PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Maybe 2,500 steps into your round at Royal Portrush, depending on how you’re playing, the steps get a little harder. You’re trudging up yet another hill, maybe the sixth of your day, this time to the infinity green on the 5th hole.
“It’s right when a seat starts to sound nice,” one Tour agent told me. “Then to top it off, it has incredible views.”
During weeks like this, most player managers leave their clubs at home and end up carrying Trackmans, backpacks, towels and Sharpies instead. The walk with all that is plenty. A bench sounds nice! This bench is real nice. Maybe the best golf bench in the world.
Eyes will be fixed on the 5th hole this week, the risk-reward par-4 being the best chance of witnessing an eagle. The hole ends where the green ends, bordered by a thin white out-of-bounds line before the earth falls away into the Atlantic Ocean. Our bench du jour stands sentinel on that perch. The wood used to be brown but has worn into a grey-beige by the weather. It has six long splats, wide enough to fit the whole family.
The perch is positioned perfectly, right behind the 6th tee, and offered the best view of the first ace of the week, made Tuesday morning by Czech golfer Filip Jakubcik. But that’s not what you sit down for. You sit down for everything that the light touches out east. The pearly limestone cliffs in the distance. The White Rocks Beach down below. The spectrum of greens layered in between. Those are colors of this championship, when the sun is out at least.
Frenchman Adrien Saddier studied his yardage book on the bench Tuesday morning. Justin Thomas studied his phone. Riki Kawamoto of Japan posed for the cameraman nearby. Everyone notices the top rail inscription when they sit down — “Royal Portrush Golf Club” — but not necessarily what’s tacked to the board beneath the seat.
“Jim McDowell — from a few of his best friends,” reads one of two silver plates. On the other, “To mark the occasion of his 70th birthday.”
I won’t pretend to have known Jim, nor his birthday, but I’m at least sure of one thing. He would have loved the view this week.
