A beautiful day greeted the players at Royal Portrush. This course is in the world top 15, and is the only Irish course to host an Open Championship in 1951.
This is a brilliant course, and I am shattered that I could only watch as everyone else played.
This is a view at the green of the 5th hole. An incorrect club selection here could land you in the Atlantic Ocean.
This is Dean our coach driver. Dean and I wandered around in a cart taking photos today. The scores were not quite as hot as has been the case in the past few rounds. The winning score was very impressive though. Ian Gutteridge was the victor with 42 points.
Portrush is home to some magnificent golfers. Patrick (Paddy) Carlisle was born here. His father won one of the area's major events in 1942 and Paddy was delighted to be able to see the trophy and his fathers name in the records.This above is not Paddy. This is Graeme McDowell, 2010 US Open Champion. Graeme grew up here and played his early golf at the Rathmore Golf Club, which uses Portrush's second course the Valley as it's links.
Graeme was in town today for a celebratory dinner at Rathmore, and also had a book signing as a fund raiser for the club.
In my non golfing state I was able to con Dean into driving me the 800 metres or so to the Rathmore clubhouse. I purchased the book, and got our Open flags signed as well.
Yes I did invite him to come play the Heath in case you were wondering.
I guess the day was not all bad for me in the end.
We are heading down the road to visit the Bushmills Whiskey Distillery, and Portstewart Golf Club tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment