A total of 278,000 fans turned out in 2025 for the Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club, making it the biggest sporting event ever staged in Northern Ireland. (Image: The Open)
After hosting Open Championship victories by Shane Lowry and Scottie Scheffler, Royal Portrush and the other headline links of Northern Ireland are welcoming a record flood of golf visitors.
(Last updated March 2026.)
Though undeniably thrilling, Scottie Scheffler’s commanding four-stroke victory in the 2025 Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club will never be better than second-best to Irish golf fans. What could possibly top the triumph of native son Shane Lowry at the same links six years earlier?
Lowry’s breakthrough in 2019 warmed Irish hearts everywhere and provided a watershed moment in the history of Northern Ireland. During the Troubles, when sectarian violence raged, the idea of the British province hosting the Open was regarded as little more than a pipe dream.
Sean Lowry hoists the Claret Jug following his victory in the 2019 Open Championship. (Image: The Open)
Revenues from golf tourism have skyrocketed thanks largely to the massive television audiences that watched both Opens. Global exposure to the 2025 Open Championship alone—through television, digital platforms and online media—generated an estimated £191 million in destination marketing benefit. A record-breaking attendance of 278,000 turned out in 2025, making it the largest Open Championship held outside of St. Andrews and the biggest-ever sporting event staged in Northern Ireland.
Tourism officials and tour operators gleefully anticipate an even bigger flood of golf visitors to Royal Portrush, Royal County Down, Portstewart, Ardglass, Castlerock and other top courses now that Northern Ireland is more than ever regarded as one of the world’s must-play destinations.
Outside Belfast, Northern Ireland is almost all green and rolling countryside, with farms and villages linked by a spidery network of roads. Establish a base and you can reach almost any golf course within a couple of hours.
The Championship Links at Royal County Down is an iconic Old Tom Morris design set on a sweep of Dundurn Bay. (Image: Royal County Down)
The Championship Links at Royal County Down is absolutely not to be missed. Designed by Old Tom Morris, the links is set on a long sweep of Dundrum Bay, an hour’s drive down the Irish Sea coastline from Belfast. Vast swathes of gorse and heather line fairways that tumble through sand hills, while tussock-faced bunkers defend approach shots to subtly contoured greens at a course many rate the best in the world.
Just a 30-minute drive away, Ardglass Golf Club begins and ends in the middle of a fishing village once occupied by Vikings. The first five holes at Ardglass ramble along rocky cliff tops above the Irish Sea. Altogether, twelve holes deliver ocean views, with tees and greens often clutching precipitously to land’s end. And looming over this transfixing setting is the world’s oldest clubhouse, an imposing Norman castle built in the 14th century.
Mussenden Links at Castlerock Golf Club is another beauty. Located in the north coast town of Castlerock, Mussenden’s tremendous dunes and rolling ground are typical of the best of Irish linksland. Ben Sayers, Harry Colt and Martin Hawtree all had a hand in the design of an often under-appreciated gem considered the ultimate links test when the wind howls.
And found just five miles from Royal Portrush is Portstewart Golf Club, a magnificent north coast links that twists through massive sand dunes and runs alongside a tranquil estuary of the River Bann. Portstewart’s showpiece Strand Course memorably hosted the DP World Tour’s 2017 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open. Jon Rahm, who posted a tournament-record score of 24-under, called Portstewart “one of the most beautiful golf courses I have ever seen.”
Portstewart’s opening holes twist through majestic dunes. (Image: Portstewart Golf Club)
Despite the stiff competition, it is Open Championship host Royal Portrush that has naturally grabbed most of the attention. The property’s famous Dunluce Links, which hosted its first of three Opens in 1951, tumbles down a hillside to seaside cliffs in an unbroken profusion of links holes as fine as any in Ireland. Some fairways are no wider than a county road, and many dogleg abruptly through dunes blanketed with whin and gorse.
Acclaimed architect Martin Ebert built two new holes (the par-five seventh and par-four eighth) prior to the 2019 Open in part to accommodate the huge tournament grandstands. A total of 278,000 fans turned out in 2025, making it the biggest sporting event ever staged in Northern Ireland.
But the most famous hole at Royal Portrush is the 16th, Calamity Corner. The 236-yard par three demands a heroic carry to a cliff-top green at the heart of a brilliant links now firmly established as a pillar of the Open Championship rota.
