LINKS

Hoylake and Portrush. Portrush and Hoylake.

These two towns, although nearly 200 miles and an entire sea apart, have much in common. Both are seaside communities where life was initially shaped by the water along their shores (and home to two of the oldest Lifeboat Stations in the United Kingdom as well). Then, in the second half of the 19th century, they were reshaped when the railroad came to town. With the trains came leisure-seekers and folks who were spreading a growing game called golf.

A century and a half later, both towns are known first and foremost for their golf clubs, Royal Liverpool and Royal Portrush, two of the world’s best courses and host venues for the world’s greatest championship: The Open. 

This July, the championship returns to Royal Portrush Golf Club and its Dunluce Course for a third time. Just six years ago, Shane Lowry won the Claret Jug there amid jubilant scenes. It was the first all-ticket Open and the first sell-out. The week’s attendance of 237,000 was, at the time, the most at any Open outside St. Andrews (since eclipsed by…Hoylake with 261,000 in 2023).

It was a triumphant return of the sporting spotlight to Northern Ireland, following the geopolitical issues and The Troubles which prolonged a 68-year gap between championships at Portrush. That span from 1951 to 2019 is the longest ever between Opens, besting none other than Royal Liverpool. Although Hoylake’s 13 championships rank fifth all-time, that tally has been achieved despite 39 years without one from 1967 to 2006.

The two clubs are also among a small collection with royal patronage and the accompanying prefix. It may not be as exclusive a club as those with an Open (there have been only 13, while more than 60 have “Royal” titles), but it’s an honor with worldwide weight. Royal Liverpool first obtained permission to use the title in 1871. The Country Golf Club of Portrush, only in its fifth year of existence, received its royal patronage in 1892, although it was another three years before members voted to officially change its name to Royal Portrush Golf Club. The two clubs have used the ‘Royal’ moniker longer than any other Open courses.

They are also the clubs of ‘firsts’. In 1872, Hoylake hosted the first professional tournament in England with Tom Morris Jr. winning the stroke-play event, his two-round score of 167 good enough for a one-stroke victory. Likewise, Portrush is credited with hosting the first professional tournament on the island of Ireland in 1895. Four professionals from Hoylake played – the most from any club outside of Portrush – and one of them, George Pulford, actually hit the very first shot in the match-play competition. He was eventually defeated in the third round by Harry Vardon, who in turn lost in the final to Portrush’s first professional Sandy Herd, who seven years later would win The Open at Hoylake. 

You get where this is going. There are connections everywhere between the two clubs. Beyond these first degrees of separation, however, lie two people who make the bond inseparable.

FRED DALY
Fred was born and raised at 110 Causeway Street in Portrush. A blue plaque on the exterior wall now celebrates the spot. It’s just a short walk from the course where he taught himself how to play, caddied as a youngster and won the caddie tournament three consecutive years, and then became an apprentice to long-time Portrush professional P. G. Stevenson after leaving school at age 14. Daly would go on to become a professional himself, spending more than half his life at Balmoral Golf Club in Belfast while being one of Europe’s top golfers. Noted for his long-iron play, he won more than two dozen significant events and competed in four Ryder Cups.

The greatest triumph for this Portrush native, however, was at Hoylake. Daly arrived at the 1947 Open with a new, overweighted driver made by Stevenson. It helped him jump out to a four-stroke lead going into the 36-hole final day. That morning, Daly lost his lead, spiraling to a 78, but regained his form over the afternoon’s final nine holes. His last stroke on the 72nd hole is one of the most overlooked great putts in major championship history. Having hit his approach some 30 feet beyond the hole, he faced an improbable birdie putt over several rolls in the green. He made it, and his score of 293 held up for a one-stroke victory over the English professional Reg Home and the American amateur Frank Stranahan. He became the first Irishman to win The Open.

Just a few days later, Daly sailed back to Belfast and then onward to Portrush, coincidentally to play there in the following week’s Irish Open. He received a hero’s welcome, met on his return by an estimated crowd of 3,000 at the town hall and was shepherded from reception to reception.

Daly finished in the top-four of four of the next five Opens, including a tie for fourth in 1951 at Portrush.

On the 40th anniversary of his Hoylake triumph, both Royal Liverpool and Royal Portrush made him an honorary member. The long par-four 4th at Portrush was renamed in his honor since it had always been his favorite hole. He is one of two Hoylake Open champions to have a hole named for him at another Open venue – the other the 10th hole on the Old Course at St. Andrews for Bobby Jones.

In 1989, just a year before he died, Daly presented one of his old trophies for a regular competition between members of Hoylake and Portrush. The Fred Daly Cup has been played off-and-on for more than three decades. Portrush holds a six to three advantage in victories and currently holds the cup as the most recent winner last year (get into them, Hoylake!).

HARRY S. COLT
The Fred Daly connection is visible inside display cases in both clubhouses, but for members and visitors who play these links, the most tangible connection is Harry Shapland Colt.

Born in Highgate, Colt was a keen and accomplished golfer – semifinalist in the 1906 Amateur at Hoylake – who became a lawyer. As he began dabbling in course architecture, interest in his profession as a solicitor waned. First there was design work at Rye, then Ganton, before he became secretary at Sunningdale for a dozen years where he designed the New Course. As his reputation grew, full-time architecture beckoned.

