold greens. So there's this good dynamic where
Speaker 2: there's shots that you hit in that will be more
Speaker 2: receptive and kind of funnel towards the center of the green,
Speaker 2: and then other ones where you need to be really
Speaker 2: really precise or you're going to kind of get repealed
Speaker 2: away to a difficult spot to make it up and down.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Variety, I mean, variety is one of the biggest
Speaker 1: strengths of Harry Colt's architecture. He always provides variety across
Speaker 1: all dimensions, you know, variety of maybe penal and strategic,
Speaker 1: but certainly variety of difficulty, some friendly holes, some some
Speaker 1: more challenging holes, and and variety of landforms. The way
Speaker 1: that the holes use the Land. He was obviously a
Speaker 1: master of that. This is Harry Colt at a very
Speaker 1: late period of his career. Golf architecture was very advanced
Speaker 1: by the late nineteen twenties. You compare this to a
Speaker 1: Harry Colt course from the first decade of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: like Stoke Pogues or a Swinley Forest or something like that.
Speaker 1: I think by the time you get to Royal Port Rush,
Speaker 1: it's not that he's a better designer, it's just that
Speaker 1: he's maybe more advanced in his methods. And maybe one
Speaker 1: example of that is the greens at Royal Port Rush,
Speaker 1: which has been a big focus of your work on
Speaker 1: the course. Matt. You wrote a great course profile for
Speaker 1: Friday Golf Club on Royal Port Rush that people should
Speaker 1: check out if they're members of Fridagg Golf Club. What
Speaker 1: to you makes Royal Port Rush's greens different from the
Speaker 1: rains that you saw at other Links courses when you
Speaker 1: took this trip to Northern Ireland and to Port Martock
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like that you brought up kind of how
Speaker 2: this was late in his career, because I believe he
Speaker 2: has like nearly three hundred golf courses to his name,
Speaker 2: so he had so much experience in green building and
Speaker 2: finding great natural green sites and then you know, kind
Speaker 2: of massaging the land to make it fit, maybe a
Speaker 2: design strategy he was looking for or some sort of
Speaker 2: look that he wanted for each golf hole to make
Speaker 2: them different. And I think that's so evident at Port
Speaker 2: Rush is just how amazing the natural green sites that
Speaker 2: he selected, which in turn gives you this awesome, awesome
Speaker 2: variety because the natural landscape is so is just it's
Speaker 2: so random and unique and chaotic, so there's always kind
Speaker 2: of a new twist or new turn with each green site,
Speaker 2: and you have these awesome contours that feed into the
Speaker 2: centers of the greens. So I feel like on a
Speaker 2: lot of other Lynx courses, a place like maybe Royal
Speaker 2: County Down which we saw just a few days before
Speaker 2: we're at Port Rush, is it's they almost just occupy
Speaker 2: these flatter sections amongst the dunes. Because the dunes are
Speaker 2: so massive and towering, there's only a few specific areas
Speaker 2: where you could actually build a green that would be
Speaker 2: usable and functionable. So I think that's probably the biggest
Speaker 2: difference you see from LINKS courses is the dunescape at
Speaker 2: Royal Port. Rush is kind of this middle ground where
Speaker 2: you can find these little pockets and little ledges on
Speaker 2: dunes or bowls in low points where you can build
Speaker 2: great natural greens and then use the surrounding contours and
Speaker 2: rumples and stuff to kind of feed into the middle
Speaker 2: of the surface. So it's not just these large flat
Speaker 2: planes on flat sections. It's more so two tiered or
Speaker 2: even three tiered, or these long broad ridges crossing through greens,
Speaker 2: or drainage swales coming from the dreams to get water
Speaker 2: off the surface. So it's just this this awesome kind
Speaker 2: of different style where he's just adapted them to the
Speaker 2: natural landscape so well, and it's it's it's honestly, probably
Speaker 2: because of his experience at the time, like he had
Speaker 2: built so many greens, he was probably comfortable with trying
Speaker 2: to do new things, be a little bit more creative
Speaker 2: and try and do something different here because that's what
Speaker 2: the land was giving him.
Speaker 1: Would it be fair to say that the greens are
Speaker 1: are kind of more shaped than most greens that you've
Speaker 1: seen at links courses that there's it's it's good shaping
Speaker 1: and blended shaping, but but there's some some manufacturing that
Speaker 1: went into these greens, right for sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely there's more shaping per se, Like not the
Speaker 2: bad kind of shaping, but the type where it feels
Speaker 2: like they just took a blanket and draped it over
Speaker 2: the land escape and it kind of created these soft,
Speaker 2: rolling contours that flow in and out from the green
Speaker 2: surface and create this just amazing aesthetic. The Sixth Hole
Speaker 2: always comes to mind when I think, like when you
Speaker 2: just say, like, what are the like if you wanted
Speaker 2: me to talk about the greens and how they're natural,
Speaker 2: the Sixth Hole just like always comes into my mind.
Speaker 2: I have this perfect depiction in my head of the whole.
Speaker 2: I can like see it as if I was still
Speaker 2: standing on the tee because it just like sits amongst
Speaker 2: these dunes so naturally and so seamlessly. It's it's almost
Speaker 2: like it was just meant to be there.
