TOURNAMENT PREVIEW
OPEN
season
Golf fans are in for a treat in July with two of the most revered Majors taking place
By BRENDAN BARRATT
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The Women’s Open tees off at Royal Porthcawl
It took 68 years from The Open Championship’s first appearance at Royal Portrush in 1951 to its return in 2019, but just six years on from Shane Lowry’s emotional lifting of the Claret Jug, the gorgeous links will again welcome the world’s best golfers.
That should tell you how highly regarded the course is, while also revealing just how successful the 2019 Open’s return to Northern Ireland was.
There are numerous reasons that can explain the gap between Max Faulkner’s 1951 victory and Lowry’s fairytale 2019 win, one of which is as simple and challenging as logistics. The town of Portrush has a population of just over 6 000, yet for a week in July some 278 000 golf fans will descend upon it.
Not only will this represent the second largest Open Championship crowd, but also the largest crowd at a sporting event in Northern Ireland, a country that is home to barely two million inhabitants.
SOUTH AFRICA’S BEST RESULTS
1st: Bobby Locke (1949, 1950, 1952, 1957), Gary Player (1959, 1968, 1974), Ernie Els (2002, 2012), Louis Oosthuizen (2010)
2nd: Sid Brews (1934), Ernie Els (2004)
T2nd: Bobby Locke (1946, 1954), Ernie Els (1996, 2000), Louis Oosthuizen (2015)
Silver medal (leading amateur): Christo Lamprecht (2023)
Gallery below
This should be a logistical nightmare, yet Open organisers managed to make it look seamless in 2019 and will no doubt do so again in 2025. And spectators will bear witness to something akin to golf’s Holy Grail – the world’s best golfers taking on one of the world’s finest courses, Portrush’s Dunluce Links.
It’s no secret that the host course for this year’s Open is a favourite among players. The Harry Colt design is a classic seaside links that is considered to be one of the toughest, yet fairest, tests in golf.
It’s also one of the most scenic. Nearby are the ruins of the 13th century Dunluce Castle, after which the course is named, and on a fair day, locals will be able to point out the Paps of Jura and the Isle of Islay on the horizon.
Even on a clear day, one can expect the wind to blow here, on what is exposed links land, lying flush against the Atlantic Ocean. Portrush’s fairways nestle perfectly in natural valleys between the sand dunes and the rough can be brutal in places – long, thick grass dotted with heather and briar bushes.
The severe contours of Portrush’s greens have led to it being described as more of a ‘second-shot’ course – meaning that while driving the ball well is always advantageous, finding the correct part of the green with your approach shot could be the difference between a real look at birdie and seeing your ball rolling way off line, potentially off the green entirely.
FLYING THE FLAG FOR SA
Christiaan Bezuidenhout
Dean Burmester
Ernie Els
Darren Fichardt
Thriston Lawrence
Dylan Naidoo
Louis Oosthuizen
Daniel van Tonder
Justin Walters
Bryan Newman (amateur)
The holes around the shoreline are spectacular and the par-four 5th hole, named ‘White Rocks’, is one you’d be happy to play every day for the rest of your life. The short, downhill par four has a left-to-right dogleg, and from the elevated tee you can soak up the views. Yet they pale in comparison to the vista from the green, which is perched on the edge of the course, with a wooden fence the only protection against a drop of almost 20 metres down to the seashore.
Another iconic hole is the par-three 16th. Named ‘Calamity’, it stretches to 190 metres and the deep chasm to the right of the green makes the tee shot a particularly intimidating one.
Of course, not all golfers are equipped to deal with the vagaries of links golf and the fickle UK weather, and many who come over from the PGA Tour leave with more questions than answers.
