What Makes the Greens So Special at Royal Portrush?

The art of shaping a green in the 1880s didn't really exist, so greens on links golf courses are often rather simple, with subtle tilts one way or another. That isn’t the case at 2025 Open Championship host Royal Portrush.

What you see at Portrush are greens that have knobs and different sections and tiers that create more strategic golf. A great example of this is the fifth hole, specifically the mound that's on the left edge of the green. There's a front tier and a back tier, and if you hit a shot perfectly, that knob can gather the ball and funnel it to a back right pin. It allows you to avoid some of the big risk that's up the right side of that hole. But if you catch on the wrong side of that knob, it just sheds the ball away, and then that knob is going to sit right in between you and the hole location you're trying to get to. That little knob is a representation of something that was a feasible feature to build, and build really well, in the 1920s.

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