Speaker 1: Do any other greens come to minds as standing out
Speaker 1: or ones that people should should pay attention to when
Speaker 1: they come up on the telecast?
Speaker 2: I really like the fourth Green in the in the
Speaker 2: sense of just where it's situated. It might not have
Speaker 2: the most I guess, intricate or interesting internal contours, but
Speaker 2: just the way that it sits in between these like
Speaker 2: four or five different like kind of sand mounds, and
Speaker 2: the orientation of it is really interesting. And then especially
Speaker 2: so when you bring in the out of bounds boundary,
Speaker 2: there's a straight line out of bounds fence all down
Speaker 2: the right side, and the green angles towards that, so
Speaker 2: you have to be down the right side to kind
Speaker 2: of see into the green and see the flagstick depending
Speaker 2: on that day's that day's pin position. So that's one
Speaker 2: that comes to mind. Another one too that comes to mind,
Speaker 2: would be the fifteenth. It's a really small green. It
Speaker 2: feels a lot smaller than the other ones. Maybe it isn't,
Speaker 2: and maybe that was just my perception of it, but
Speaker 2: the target looks really small because, like I was saying earlier,
Speaker 2: the drive semi blind. You're playing up a hill and
Speaker 2: you get up to the kind of the crest of
Speaker 2: the hill is where or maybe even the downslope where
Speaker 2: you're hitting your approach shot from, and you're kind of
Speaker 2: looking down to the green and there's a couple of
Speaker 2: bunkers down the left side of the hole that kind
Speaker 2: of frame the green and a fall off to the
Speaker 2: right of the green. So it feels like a shot
Speaker 2: that you have to be really precise at. And there's
Speaker 2: a big ridge that kind of cuts through the center
Speaker 2: of it, dividing the green in half. So are those
Speaker 2: are three that I think stand out, at least in
Speaker 2: my mind pretty significantly cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think this is the aspect of Royal Port
Speaker 1: Rush that makes it feel like more of a modern
Speaker 1: golf course or modern in the sense of late Golden
Speaker 1: Age more advanced golf architecture with earth moving techniques involved.
Speaker 1: It's the greens that make Royal part Rush feel like it's,
Speaker 1: you know, of a piece with maybe more the Heathland
Speaker 1: courses or some of Alistair McKenzie courses in the US
Speaker 1: and Australia. Royal Port Rush kind of feels like it
Speaker 1: belongs to that category almost as much as it belongs
Speaker 1: to the open Road, a category of Saint Andrew's and
Speaker 1: Royal Saint John and Royal Liverpool and Carnoustie. You know, yes,
Speaker 1: it does have significant similarities with some of those courses,
Speaker 1: but it also has one foot in this kind of
Speaker 1: high Golden Age advanced architecture period and I think that's
Speaker 1: part of what makes it special and it really comes
Speaker 1: through in these sophisticated green designs. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about hazards at Royal Port Rush. What do you think
Speaker 1: are the primary things that drive challenge and strategy on
Speaker 1: the holes at Port Rush?
Speaker 2: It's certainly the wind. I think there's if you look
Speaker 2: at the course at a hole there, there's not an
Speaker 2: overwhelming amount of bunkers. There's a lot that are really
Speaker 2: strategically placed, and you'll find yourselves in them because they're
Speaker 2: kind of placed in areas where balls want to collect.
Speaker 2: But I think it's the wind and the landscape that
Speaker 2: are kind of the course's greatest defense. It's always windy there.
Speaker 2: We played on a very windy day. I would assume
Speaker 2: it's going to be very windy for the Open Championship.
Speaker 2: It's so exposed there, so I think that's kind of
Speaker 2: the greatest potential hazard that players are gonna face. And
Speaker 2: then the green designs as well. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: false fronts where balls are going to roll off, so
Speaker 2: in tandem with the wind, you have to be really
Speaker 2: precise with your iron shots to get the ball close.
Speaker 2: If you're just slightly off, the wind's gonna blow it
Speaker 2: offline and then you're gonna find kind of an edge
Speaker 2: of the green that repeals you away from the putting surface.
Speaker 2: So I think it's it's a combination of the design
Speaker 2: which is really really dynamic, and it kind of is
Speaker 2: is flipping and flopping between the type of tests. It's
Speaker 2: asking you from these really demanding precise shots where you're
Speaker 2: gonna have to you know, mid to long irons and
Speaker 2: be really really accurate with where you're landing the ball,
Speaker 2: and then the combination of the wind. So it's kind
Speaker 2: of I think it's a very dynamic test. It's not
Speaker 2: there's not one certain aspect that's going to overwhelm players.
Speaker 2: I think it's the combination of the course, is greens,
Speaker 2: the landscape which you're playing over, the uneven lies, the
Speaker 2: tricky stances, and then the wind.
Speaker 1: Obviously is it because of the wind, do you think
Speaker 1: and the difficulties of combining the wind with the land
Speaker 1: that the bunkering it or all part rush is is
Speaker 1: maybe relatively minimal. I mean, there are plenty of bunkers,
Speaker 1: but it's not the place isn't absolutely strewn with them, right.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, there's so little, Like I think the sixth
Speaker 2: hole has no bunkers, the eleventh hole might have one.
