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Royal Portrush GC Review

darahagan

darahagan

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Joined
Aug 28, 2012
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Location
Tyrone, Ireland
Handicap
21
I recently played the famous links course with my regular fourball. It was a gift for my uncles birthday and as we usual play together he invited me to play. I jumped at the chance to play this course as I had visited the course to watch the Irish Open Wednesday pro-am. I have only been playing two years and thought that I wouldn't have the chance to play such a prestigious course so soon, and I was even more surprised that I hit four pars on the front nine, and a bogey on the hardest hole on the course, not bad considering that as a 21 hcap i was not supposed to be allowed to play the course (18 hcap limit). Unfortunately, all of that was on the front nine, I lost my concentration on the back nine and did not end up with a great score.

Anyhow, back to the review.

The staff were all very friendly even though we were slightly late for the tee time due to traffic. The pro shop is well equipped and reasonably priced. We played off the medal white tees.

The first hole is a 382 yard par 4. It is a fairly easy tee shot with a large fairway. there is no need for a driver here for the big hitters. I hit a three iron to the middle of the fairway.

The challenge of this hole is the green. it is a raised green that slopes from the back to the front. It is guarded by a steep bank to the left with a bunker at the bottom and another bunker at the front for those coming up short. The temptation is to bail to the right of the green (which I did) but this leaves a tricky putt or chip on fast greens.

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The second hole is a 490 yard par 5. With a dogleg to the left. There are bunkers in play on the right hand side of the fairway but a drive of 250+ yards can clear them.

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The 2nd shot may tempt you to go for the green but three bunkers leading to the green may put you off. I laid up and made par after my tee shot went over the fairway bunkers.

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The third hole is a 145 yard par 3. It is slightly intimidating tee shot with a valley between tee and green. It is dangerous to miss right as the green falls off that side leaving a difficult up and down.

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If you go to www.photobucket.com and upload the photos there you can embed them here. It would make it easier to follow the pictures. Regardless, the photos and writeup have been great so far. I feel like I am playing the holes with you.
 
The fourth hole is a 455 yard par 4 with out of bound to the right hand side and a slight dogleg to the left. There are bunkers on the left of the fairway that can be hazardous if you find yourself in one.

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The green is guarded by two hills so if you find yourself hitting one, you can either have a difficult shot, or perhaps even lose a ball.

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DevRickus said:
If you go to www.photobucket.com and upload the photos there you can embed them here. It would make it easier to follow the pictures. Regardless, the photos and writeup have been great so far. I feel like I am playing the holes with you.
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I was wondering how you guys done that. Give me a minute to sign up and i will continue!
 
These are some gorgeous pictures man. Great looking course
 
That looks fantastic. Definitely somewhere I'd like to play someday.
 
Thanks for the review and pics, darahagan. They bring back a lot of memories for me. Portrush is such a fantastic golf course.

If I remember correctly, No.9 plays out to the ocean, and the back nine plays back to the clubhouse. The ocean was only about 10-20 yards from the back of the green on No.9, which I learned the hard way during my round. (I hope that I remember the hole correctly -- pretty sure it was 9)
 
the 5th hole is a 379 yard par 4, with a dogleg to the right. the dogleg can be easily carried with an accurate tee shot. mine was not so accurate and very big so i ended hitting it straight and carrying it 40 yards over the fairway.
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You can see the green in the tee shot above with the people on it.

This left me with the below approach shot. So I kinda guessed a yardage and smacked a 9 iron. It was perfect and left me on the green where I two putted for par.
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Congrats on what sounds like a great front 9 and some great pictures to go along with it!
 
ATLGolfer said:
Thanks for the review and pics, darahagan. They bring back a lot of memories for me. Portrush is such a fantastic golf course.

If I remember correctly, No.9 plays out to the ocean, and the back nine plays back to the clubhouse. The ocean was only about 10-20 yards from the back of the green on No.9, which I learned the hard way during my round. (I hope that I remember the hole correctly -- pretty sure it was 9)
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I think you mean the 5th. check out the pic. it was a great view from the back of the green. There is a cliff about 5 yards off the back of the green to a beach about 50ft below.
 
Here is a nice pic of the 5th green.
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The 6th is a 185 yard par 3. unfortunately no pics, but I parred this one as well!
 
The 7th is a 418 yard par 4. It is also the hardest hole on the course. It is a dogleg to the left and has a very narrow fairway. There is a bunker at 291 yards from the tee and it is on a good line. it is better to miss right of the fairway. sorry for the quality of the picture guys.
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The 7th green is guarded by two bunkers about 20 yards short of the green. My tee shot ended up to the right and took two to get on the green and a nice lag put to get me a bogey and one of the best three hole stretches of my short career!
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The 8th hole is a 363 yard par 4. It is a dogleg to the right with a fairly large fairway if you get the right line. Unfortunately I choose a driver which was against my game plan of using my 3 iron (go to club) and a bad swing left me in the thick scrub in front of the tee box with my hole effectively over with a 7!
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The 8th green is a long narrow green with scrubland on both sides.
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The 9th hole is a 472 yard par 5. It is a dogleg to the right but only starts turning at 244 yards so it is a risk to try and cut the corner. Again a go with the driver and again I have a bad swing, Cursing the fact I didn't stick to my game plan. I barely make it to the end of the path leaving me a long way back. I take my 3 wood out and take my anger out on it and hit it to the left of the fairway with about 160 left.
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The approach to the 9th, I hit an 8 iron from 160 yards.
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Love the review thus far. It would be a dream come true to get to play some of the beautiful courses over there.
 
My approach is good on distance leaving me this for birdie which I happily two putt.
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lambro2 said:
Love the review thus far. It would be a dream come true to get to play some of the beautiful courses over there.
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Thanks, It was a dream come true for me. It would ordinarily be outside of my budget and I was very lucky to get playing this standard of course.
 
Ok, that's the front 9. will try and get the back 9 done tomorrow. I am currently in the process of relocating my office and should maybe get some work done. Thanks for the feedback.
 
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