It came at just the right time as golf boomed in the 1920s. Colt formed the most successful practice in the United Kingdom with partners over the years such as Dr. Alister MacKenzie, Hugh Allison, and John Morrison. He and his firm designed and remodeled more than 300 courses worldwide, including Muirfield, Royal Lytham & St. Annes, and even Pine Valley in the United States. A century later, many design aficionados consider him the greatest course architect of all time.

Colt was noted for letting nature rule his routings, preferring to place greens on plateaus and ridges. But variety was Colt’s playbook. He created punch-bowl greens, too. Shapes varied, as did sizes. Symmetry was a sin. Hogsback fairways, though, were a savior. He favored natural features as hazards over bunkers, but when he created them, they had shape, movement, and looked like they had been there forever.

In 1923, he was summoned to Hoylake. Poor conditioning and disappointment in how the layout played for the 1921 Amateur led club elders to seek an external opinion for the first time. 

Some members were not happy with a professional architect being brought in and his proposed changes ahead of The Open in 1924. His primary focus was the routing along the Dee Estuary. He moved three greens to higher ground among the dunes: the 8th, 11th, and 12th. He rebuilt the 13th hole, tweaked the 16th and 17th greens, and made subtle changes to several other areas. Essentially, the stretch from the 8th to 12th holes – the most memorable on the links – is his creation. 

During that same time, Colt was envisioning even more dramatic changes to a course along the Causeway Coast of Northern Ireland. To keep up with others in this golden age of design, Portrush felt it needed drastic improvements to its tract, although not all members or town residents agreed (sound familiar?).

Colt had befriended Sir Anthony Babbington while making changes at Royal Dublin Golf Club. Babbington would become captain and president at Royal Portrush, his influence there so far-reaching that he received the nickname ‘The Owner’. As early as 1923, while work was ongoing at Hoylake, Colt laid out plans for two new courses at Portrush. Nearly a decade and a half dozen visits would pass before the appropriate leases were executed for the land needed for expansion. Once secured, Colt said construction would cost £7,000, but preferred a sum of £10,000. The club balked, and instead a fee of £3,200 was agreed upon and duly raised by members and residents. A local newspaperman called it, ‘a large sum in bad times.’

As at Hoylake, the construction firm of Franks, Harris & Company of Guildford carried out the work. They were the world’s first course construction company and likely the largest ever. When the ‘Championship Course’ formerly opened in July 1933, it received near universal acclaim from all corners. Both membership and visitors increased.

“The natural difficulties of the terrain have been availed of to the fullest possible extent,” wrote one golf correspondent, “and where the architect has constructed bunkers his aim has been to make the player use his brains as well as his brawn rather than to beset his path with mere obstacles.”

To this day, what is now called the Dunluce Course is unique from any other Open host. No other has more elevation change, with a variety of uphill and downhill shots. No other demands more approach shots carried onto greens with few run-on options. And no other has as many perched greens with as severe run-offs. It tests every area of one’s game.

Colt died in 1951, just a few months after Portrush hosted its first Open, but the legendary writer Bernard Darwin had already defined his legacy: “(Portrush) is truly magnificent and Mr. H. S. Colt, who designed it in its present form, has thereby built himself a monument more enduring than brass.”

TODAY
Colt’s monuments endure, but they are no longer pristine, having been re-chiseled and coated with multiple layers of paint over the years.

At Hoylake, architects Fred Hawtree, Donald Steel, Martin Hawtree, and Martin Ebert have all put their stamp on the links. Many years ago, Colt’s 17th green was moved and altered, and to the chagrin of some, the 13th hole was completely redesigned, turned 180 degrees, and replaced by ‘Little Eye’ in advance of the 2023 Open.

At Portrush, four holes from Colt’s 1933 layout are gone, and many others have been tweaked. To alleviate logistical concerns for the return of The Open in 2019, the latest major change saw Colt’s 17th and 18th holes abandoned. In their place, Martin Ebert designed two new holes, now the 7th and 8th. They carry many Colt characteristics, but the green on the par-five 7th stood out like a nose-ring on Jack Nicklaus – its multi-tiers and severe movement clearly not of Colt’s doing. 

That green has been softened for this summer’s championship, but still, what would Harry Colt make of these changes? And what would he make of the game today that is so different than the one he designed courses for?

What is known is that the principles of Colt’s designs on both courses still stand out. They have withstood time, so much so that until recently Portrush and Hoylake were the last two current Open venues not to allow a score of 64 or lower. Shane Lowry at Portrush in 2019 and Jon Rahm at Hoylake in 2023 finally broke that barrier, each carding course-record 63s.

These historic links remain challenging for elite players and enjoyable for those who are not. That’s quite remarkable considering there are only 59 bunkers at Portrush and 84 at Hoylake – the two fewest on any Open courses.

Alright, that’s enough connections. The final word will be left to a noted Liverpudlian, who spoke to the Belfast Telegraph in 1936 on his way to another golf holiday along the coast of Northern Ireland’s County Antrim.

“There’s no place like Portrush in the British Isles,” proclaimed then Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Robert John Hall.

Except for maybe Hoylake.

Gil Capps is Editorial Advisor for NBC Sports’ golf broadcasts, including The Open, and author of The Magnificent Masters.