Speaker 2: The tenth hole has no bunkers, and then even holes
Speaker 2: like the fifth, like there's just two bunkers out there
Speaker 2: that kind of frame the edges of the fairway and
Speaker 2: are only really going to punish you if you're trying
Speaker 2: to push a driver up by the green. So it's
Speaker 2: almost as if it's kind of allowing you to play
Speaker 2: a more conservative game, play the wind, keep the ball
Speaker 2: on the ground. But if you want to be aggressive
Speaker 2: and try and try to I guess, bully the course,
Speaker 2: then that's where you can find yourself in these bunkers
Speaker 2: that are a real penalty. Another interesting thing that I've
Speaker 2: been considering and thinking about ahead of the Open is
Speaker 2: the seventeenth hole, which plays kind of up over this
Speaker 2: ridge line and then it's a huge drop and the
Speaker 2: fair way tumbles down towards the green, and I believe
Speaker 2: it's like a four hundred yard hole. But I'm almost
Speaker 2: convinced that some players are going to be able to
Speaker 2: drive the green because if you get the ball over
Speaker 2: that ridge, it's just going to run down the hill
Speaker 2: forever and ever. But there's these bunkers that are way
Speaker 2: down there that may seem like they're not in a
Speaker 2: place to challenge you. But if you're going to try
Speaker 2: and drive the green and you know, man handle the hole,
Speaker 2: then they're going to cause you issues. So I feel
Speaker 2: like potentially maybe that's where these bunkers come into play,
Speaker 2: is more hazards and then obviously on on the par
Speaker 2: fives in your layup zones, and trying to make you
Speaker 2: make a decision on your second shot on the par fives. Gotcha?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, let's take a quick detour into aesthetics real quick.
Speaker 1: That the shaping of the course, we talked about it
Speaker 1: with the greens, and and how nicely tied in the
Speaker 1: edges of the greens are with their surroundings, how they
Speaker 1: kind of seem to emulate the Lynx Land in certain ways,
Speaker 1: but do so in ways that go beyond just natural.
Speaker 1: What do you make of the shaping of the bunkers
Speaker 1: out there? Do you think it's evolved over time? And
Speaker 1: and I don't know what's the what's the kind of
Speaker 1: esthetic character of the bunkers?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a lot of them are are kind of
Speaker 2: like that stack sad, that traditional kind of pot bunker.
Speaker 2: Not I wouldn't compare them much to like Saint Andrews
Speaker 2: where therese these feel like these deep pits. They have
Speaker 2: that kind of stacked face, But then a lot of
Speaker 2: them are kind of flashed up a little bit because
Speaker 2: of I think just wind erosion and sand blowing out.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of I guess it's more of an
Speaker 2: eclectic look, just based on the environment and how it
Speaker 2: evolves over time. But a lot of them do have
Speaker 2: kind of that that revetted stacked face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and probably done maybe after Colt's time. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen many early pictures of the course, but there were
Speaker 1: more blowouts back in the day, whether whether natural or
Speaker 1: man made. And and Coult is of course known for
Speaker 1: pioneering the ragged edged bunker. The naturalized bunker was a
Speaker 1: that's a leading characteristic of his courses in the English
Speaker 1: heathlands and many other places. But of course, over time
Speaker 1: on on real links courses, those ragged edged bunkers, as
Speaker 1: good looking as they might be, proved to be a
Speaker 1: little bit hard to maintain given the wind and weather
Speaker 1: that the properties get, and so they tend to be
Speaker 1: formalized into these stacksod designs that that are a little
Speaker 1: sturdier only need to be replaced every few years, as
Speaker 1: opposed to constantly evolving and constantly giving the maintenance team headaches.
Speaker 1: So you see some of that at at Royal Port Rush,
Speaker 1: but as you say, it's not to the point where
Speaker 1: it's like like Royal Liverpool where they're just these sort
Speaker 1: of circles that go you know, like Wells or something
Speaker 1: that goes straight straight down. They're at least a little
Speaker 1: more nuanced than that.
Speaker 2: So I will know too that we when we were there,
Speaker 2: it was still technically under winter conditions. We were there
Speaker 2: and early to mid March, so it's it's definitely we
Speaker 2: are seeing the course in a very different light than
Speaker 2: what you're going to see on TV in the middle
Speaker 2: of July kind of the in the heart of the
Speaker 2: golf season for them. So things that I, you know,
Speaker 2: saw might be slightly different. You know that things might
Speaker 2: be a little bit more refined and and buttoned up
Speaker 2: for the Open Championship.
Speaker 1: Well in the rough might be a little bit less thick,
Speaker 1: perhaps because it's gonna be a little dryer out there.
Speaker 1: That is one of the critiques of Royal Port Rush
Speaker 1: that I've seen that the rough maybe plays a little
Speaker 1: bit too much of a role, that it's so penal
Speaker 1: that it kind of takes away from some of the
Speaker 1: strategic complexity of the course. Did you find that to
Speaker 1: be the case? Is the rough super thick and punitive.
Speaker 2: It was definitely a challenge when you got into it.
