Tour the Majestic and Stunning Dunes of Irish Open Venue Portstewart

Post by Golfshake contributor and freelance photographer Kevin Diss

The Open Championship is nearly here and short of chartering a space shuttle, Royal Birkdale (Review) is the closest players will get to a round on the moon. The craters and sand dunes make the setting for this course one of the most interesting natural landscapes in British golf. The game of golf takes on another dimension when transplanted into this type of terrain and this week’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open at Portstewart kickstarts the series of duneland golf that is the backdrop for the Game of Thrones set.The sand dune environment will be a real treat for spectators and players, showcasing golf in Northern Ireland.

Found a few minutes away from Royal Portrush (the 2019 Open Championship venue), anyone who has not played this delightful course will certainly not be disappointed. Arriving at the club, there is no suggestion of what you are about to find. The first tee must be one of the best views in golf.

Its elevated position provides a vista including the seemingly endless Strand beach, the spectacular towering dunes caressing the course. A scene even more breath-taking as the sun goes down. It is uncanny that the course with the best first tee shot in golf, Machrihanish (in Scotland) is so close, less than 50km as the crow flies.

The Strand course has a magnificent front nine that threads its way through giant dunes, starting with an elevated teeshot towards the eighth green, a dogleg left to right finishing at the base of a giant dune which defines the following hole. The second  has to be one of the most natural you will see, with the fairway and green on a narrow strip of level ground at the base of dunes resembling skyscrapers. Standing on the tee you can imagine the first time make shift golf was played here back in 1889, five years before the course was officially laid out. There were certainly no earth movers needed to create the masterpiece of the front nine.

The greens nestle amongst the dunes providing great visual framing and penalise golfers straying off line. Players are continuously challenged with risk reward decisions  requiring them to shape shots and pick lines that suit the length of their game. This is the best form of golf where there are constantly choices and options for safe or ambitious play, with wind conditions capable of transforming game plans from day to day.

In the tournament the second hole will be the first time longer hitters are offered an option. With a 330yard carry from an elevated tee and a helping breeze, the decision is a short layup or go for it. It will great to see Rory standing there with the green in his sight.

Portstewart is an unusual club with 54 holes (including the Riverside and Old course). However, not all the holes on the Strand nestle in the fabulous duneland known as “thirsty hollow” and as the back nine progresses it enters terrain that resembles an inland course. Looking for constant improvements, the club has recently made some significant changes to improve the later holes which have long been a poor relation of the breathtaking first half.

The 10^th hole heads for the River Bann and mini dunes covered in marram grass have been built to frame both the green on this hole and the adjoining 13^th.

An even more important change is the new position of the 14^th tee from between the 10^th and 13^th greens to a new site behind the 13^th, resulting in the previous straight par 5 becoming a dogleg risk reward hole. The fairway from the new tee is framed by small dunes with marram grass and a large bunker on the corner of the dogleg is the focal point from the tee.

The use of marram grass and removal of lush manicured turf goes a long way to changing the feel of the back nine and it is now just the closing three holes which struggle to belong to a classic links.

This certainly is a course worth a specially planned visit with many additional attractions. Try Harry’s shack restaurant on the beach for great food and enjoy the Strand beach recognisable for Game of Thrones fans.

For more information, see ireland.com

You can buy tickets for the DDF Irish Open at europeantour.com

Written by Kevin Diss with more images of Portstewart available at www.kevindiss.com