Those who embrace the challenges of the purist form of the game are most likely to achieve success and whoever hoists the Claret Jug come Open Sunday will be a most deserving winner – and, of course, the champion golfer of the year.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Go back in time to 2019 when Shane Lowry won The Open Championship in his home country.
watch now
62
NUMBERS
62 The lowest score shot in men’s Major history and still the lowest round in The Open, by Branden Grace at Royal Birkdale in 2017.
129 Louis Oosthuizen’s score after two rounds in 2021 when he shot 64 and 65 heading into the weekend at Royal St George’s. He finished T3rd behind Collin Morikawa.
129
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MAJOR
stage
The world’s best women’s players will tee it up at Wales’ top-ranked golf course
By BRENDAN BARRATT
The first Women’s British Open may have been played back in 1976, but it wasn’t until 2001 that is was universally recognised as a Major championship. And from its rather humble beginnings, the Women’s Open, as it is now referred to, has become one of the most sought-after titles in the game.
With its rise in status, the event has graduated from the likes of Fulford, Lindrick Golf Club and Foxhills to more prestigious golf courses, breaking down some long-set gender barriers along the way. Recent hosts include former men-only bastions such as Royal Troon and Muirfield – where the sight of women on the fairways, and even in the clubhouses, would have had more than a few past members rolling in their graves.
That women’s golf is dragging these establishments into the 21st century is to be admired, but one must guard against it being a distraction from the quality of golf played by the world’s finest female golfers.
There should be no such worry when the Women’s Open tees off at Royal Porthcawl from 30 July-3 August. The event’s first trip to Wales takes the players to the top-ranked layout in the country and the only course in the world’s top 100.
Royal Porthcawl has a long and storied history of hosting top-level golf including The Amateur Championship on seven occasions, the Walker Cup in 1995, the Curtis Cup in 1964 and The Senior Open presented by Rolex in 2014, 2017 and 2023.
What awaits defending champion Lydia Ko and the rest of the field is a stunning, highly regarded links layout that, while relatively flat, slopes gently towards the sea. With no towering sand dunes, the sea is visible from every hole.
Gallery below
The first four holes and the last six holes represent classic links golf, while the holes in between are played on higher ground, almost heathland, and where golfers will get fantastic views across the Bristol Channel.
With no protection at all, the wind plays a major role in how the course plays and golfers are unlikely to have four days without strong Atlantic gales making an appearance. Unlike other links courses, Royal Porthcawl doesn’t follow the traditional out and in nines, but rather sees many holes loop back on each other, meaning the wind will attack the ball from different directions.
While scoring will be difficult, the course does offer chances to go low, as Bernhard Langer demonstrated when he won the Senior Open Championship by 13 strokes over Colin Montgomerie here in 2014. The German won again here three years later when he claimed his third Senior Open title, although this time he had to settle for a mere three-stroke victory over Corey Pavin.
2022
REWIND TO...
Ashleigh Buhai gave South African golf fans many moments to remember when she captured the AIG Women's Open title in 2022 after defeating In Gee Chun in an epic four-hole playoff.
The victory came after superb second and third rounds of 65 and 64 respectively gave the South African a five-shot lead with one round to play. She managed to overcome difficulties at the 14th hole on Sunday to set up a playoff and eventually outlast Chun.
It was Buhai's first Major title, and she became just the second South African winner of the AIG Women's Open, after Alison Sheard's victory in 1979.
After her win, Buhai said: ‘It's been a long journey. I turned pro when I was 18, there were a lot of things expected of me. I won straight off the bat on the Ladies European Tour. But this game has a way of giving you a hard time.
‘I'm just so proud of how I've stuck it out. I have said the past four or five years, I've finally started to find my feet on the LPGA and felt I could compete, and although I'm 33 now, I feel I'm playing the best golf of my career.’
Buhai went to win the Australian Open in December 2022 and followed that up with victory at the South African Open in March 2023. She also won for the first time in the US in June 2023 by edging out Hyo Jon Kim at the Shoprite LPGA Classic and rounded off a very impressive year by retaining the Australian Open in December 2023.
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