Daly grew up in Portrush and got into the game like so many others back then, as a childhood caddie, because that was by far the best way in town for a kid to earn a few coins. A few years later, as an aspiring professional, Daly again turned to the club for labor, when he joined the crew to implement design changes prescribed by Harry Colt, in 1932. Portrush was established in 1888, but it was this Colt redesign that gave the club the championship caliber the members desired. Reporting on the 1951 Open, the renowned golf correspondent Bernard Darwin wrote, “Mr. H. S. Colt has built himself a monument more enduring than brass.”

Darwin was right, as usual, although Portrush did not host the Open again until 2019, when southern Irelander Shane Lowry attracted massive crowds to the north on his way to victory in a magnificent return for Portrush as an Open stage.

Look out for Rory McIlroy this time around. He was bitterly disappointed by a missed cut at Portrush in 2019—just 60 miles from his hometown of Holywood, near Belfast—and he loves this golf course. Back in 2005, aged 16, he broke the course record by three shots with a round of 61 to win the North of Ireland Amateur Open.