Speaker 2: I think more so is the land that the rough
Speaker 2: is like on top of. Is like, once you get
Speaker 2: outside of the whole corridors, you get this really really
Speaker 2: tumultuous turning landscape, these dunes that are very hilly and rumpled,
Speaker 2: So you're gonna find yourself with some really awkward stances
Speaker 2: and you're gonna be just having difficult getting the ball
Speaker 2: out of there because the ball might be way below
Speaker 2: your feet or way above your feet, or you having
Speaker 2: these really really awkward stances is because the land is
Speaker 2: just so like undulating outside of the whole corridors, it's
Speaker 2: it's a little bit more smoothed out in the fairway areas,
Speaker 2: and then it almost transitions right into kind of the
Speaker 2: native and the native grasses. So I think it's definitely
Speaker 2: going to be a challenge. I don't know if they're
Speaker 2: you know, growing it out or trying to juice it
Speaker 2: up to make it a serious challenge, but I think
Speaker 2: the thing that I noticed most was just like having
Speaker 2: really funky lie while you're in there and then just
Speaker 2: trying to hack it out and get it back into play.
Speaker 2: And that's also where like the bunkers can also come
Speaker 2: into play and punish you even further is trying to
Speaker 2: get too much out of a shot from the rough
Speaker 2: and then you know, find yourself in even more trouble.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we've talked about greens, we've talked about hazards.
Speaker 1: Let's touch on the turf out there agronomy at Royal
Speaker 1: Port Rush. What are the basics that we should know
Speaker 1: about the turf presentation at Royal Port Rush.
Speaker 2: I think, just like all other lyings courses, it's it's
Speaker 2: almost like it was meant to be. Using the fine
Speaker 2: fescue grasses across all of the surfaces is just it's
Speaker 2: just the best. It's this is the most superior playing
Speaker 2: surface for the game of golf. It's firm, it's fast,
Speaker 2: something that I don't think people maybe who aren't so
Speaker 2: wired into agronomy and and know the specifics of it.
Speaker 2: But but fescue grasses are a much thinner leaf blade,
Speaker 2: so it's a very very thin type of grass compared
Speaker 2: to let's say bent grass or Kentucky blue grass, which
Speaker 2: are kind of the predominant cool seising grasses that you'll
Speaker 2: see in the States. So this fine fescue is is
Speaker 2: a really thin leaf blade, so it creates much less
Speaker 2: friction between the golf ball and this and the plane surface.
Speaker 2: So just that simple nature of it, the sand that
Speaker 2: it sits on, which is is great for the grass,
Speaker 2: a great growing medium for the grass, and then the
Speaker 2: wind creates this this awesome dynamic we're playing in. The
Speaker 2: ball along the ground is likely going to be your friend,
Speaker 2: and it's going to roll forever and ever and ever.
Speaker 2: It's just gonna just roll and roll and roll, and
Speaker 2: it creates all these different types of shots that you
Speaker 2: can hit around the greens. I was using. I use
Speaker 2: a four iron to play these short, little bump shots,
Speaker 2: which is something I love doing instead of trying to,
Speaker 2: you know, reach for the sixty and fly it up
Speaker 2: in the air. And that's just something that that the
Speaker 2: terf allows you to do. Here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully we'll get a truly firm and fast open championship.
Speaker 1: There's been a few opens recently where things have been
Speaker 1: a little bit soggy, but still, you know, bouncy enough,
Speaker 1: and I think ural Port Rush would would really come
Speaker 1: alive if it's if it's very firm and fast and
Speaker 1: baked out there, that that would be that would be
Speaker 1: fun to watch. Definitely the twenty nineteen Open, we didn't
Speaker 1: quite get that it was. It was rainy during during
Speaker 1: most portions of that championship. So we'll see, we'll see
Speaker 1: what happens. Let's get finally to the renovation work here
Speaker 1: talk about some specifics of how the course has evolved recently.
Speaker 1: So in preparation for the twenty nineteen Open, Mackenzie and Ebert,
Speaker 1: the firm that works at basically all of the Open
Speaker 1: Road of courses and has very close ties with the RNA,
Speaker 1: Mackenzie Ebert made major changes to the routing of the course.
Speaker 1: They eliminated the seventeenth and eighteenth holes. As we described earlier,
Speaker 1: these these played parallel and in opposite directions right near
Speaker 1: the clubhouse. They were Colt's original second and seventeenth holes.
Speaker 1: They got rid of those holes, replaced it with the
Speaker 1: short course that you were describing, and during opens this
Speaker 1: is kind of, you know, what they consider to be
Speaker 1: essential space for hosting the championship. It's right there at
Speaker 1: the entrance of the course, and they're going to make
Speaker 1: use of it. Mackenzie Ebert then designed those two new
Speaker 1: holes that are fairly close to the coast, the seventh
Speaker 1: and eighth, and that's those that land used to be
Speaker 1: part of the Valley course. The old fifth and sixth
Speaker 1: at the Valley Course were eliminated. Those were well regarded
Speaker 1: holes and that and that's one one critique of this
Speaker 1: project that has been aired is that they they borrowed
Speaker 1: from the Valley Course and maybe maybe lessened the quality
Speaker 1: of the Valley course for the sake of making this
Speaker 1: change to the dunloose links. In addition to that really
Speaker 1: huge change, Mackenzie and Ebert moved the second green aways
Speaker 1: down range to lengthen that hole, and they did some
Speaker 1: reshaping here and there, made little tweaks throughout the golf
Speaker 1: course with an eye toward preparing the course for elite play.
