Monday
Exiting Bellaghy, a banner stretches across the road. “We Serve Neither King Nor Kaiser, But Ireland”. On towards Portglenone, Rasharkin, wildly off course for the Open we swing into decorated Ballymoney with its bunting and flags hanging from buildings, draped from windows. There is a different message here, a more conciliatory tone towards monarchs. Up Union Street to the Ballymena Road, and the smiling face of Jim Allister beaming out from his Traditional Unionist Voice constituency office, reminds us of how prudent it would have been to follow the Google Maps.
Realigned and pointing towards Portrush, these are the racing roads of the Dunlop brothers, Joey and Robert, Michael and William, where superbikes tip 321km/h (200mph), squealing towards the famous links, where today the sun has given way to slate grey and charcoal skies.
Portrush, though, is warm, almost humid, and more importantly, Rory McIlroy is in a good mood. “I feel I’m in a good spot,” he said. That means we are all, for now, in good spots. Inside the course, its beauty, luminescent in the low light, catches the eye. On the hoarding, they have captured the Dunluce personality of danger and rugged charm with the championship slogan, Forged By Nature.
Tuesday
Waiting behind the rope at the first hole – Hughies – until the golfers hit their tee shots and amble past, a face that nobody has ever seen before, glides down the fairway. Unrecognised, Richard Teder is the first golfer from Estonia to play in the Open, qualifying by holing out from 90 yards in a sudden-death playoff. He is ranked 4,689th in the world. He said earlier in the week golf was easy. That triggered a lot of people.
We are watching greatness every time Scottie Scheffler steps on a golf course, whether he cares or not
TV View: ‘I’m not sure where Cork have gone, but they’re not on the pitch at the moment’
Open Diary: The smiling face of Jim Allister reminds us how prudent it would have been to follow Google Maps
The Open Day Four: Scottie Scheffler cruises to victory at Royal Portrush – As it happened
In bay 10 Pádraig Harrington is hitting balls at the practice ground. Xander Schauffele is in five and Dustin Johnson in three. Brooks Koepka, buffed and gym shaped, is in 26. A crowd of children looking for autographs are shrieking in their wee Antrim accents Sheen ... Sheen ... Sheen at Shane Lowry on the putting green. There’s a time and place. He turns and walks away. Five minutes later, the 2019 Open champion breezes past in the passenger seat of a buggy, head down, looking intensely at the screen of his phone. Business face. He’s catching nobody’s eye today.
Scottie Scheffler is there too in a grey hoody and white cap. Afterwards, he talks about life and golf and shatters preconceived notions that an expressionless demeanour on the course makes for a dull boy. “This is not the be-all, end-all. This is not the most important thing in my life,” he says. “I’d much rather be a great father than I would be a great golfer.” It’s what professional golfers must do these days, relate. Emotional alert. You sense a few in the room are beginning to fill up at Scottie’s inner man.
Wednesday
Two miles from Bushmills is where the accommodation sits in the townland of Billy. The local Orange Lodge stands alone, surrounded by fields in splendid isolation like an Edward Hopper painting. Beyond are the seaside towns of Portrush and Portstewart. Damned if you can tell which is which and where one ends and the other begins as they ribbon around the coast. Portrush is in Antrim and Portstewart in Derry. One person who would know that is McIlroy. Last night, he was selected as Player of the Year by the Association of Golf Writers, who were suited and booted in the R&A pavilion by the first hole. Early in the evening, the surprise guest swept in through the doors wearing his Green Jacket.
Only first-time winners are allowed to remove their jackets from the Augusta club grounds, and then only for the first 12 months after their win. His entrance sparks a lightning standing ovation, belying the room’s age profile. After winning this year’s Masters, they had three different-sized jackets for him to try in The Butler Cabin, he tells us. To the background of the first fairway behind the giant glass window, where he stands, McIlroy, in his verdant green attire, and the links become one.
Thursday
Yesterday evening, Scotland could be seen from the West Strand. Today at 12.30pm, it is like somebody has pulled a blind down a few hundred yards off the coast at the Dunluce Course and turned on the cold shower. Two hours later, when McIlroy hits his first ball of the 153rd Open, a welcome climate transformation has taken place, and it is shirtsleeve weather. For that, thousands of fans are pleased because today is McIlroy’s moment of redemption after an opening hole calamity in 2019 that is burned into their consciousness. Drive out of bounds. Quadruple bogey eight. Missed cut.
Today, from the tee at the first hole, he, Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Thomas can see the people gather in and line both sides of a fairway that stretches out towards bunkers and rises steeply to the green. There, the gallery appears to be even more swollen as people squeeze in on the thin yellow rope. Closer to the play, they want to see the lines on McIlroy’s face. They want to see the wince he makes when his first par putt of The Open rolls by. They greet that with silence and are torn between better than last time or a plus number after one hole.
Friday
Around these parts, many things are biblical, so why not the rain. It came late afternoon in stair rods sweeping across the top of the island. McIlroy got 20 minutes of it, Lowry was just beginning his round when it arrived. When the first heavy drops fell, a young woman at the back of the final hole ran for cover, clutching her phone and a child. If this were the 2025 Masters and not the Open, she would have found herself in the security cabin. Probably not where she would have wanted to be, but at least out of the squall.
Augusta National strictly prohibited cell phones this year, setting a challenge to a selfie-obsessed generation. They have also banned running around the course and regular patrons have become adept at speed walking. At Sawgrass in March, McIlroy borrowed a phone from a spectator, Luke Potter, a University of Texas golfer who was heckling him. Teeing off for his second round, hundreds of phones are pointed at him with people at the back of the 18th stand peering down, taking footage and selfies. Of the many things McIlroy is, a prized backdrop for a selfie is not one of his favourites.
Saturday
Lee Westwood leans across and kisses his caddie at the first tee. It’s okay. Helen Storey is his wife. Westwood joined the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV Tour in 2022 and was runner-up in the Open at St Andrews in 2010. LIV have a house opposite the clubhouse but outside the club boundary. But there are no hard feelings here. Westwood is greeted almost as loudly as McIlroy. Like Monty before him, the English golfer had a great career but no Major in his locker.
“It was an easy decision for me to make. She’d probably rather be at home riding a horse,” said Lee. “I knew I could handle the weight of the bag, but I didn’t have a bloody clue what I was doing,” said Helen. It’s the chemistry. Above the 12th fairway Nikon have a viewing tower stocked with binoculars, where you can go in and scan across the Dunluce links. Today you might spy Lowry scooting off course at every turn. A stomach virus has swept through his team and the House of Offaly is far from all right. Further away on an otherwise perfect evening Scotland reappears on the horizon.
Sunday
As we walk 20 minutes from the West Strand car park, where last night the Sons of Ulster were warming up for their march with drum riffs, there are sweet but earnest people handing out leaflets at the bridge that takes fans over Dunluce Road and into the club grounds, to the beer and Loch Lomond whiskey tents.
A fetching picture of McIlroy and Lowry is on the cover with numbers 61 and 63. As a 16-year-old, McIlroy shot a course record 61, and at the 148th Open, Lowry shot a third-round 63 with eight birdies, a record for the new layout.
To win the Claret Jug, notes the leaflet, “a challenging course must be completed again”. To prove it, they quote Paul from the Bible: “I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” They also provide a number for those in need of help with spiritual matters.
McIlroy is six behind Scheffler, and Lowry’s third-round 74 shoved him further back, although he’s smiling more today. Another cracking sun-kissed day in Portrush and the week closes with McIlroy trying to go back in time. A spiritual matter indeed.
