Royal Portrush Golf Club: Valley

Tom Doak calls the Royal Portrush’s Valley course “the most underrated golf course in Ireland and the North.” That was before the fifth and sixth holes, out in the massive seaside dunes, were sacrificed to create the new seventh and eighth holes on the Dunluce course in 2015 for the 2019 Open Championship. To make up for the loss, Martin Ebert molded several new holes, including the par-3 15th, the par-3 17th and the par-4 18th that now brings the routing home closer to the clubhouse. What hasn’t changed is the sense of playing down between some of golf’s greatest sand hills and the debate about whether there’s a better one-two punch in links golf.