Speaker 1: There wasn't necessarily an intention to restore the course or
Speaker 1: or a real devotion to Colt's original plans. Mackenzie and
Speaker 1: eb oh It's usual line is, we have great respect
Speaker 1: for Harry Colt, but I don't necessarily see them putting
Speaker 1: any great effort at many other courses to restoring Harry
Speaker 1: Colt's intentions or ideas at his courses. They may have
Speaker 1: great respect for him, but the primary intention of the work,
Speaker 1: the brief that they get from the RNA and from
Speaker 1: these clubs, is to make the course ready for the
Speaker 1: Open Championship, and that's what they did. That was the
Speaker 1: priority of the work. The argument for the new seventh
Speaker 1: and eighth holes is that the holes that were eliminated
Speaker 1: the seventeenth and eighteenth weren't especially well loved. They went
Speaker 1: over the most boring land on the property and they
Speaker 1: were considered to be kind of a disappointing and to
Speaker 1: the course for many years. I think those holes probably
Speaker 1: made more sense originally when they were the second and
Speaker 1: seventeenth holes, but once the big triangle was taken out
Speaker 1: of the equation, they became the seventeenth and eighteenth kind
Speaker 1: of playing back and forth, and maybe it's it was
Speaker 1: just sort of a disappointing or deflating and to the round,
Speaker 1: and so there wasn't any great outcry about the elimination
Speaker 1: of those holes. That was part of the defense of
Speaker 1: Mackenzie and Ebert's work. So those seventh and eighth holes,
Speaker 1: which you briefly describe as we're going through the routing,
Speaker 1: What do you make of them architecturally? How would you
Speaker 1: evaluate their their quality or character design wise?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the seventh is a par five kind of
Speaker 2: playing through this really really dramatic area in the dunes,
Speaker 2: and then the eighth comes back right back towards the
Speaker 2: sixth green. So it's just this basically two hole loop
Speaker 2: that kind of takes you out to this very dramatic
Speaker 2: land and then back towards kind of the core of
Speaker 2: the middle or I guess the beginning of the back
Speaker 2: nine and where you kind of loop around in the routing.
Speaker 2: And it's under kind of my impression of the way
Speaker 2: that I see it that the the seventh hole they
Speaker 2: built is like almost trying to replicate or draw inspiration
Speaker 2: from the old seventeenth hole. They rebuilt this very very
Speaker 2: large blowout styled bunker on the right side of kind
Speaker 2: of the landing zone for drives. I believe it was
Speaker 2: called the Big Nelly Bunker was its nickname, and it
Speaker 2: was this very ominous kind of hazard that would do
Speaker 2: would capture balls all the time. So I kind of
Speaker 2: see that that was maybe their inspiration for that hole
Speaker 2: is trying to almost recreate the seventeenth because it had
Speaker 2: become this sort of infamous sand bunker, and and it
Speaker 2: kind of had this reputation. And the hole is really cool.
Speaker 2: I think it's a it's a great golf hole in
Speaker 2: the sense that it travels over really awesome dramatic land
Speaker 2: in order to get it to the length that they
Speaker 2: need for the pros. It unfortunately has a big backtrack
Speaker 2: towards the tee from the sixth green, so you're almost
Speaker 2: walking like to play the very back tee. You're almost
Speaker 2: walking all the way back to the six tea. It's
Speaker 2: more than halfway past kind of the hole. You already
Speaker 2: traversed back to that tee. So that's kind of a
Speaker 2: little bit of a disappointing aspect of it as it
Speaker 2: breaks up kind of this awesome flow that you get
Speaker 2: on the first six holes where you're just basically stepping
Speaker 2: over you know, a dune, a small little dune ridge
Speaker 2: and just like getting onto the next tee box very quickly.
Speaker 1: So this is always progressing, right, yeah, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: you just have to walk backwards, which is you know,
Speaker 1: something that sometimes happens when Mackenzie Ebert reroute courses. It
Speaker 1: certainly happened at Royal Liverpool with the awful walk that
Speaker 1: people have to make back from the little I par three,
Speaker 1: but they installed there and so this is see seems
Speaker 1: to be a trend that the that the walks are
Speaker 1: not always working out well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's obviously it might be a little disappointing
Speaker 2: for the flow of the routing. But I never got
Speaker 2: to see the old seventeenth and eighteenth holes, and perhaps
Speaker 2: this is the best solution to get rid of those
Speaker 2: two other holes and create a new one. As you
Speaker 2: had to do this, which you're saying a good golf
Speaker 2: hole too. The seventh is solid. Yeah, it's certainly a
Speaker 2: good golf hole. I think. Another aspect of the hole
Speaker 2: that maybe falls a little flat is the green design
Speaker 2: and kind of the shaping around the green. It sits
Speaker 2: kind of up a little bit. You're playing down through
Speaker 2: this low point and then it's a slightly elevated approach shot,
Speaker 2: and there's these hollows kind of shaped around the green
Speaker 2: that are almost rhythmic in fashion, where there's these just
Speaker 2: kind of pretty evident scoops where waters draining off the
Speaker 2: green into kind of these low lying areas surrounding the green.
