Royal Portrush Golf Club has been hosting the game’s great champions and championships since 1888. A major driving force behind the growth of golf in Ireland, Portrush was the location for Ireland’s first amateur and professional tournaments. It has also welcomed three Amateur Championships, nine British Ladies’ Amateur Championships, six Senior British Opens, four Irish Opens and the only two occasions The Open Championship has ever been staged outside Great Britain. Harry Vardon, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods are just some of the legendary figures whose footsteps you follow on a visit to Royal Portrush Golf Club.
Scots George L. Baillie and Thomas Gilroy are instrumental in the formation of the County Golf Club. The first tournament is played over a nine-hole course.
Legendary four-times Open champion Old Tom Morris plays an exhibition match and advises on a new 18-hole layout.
County Golf Club members are influential in the formation of the Golfing Union of Ireland (the first of its kind in the world) at the Northern Counties Hotel, Portrush. A Ladies’ and Juveniles’ Branch is established and in 1893 Portrush becomes only the third member of the Ladies Golfing Union.
Ten English players and three Scots are amongst 32 competitors as Portrush stages the first national golf tournament in Ireland. Alexander Stuart from the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers is the inaugural Irish Amateur Open champion.
Renamed the Royal County Club and H.R.H. The Duke of York becomes patron. Three years later in 1895 the name is changed to Royal Portrush Golf Club and patronage passes to HRH The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.
Lady Margaret Scott wins the British Ladies’ Amateur Championship and Sandy Herd beats Harry Vardon in Ireland’s first professional tournament.
Rhona Adair secures her second British Ladies’ Amateur title. Rhona and May Hezlet, both Royal Portrush members, were the dominant force in the women’s game for almost a decade.
On the advice of Sir Anthony Babington, Royal Portrush enlist the services of celebrated golf course architect Harry Colt. Involved in the design of over 300 courses during a prolific career, Colt was charged with creating a championship course to challenge the best in the game.
Sir Percy Greenaway, Lord Mayor of London, officially opens the Harry Colt designed Dunluce Links, now considered by many to be the acclaimed architect’s finest work.
Portrush man Fred Daly becomes the first Irish golfer to win a Major with victory in the Open Championship at Hoylake. A week later at Royal Portrush, Daly loses out to Harry Bradshaw in the Irish Open. The North of Ireland Amateur Championship, to be played annually at Royal Portrush, is inaugurated.
Royal Portrush Golf Club makes history as it welcomes The Open Championship, the first time golf’s oldest Major has been played outside Great Britain since its inception in 1860. Max Faulkner gets the better of defending champion Bobby Locke and a strong field to become Open champion.
Zara Bolton, later President of the Royal Portrush Golf Club’s Ladies’ Branch, Captains the GB&I team to only its second Curtis Cup victory against the USA.
Legendary Irish golfer Joe Carr wins The Amateur Championship for a third time on its first visit to Portrush.
Philomena Garvey wins the last of her record 15 victories in the Irish Women’s Amateur Close Championships.
Maureen Madill, the 1979 Ladies’ British Open Amateur champion, joins Royal Portrush clubmate Claire Nesbitt in the GB&I Curtis Cup team.
Royal Portrush welcomes back The Amateur Championship, a significant step forward for club and country after decades of civil conflict. 1985 ‘Amateur’ champion and long-standing Royal Portrush member Garth McGimpsey wins a record fifth North of Ireland.
Royal Portrush Golf Club’s global profile soars as the Dunluce Links is the setting for six Senior British Opens. Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Bob Charles, Hale Irwin and Tom Kite are just some of famous over-50’s who walked the fairways.
Sixteen-year-old Rory McIlroy shoots a course record 61 in the North of Ireland Amateur Championship.
Graeme McDowell wins the US Open at Pebble Beach, emulating fellow Portrush man Fred Daly, Ireland’s first Major winner. GMAC’s victory is the first by a European golfer at the US Open for 40-years.
Royal Portrush Golf Club member Darren Clarke joins the Major club at the age of 42 with victory in The Open Championship at Royal St George’s. The record 9th staging of the British Ladies Amateur Championship sees 16-year-old Lauren Taylor succeed Royal Portrush’s May Hezlet as the youngest winner.
Royal Portrush takes a major step towards the return of The Open by hosting a highly-successful, sell-out Irish Open won by Welshman Jamie Donaldson. Portrush man Alan Dunbar wins The Amateur Championship and just two weeks later Royal Portrush member Stephanie Meadow, who had holed the winning putt for GB&I in the Curtis Cup, is crowned Ladies’ British Amateur champion.
Bradley Neil beats a top class field that includes future World No1 John Rahm to win The Amateur Championship.
HRH Queen Elizabeth II attends a civic reception in the Royal Portrush clubhouse, Her Majesty’s first official visit to any golf club.
The R&A Boys Amateur Championship is played in Ireland for the first time. With the scheduled return of The Open in 2019, the tournament provides a perfect testing ground for changes to the Dunluce Links, including two new holes.
The 148th Open Championship at Royal Portrush proves to be one of most memorable. In front of 237,750 spectators, second only to the attendance at the Centenary Open at St Andrews, Irishman Shane Lowry proves it was worth the wait with an emphatic and emotion-charged win.
The R&A confirms that Royal Portrush will host the 153rd Open Championship in the summer of 2025.
ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB
Dunluce Road
Portrush
County Antrim
BT56 8JQ
Office / Tee Times: +4428 7082 2311
Club Shop: +4428 7082 3335
Ladies Club: +4428 7082 3351
General Enquiries:
info@royalportrushgolfclub.com
Tee Time Enquiries:
angus@royalportrushgolfclub.com
Caddy Enquiries:
golfops@royalportrushgolfclub.com
