Royal Portrush: An interview with Martin Ebert

Royal Portrush Golf Club in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, is hosting the Open Championship on 17-20 July 2025. It will be the third time the club has staged the event over its Dunluce Links, Max Faulkner winning in 1951 and Shane Lowry lifting the Claret Jug in 2019.

In the run up to the 2019 championship, Martin Ebert of Mackenzie & Ebert oversaw changes to the Dunluce, the first major work on the Harry Colt-designed links since the 1930s. The most significant changes were the elimination of the seventeenth and eighteenth holes and creation of a new par-five seventh and par-four eighth on ground previously occupied by the fifth and sixth holes of the club’s Valley course along with some surrounding duneland.

Watch: a Mackenzie & Ebert flyover of the new seventh and eighth holes.

How was the feedback to your work in the run-up to the 2019 Open?

The general feeling was that the course changes led to an improvement of the Dunluce Links. Subsequently, the members and visitors seem to have accepted the changes as having had a positive impact. The immediate sight of the seventh, stretching away in the distance when you turn the corner of the road leading to Portrush, is one of the most exciting views in golf and one that leads to a huge sense of anticipation of what is to come if you are playing the Dunluce.

What additional work have you carried out since then?

Some of our work has been purely focused on the Open, such as new championship tees, but other changes will also have an impact on members’ play.

On hole one, the championship tee has been expanded. The slope on the front left of this wonderful green has been softened very slightly to allow a flag to be located there unless the weather conditions are horrendous for the whole week. In 2019, the slope was considered just too strong.

A new championship tee has been added to hole four to make it more difficult for the longest hitters to carry the central bunkers. On hole six, the green has been mown out at the front left to produce a tough front flag position.

A new championship tee has been added to hole seven to make the carry over the huge bunker a little tougher but still possible in the right conditions. Some minor regrading of the narrow part of the fairway on the second part of the hole has been undertaken to spread the divot pattern. The back of the green and immediate surrounds have been reshaped to produce a higher level right across the rear of the surface rather than just at the back right.

Some minor regrading was carried out on hole eight to spread the divot pattern. The entrance to the second fairway bunker has been reshaped to make it easier for balls to end up in the bunker.

On hole ten, the championship tee has been expanded. On hole thirteen, the championship tee has been expanded and edged to the left. The championship tee has been edged forward on hole fourteen, and on hole fifteen, the championship tee has been expanded and edged left.

The post-Open review was fascinating to be involved with. As well as the adjustments to the course, some major changes have been made to make the spectator experience even better this year.

To describe a few, the main village will now be located on the club’s practice ground, to the right of the eighteenth hole. The main village in 2019, which was located at the entrance of the old seventeenth and eighteenth holes, will now be a large entrance village. The spectator village in the triangle between the fourth, fifth and eleventh holes has been more than doubled in size and the satellite village has been enlarged to the left of the seventeenth tees. A new village has been created to the right of the third hole, enjoying glorious views across the whole course.

A lot of work has been carried out on the practice facilities. The practice ground now allows players to focus on target greens and to allow for more a convenient flow of spectators, going from the practice ground to the putting green and onto the short-game green.

How did the 2019 Open influence design decisions for your recent work?

I was present for the whole event and keen to see how the players took on the challenges presented to them. It was great to see lots of different strategies adopted for some of the holes, including the first – Darren Clarke hit the first tee shot with a driver, carried the new bunker on the right and made a birdie – and the eighth, where Rory McIlroy and other brave players hit a driver to get within 100 yards of the green, while others took an iron to leave over 200 yards.

In terms of what influenced design decisions for 2025, one thing was seeing how easily – when the wind was helping – some players were able to drive over the huge bunker to the right of the seventh that we added as a replacement for ‘Big Nellie’ on the old seventeenth. Therefore, the championship tee has been moved back slightly. The same applies for the testing fourth hole, leading to the addition of a new back tee to make the carry over the central bunkers that little bit more challenging.

The R&A did not want to use the front left of the first green as a pin position but the slope there has been softened very slightly to allow a flag to be located there in 2025, all being well. The same applies to the new seventh green – the rear of which has been adjusted as the R&A preferred not to use the back left for a flag and the club also felt that some minor reshaping would produce a green more in character with the rest on the course.

Some minor reshaping of hollows has also been carried out to spread divot wear but that has been as much for general play as for the Open.

Overall, though, the course changes have been fairly minor since 2019.

How have you balanced respecting Colt’s design, meeting tournament expectations and keeping members happy?

From the outset, the R&A was clear in saying that, for the Open to return, the old seventeenth and eighteenth holes had to be removed from the layout to allow enough room for crucial infrastructure. That meant major changes to the course layout and the concern was that the members would oppose the work on their great Harry Colt-designed course.

As a result, over the years it has been crucial to keep the members informed of the changes that have been carried out and the reasons behind them.

We wanted to respect the Harry Colt heritage of the Dunluce Links from the outset. As part of the overall course review exercise, an investigation of the evolution of golf at Portrush was undertaken to assess how the layout had changed over the years and especially since Colt laid out his final design for the Dunluce course in 1932. This exercise highlighted a fundamental issue. When Colt designed Dunluce in 1932, the clubhouse was over 1,200 yards away from the present clubhouse in the town of Portrush. Two of his original holes – the key first and eighteenth holes – had been lost. They provided a link from the old clubhouse to the old seventeenth and eighteenth holes. The eighth and ninth in the previous layout (now the tenth and eleventh) did not exist. Although Colt was consulted over the addition of the replacement eighth and ninth, and approved of them, they were the conception of the club’s professional, P.G. Stevenson, and Colt was not involved with the implementation of the holes. This shows that he was open to adjustments to the course he created, which were required by changing circumstances. So, that established a precedent for a considered change being made to the original design. That was critical in convincing the members that the changes proposed were just part of an ongoing evolution of the links of Portrush.

The point I tried to make with the members was that if Harry Colt had the clubhouse position of today, he would likely not have used the land for the old seventeenth and eighteenth holes, as it was relatively bland. It is sometimes dangerous to suggest you know what someone would have done but it is likely he would have used that land for the Valley and the land we have used for the new seventh and eighth for the Dunluce instead.

The next challenge was to convince the members that the changes were going to produce a positive outcome. Luckily, the land we had to play with for the new seventh and eighth was fantastic although we had to undertake a lot of work to turn them into two great holes. The land formerly housed the fifth and sixth from the Valley course and was a tremendous arena for two dramatic and iconic holes. However, those Valley holes were a short par four and a long par three. We were losing a long par five and a long par four with the old seventeenth and eighteenth dropping out, so we had to gain a huge amount of length for the replacement holes. To show the members how good the holes would be, we produced detailed plans with contours at 25cm intervals for the whole area and 6.25cm for the two green surfaces. We turned those into CGI videos and stills of the proposed holes, which really brought them to life for everyone, and the members unanimously approved the project when they voted.

The next step was to produce shapes of greens, green surrounds and bunkers which Harry Colt and his team would hopefully approve of. For that, we had the best models ever in the existing holes and the wonderful shapes they created at Portrush. That allowed us to produce a detailed design which would lead to the same style and physical examples of great shapes on the course to look at with the key shaping team.

Overall, I hope that we have produced a course that the R&A is extremely happy to host the Open at, as well as bringing the members along on a wonderful journey that has improved on what Colt left the club with.

Richard HumphreysRichard Humphreys

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