Speaker 2: And I also heard that this green's been rebuilt several
Speaker 2: times since the first iteration in the twenty seventeen twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen period when they first rebuilt the golf hole.
Speaker 1: Look at a green like that and compare it to
Speaker 1: the more original, perhaps or more faithfully cult greens at
Speaker 1: the course. What is the thing just for the people
Speaker 1: out there who maybe want to see these things themselves
Speaker 1: when they're playing, or be able to make these distinctions.
Speaker 1: What do you zero in on as the kind of
Speaker 1: weaknesses of the shaping of that green compared to the
Speaker 1: other greens on the course.
Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing is maybe just the execution
Speaker 2: of the shaping. Where when you pick a natural green
Speaker 2: site that's really good and great for you setting a
Speaker 2: green into there's going to be all these little natural
Speaker 2: subtleties to the landscape. And yeah, there's going to be
Speaker 2: hollows like there are that they built. There's going to
Speaker 2: be hollows that kind of drain water off the green,
Speaker 2: but they're going to be different from one another. Some
Speaker 2: are shallow, some are really deep and penalizing. They're different
Speaker 2: sizes and widths and all of that. So they're just
Speaker 2: very varied, and you have a great natural green site,
Speaker 2: but on the seventh they feel a little bit more contrived.
Speaker 2: They're kind of rhythmic in the depth of how below
Speaker 2: the green they are the width of this round, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of hollow. So there's just almost this this very
Speaker 2: similar stipe style of shaping for each of these hollows
Speaker 2: surrounding the green, and it goes all the way around
Speaker 2: kind of the left and back side of the green.
Speaker 2: And for someone who you know, kind of is looking
Speaker 2: out for these things, it stands out and sticks out
Speaker 2: amongst all the other greens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there, I like to think of it. You're talking
Speaker 1: about rhythmic kind of like these these repeated shapes. There's
Speaker 1: a kind of a symmetry or repetition to the shapes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Whereas greens that are really blended in well to the
Speaker 1: natural environment often have an element of chaos about them
Speaker 1: or imbalance. Where shapes are not repeated, because rarely do
Speaker 1: you see wave like scoopy shapes in nature, those those
Speaker 1: stand out as man made tour i whereas you know,
Speaker 1: really thoughtfully shaped greens tend to tend to have a
Speaker 1: bit more mess about them, and the surrounds of the
Speaker 1: seventh green don't quite look messy. I've seen photos of it.
Speaker 1: Totally agree with your assessment. What do you make of
Speaker 1: the eighth hole, the one coming back?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the eighth plays over kind of this virgin
Speaker 2: land that was unused before they changed the routing of
Speaker 2: the dune this links It didn't take any land from
Speaker 2: the valley course like the seventh. But so you're playing
Speaker 2: kind of down on these lower area on the seventh
Speaker 2: through the valley, and then the eighth you kind of
Speaker 2: climb up this little hill and it's coming up to
Speaker 2: kind of the same ridge that you tee off for
Speaker 2: for the sixteenth hole, so it's on this little slightly
Speaker 2: higher point, and then the whole kind of traverses a
Speaker 2: ridge the entire way with kind of a fall off
Speaker 2: down towards kind of that I was talking about on
Speaker 2: the seventh hole to the left. So basically there's not
Speaker 2: I guess in my in my mind, there's not a
Speaker 2: real strong strategy to the golf hole. I guess you
Speaker 2: could try and shorten the hole by playing down the
Speaker 2: left side of it, which you're taking on a little
Speaker 2: bit of risk, but then there's bunkers, you know, plopped
Speaker 2: on the right side of the hole, on the landing
Speaker 2: outside of the dog leg.
Speaker 1: Bunkerd on the outside of the dog leg. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: usually a dead giveaway of not a not a very
Speaker 1: good strategic hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's almost like there's there's a penalty for missing
Speaker 2: left or right. So it's almost like, yeah, there's there's
Speaker 2: no real reason to try and hit it down the
Speaker 2: left or hit it down the right. You're you still
Speaker 2: just need to hit it in the middle to have
Speaker 2: a good look at the green.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So those are the new seventh and
Speaker 1: eighth holes. Some good things, some things that that could
Speaker 1: have been better. Let's get to the overall arc textural
Speaker 1: significance of Royal Port Rush kind of try to sum
Speaker 1: it up. When you look at Royal Port Rush in
Speaker 1: the in the world of golf courses and golf architecture,
Speaker 1: what do you think the big important thing about it is.
Speaker 2: I think what makes it stand out so much amongst
Speaker 2: links golf courses is how refined the design is. It's
Speaker 2: so thoughtful in each green and the way that it
Speaker 2: traverses the land and the style in general. It's just
Speaker 2: everything seems so well thought out and put together and complete,
Speaker 2: and there's there's hardly a weak hole across all eighteen
Speaker 2: of them. So it's almost this this constant like high
Speaker 2: that you're you're having when you're when you're playing the
Speaker 2: golf course, whereas and I know a lot of other
Speaker 2: links courses maybe you're playing like three or four maybe
Speaker 2: more bland holes to get to a really cool piece
Speaker 2: of ground and then play a really dramatical whereas at
Speaker 2: port Rush you're constantly playing really like truly rate golf
Speaker 2: hole one after another on this just absolutely amazing tapestry.
Speaker 2: The landforms the landscape right on the water. It's more
Speaker 2: so that the culmination, I think of all the little
Speaker 2: aspects that come together and make it truly one of
Speaker 2: the greatest golf courses in the world.
Speaker 1: It's well put it, you know, it's like high Golden
Speaker 1: Age design meets links golf, and that does make it
Speaker 1: stand out, because you could say Mierfield also embodies some
Speaker 1: of these characteristics, but the port Rush land is so
Speaker 1: much more dramatic and the design is bold to meet
Speaker 1: that land. And it's a kind of rarity in golf
Speaker 1: in Great Britain and Ireland because This is a late
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties golf course with all the benefits of the
Speaker 1: advances in golf architecture since the early twentieth century, that
Speaker 1: was put on a great piece of links land, and
Speaker 1: you just don't find that many places, partly because while
Speaker 1: there was a boom in golf and golf architecture in
Speaker 1: the United States and in North America in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: that wasn't the reality in Great Britain and Ireland and Europe.
Speaker 1: There was a recovery from World War One, but economic
Speaker 1: times were harder and the recovery was harder because the
Speaker 1: war had happened there so many people had died and
Speaker 1: so much damage had been done, whereas you know in
Speaker 1: the in the US, we're across an ocean here and
Speaker 1: and there. There. It was an economic boom in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties that golf benefited from, and that's why you
Speaker 1: see so many of the great courses in Great Britain
Speaker 1: and Ireland really emerged before World War One, and a
Speaker 1: lot of Harry Colt's great architectural achievements happened in the
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds and nineteen tens. And if you think about
Speaker 1: where golf architecture was in the nineteen hundreds and nineteen tens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they made advances really quickly, especially in England in golf architecture,
Speaker 1: so quickly things came together and they figured things out.
Speaker 1: But man, in if you compare it to the US
Speaker 1: that Charles Charles Blair McDonald's just building National golf Links
Speaker 1: and Pine Valley was just getting going before World War One.
Speaker 1: By the nineteen twenties things had exploded and the art
Speaker 1: of golf architecture had grown so much, and the benefits
Speaker 1: of that were not as enjoyed in Great Britain and Ireland.
Speaker 1: But at royal Port Rush you do see the benefits
Speaker 1: of that matched with an amazing piece of land. And
Speaker 1: that's from what you've from your discussion of the course,
Speaker 1: that has really been my takeaway. Of course, I haven't
Speaker 1: been there. I'd love to go play Royal Port Rush,
Speaker 1: but from what you've written, Matt, what you've said about
Speaker 1: the course, that has been the impression formed of it,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of what makes it interesting. So let's
Speaker 1: wrap up here with a couple of holes to watch.
Speaker 1: We've mentioned some holes already, maybe we can just remind
Speaker 1: people of those, but as they're watching the Open Championship,
Speaker 1: what would you say people should watch out for for
Speaker 1: a couple of specific holes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the stretch four through six is amazing, maybe my
Speaker 2: favorite stretch of holes on the course. Like I said,
Speaker 2: you have the boundary hole, so you have out of
Speaker 2: bounds all down the right side, which can you know,
Speaker 2: derail someone's round early on, And then the fifth which
Speaker 2: depending on the wind, people will definitely be driving the
Speaker 2: green on certain days. But there's also out of bounds
Speaker 2: right on the back edge of the green, like maybe
Speaker 2: two paces two or three paces off the back edge
Speaker 2: of the green is this very prominent out of bounds
Speaker 2: line and then a cliff right beyond it, So going
Speaker 2: for the green on a down one day could be
Speaker 2: could be really risky business. And once again like that
Speaker 2: early part of the front nine could certainly derail someone's
Speaker 2: round and cause some big fluctuations on the leaderboard coming
Speaker 2: on the weekend. And then the six is just an
Speaker 2: awesome par three and the back right kind of whole
Speaker 2: location in this little nook is a really interesting pin
Speaker 2: location that I'm gonna be curious to see how the
Speaker 2: players attack. And then another section that stands out a
Speaker 2: lot is the middle, the middle of the golf course.
Speaker 2: Holds nine through almost fourteen are just really really demanding
Speaker 2: golf holes. A lot of those greens sit up like
Speaker 2: the fourteenth especially sits way up in the air and
Speaker 2: there's no room for air. It falls off on basically
Speaker 2: all sides, and the recovery is really challenging on that.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious to see how players will kind of
Speaker 2: handle that middle section. You're gonna need to really golf
Speaker 2: your ball in that middle section and keep everything together
Speaker 2: to keep a good round intact. And then obviously sixteen
Speaker 2: is where there's also gonna be a big roller coaster
Speaker 2: of emotions for players. And if they hit a good
Speaker 2: shot or a bad shot, you know, you could just
Speaker 2: hit it up there and and make your par pretty
Speaker 2: easily if you if you commit to the shot and
Speaker 2: get it up onto the flat land where where you
Speaker 2: can chip it onto the green or find the surface.
Speaker 2: But the second you you you go uncommitted and you
Speaker 2: miss it to the right, it brings in, It brings
Speaker 2: in any any sort of number. I made a seven
Speaker 2: on the hole when I played it, So there's there's
Speaker 2: no there's no question that there's gonna be high numbers
Speaker 2: there at some point during the week.
Speaker 1: You're down below yeah yeah, yeah, your way into the
Speaker 1: into the gorge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like barely missed short right, and and you
Speaker 2: watch the ball trundle down this incredibly steep slope and
Speaker 2: then you're gonna you know, go down there and see
Speaker 2: what kind of lie you have and try and get
Speaker 2: it back up onto the putting surface. But then right
Speaker 2: after that is also a fascinating hole, like I said,
Speaker 2: because it has this big question, you know, do you
Speaker 2: want to lay up kind of and remain on top
Speaker 2: of the hill and have this shot down Are you
Speaker 2: gonna you know, challenge hitting it down there and and
Speaker 2: trying to either drive the green, which will definitely be
Speaker 2: possible on a down one day, But that that that
Speaker 2: specific downslope where the fairway drops off is very crowned.
Speaker 2: It's like a big hog's back, right, So it's gonna
Speaker 2: feeds into the trouble, right Yeah. So so if you
Speaker 2: if you clear the hill, uh, you're kind of at
Speaker 2: the mercy of the lynxland and where your ball is
Speaker 2: gonna bounce, it can bounce left and go down into
Speaker 2: some bunkers down the left side which then is going
Speaker 2: to give you kind of this awkward you know, sub
Speaker 2: one hundred bunker shot into the green, or it's going
Speaker 2: to kick you right into this this kind of taller
Speaker 2: native fescue area. So it's definitely a great kind of
Speaker 2: risk reward hole where if you want to if you
Speaker 2: want to take the risk and pound it down there
Speaker 2: and try and get it close to the green, there's
Speaker 2: there's some real penalty if you miss. But also if
Speaker 2: you lay back your your way up on top of
Speaker 2: this hill and you still have a wedge in your
Speaker 2: hand most likely and you're hitting down to a really
Speaker 2: low green, so it's gonna be hard to control where
Speaker 2: your ball is going in the wind and get it
Speaker 2: close to the hole. Nice.
Speaker 1: So those are some holes to look out for. Do
Speaker 1: you know what your one and done pick is going
Speaker 1: to be? Yet?
Speaker 2: My one and done PM.
Speaker 1: For the Friday Golf Club one and Dunpool. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I'm going with Tyrell Hatton. I might choose erl Hatton.
Speaker 1: You kind of got to choose the Live Boys and
Speaker 1: the Majors because they only show up for the for
Speaker 1: the Majors and he can save the PGA to ur
Speaker 1: horses for other events, but Terrel Hatton might do well here.
Speaker 1: He might be frustrated by certain aspects of the course,
Speaker 1: but he seems to play really well on links. He
Speaker 1: plays brilliantly on the old course. Yeah, if there's a
Speaker 1: terribly similar courses, but he can deal with the conditions least.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One one I've been thinking about is John Rahm.
Speaker 2: I know he's played uh the Court Stewarty. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: he won. I think he won. I don't remember the
Speaker 2: exact tournament. It was an amateur tournament at Port Stewart
Speaker 2: just down the road. So I think I think I'll
Speaker 2: go with John Ram as my my one and done pick.
Speaker 1: I think that's gonna be a really good pick. I
Speaker 1: already burned him for the for the PGA Championship. I
Speaker 1: should have waited on that one. All right, Matt, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on this deep dive podcast. Worldport Rush
Speaker 1: really enjoyed this. Thank you for for doing all the
Speaker 1: prep for this pod, as well as all the all
Speaker 1: the work that you've done on Royalport Rush so far.
Speaker 1: I mentioned your course profile and Friday Golf Club. People
Speaker 1: should go see that, check that out and see all
Speaker 1: the stuff that you're going to do. In the run
Speaker 1: up to the championship.
Speaker 2: So thanks, yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This episode of does Signing Golf was produced by Will Balsam.
Speaker 1: Thank you Will. If you're enjoying Designing Golf so far
Speaker 1: what we're doing here with these deep dives and these
Speaker 1: discussions of golf architecture, then give us a rating or
Speaker 1: review and or review wherever you might be listening to us.
Speaker 1: And of course this kind of material is our bread
Speaker 1: and butter in Friday Golf Club for the exclusive content
Speaker 1: we do their weekly course profiles. I publish articles on
Speaker 1: a weekly basis about what's happening currently in golf architecture,
Speaker 1: some information that you'd have a hard time finding anywhere else.
Speaker 1: I think all that is going on in Friday Golf Club,
Speaker 1: along with a great community that we're building of avid
Speaker 1: golfers and access to our events where that community is
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Speaker 1: com slash membership. Thank you for listening to this episode,
Speaker 1: and we'll be back again in three weeks for another episode.
Speaker 1: We're gonna wait until after the Open Championship to release
Speaker 1: another episode, but we'll do one on We'll do two
Speaker 1: episodes on consecutive weeks, so that's a little programming note.
Speaker 1: We're doing this episode now, but we're gonna wait for
Speaker 1: the Open Championship to unfold before we come back with another,
Speaker 1: so I'll see then.