The Break: The Open Begins at Portrush

Hi everyone! The Break is back starting today, and we’re kicking things back up talking about the greatness of The Open…and why I stopped doing the newsletter for so long.

(Northern) Irish Eyes Are Smiling

The Open is back at Royal Portrush this week, with the Dunluce Links once again hosting the game’s oldest championship. Portrush is hosting its second Open in the last six played which is kind of wild considering that, prior to 2019, it had hosted just once (1951, Max Faulkner).

The Ulster and Irish support for the championship was tremendous the first time, and it’s great again. This thing is sold out.

The island of Ireland is my favorite place to visit. It’s not just the golf, which is incredible, surprising, varied and charming. It’s the people, too. The hospitality in Ireland is second to none, and the craic is what keeps me coming back for more. From beginning to end, it feels like home.

Both the Republic and Northern Ireland aren’t without their problems. The Sons of Ulster will march on Saturday and have forced the R&A to change the tee times for the third round. The economics in the North aren’t great. The Republic isn’t perfect either. But it will hopefully work out someday soon that Portmarnock will become the first Republic course to host the Open, and I’m sure it will shine brilliantly if it does.

The Open is the only tournament in the world — other than the Australian Open — whose TV coverage makes me pull up a browser tab dedicated solely to figuring out dream itineraries of places I would play and stops I’d make on a golf journey there. I’ve been fortunate to spend time in this part of Northern Ireland (though I didn’t play at Portrush, or anywhere, in County Antrim). My son is named after the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. The Giant’s Causeway is still fresh in my mind some 13 years later. The shepherd’s pie at the Bushmills distillery tour is something I still remember and recommend. The views of Dunluce Castle — well, the part that didn’t fall in the Irish Sea — are still breathtaking to me.

What makes The Open special, and those imaginary itineraries so appealing, is that you can play these places. It’s not cheap, or especially simple, to get a visitor tee time at Royal Portrush, but you can. You can get on Royal County Down. You can jump the Causeway into Scotland and England and do the same at the rest of the Rota. And, then you can sprinkle in all of the hidden gems and secret finds that truly make such an odyssey into an unforgettable trip.

If you get the chance to make a journey like that once in your life, do it. If you’ve already done it (once or many times), consider yourself lucky. If you’re about to take that kind of trip, I’m so excited for you.

This game can take you to the most special of places and connect you with truly wonderful people that you’d never otherwise meet. My life has been much fuller because of what happened because of golf than any shot I ever hit.

The Links

Here’s the full TV and streaming schedule for The Open Championship this week. Basically, get to Peacock really early today and tomorrow, then find USA Network around 4 a.m. Eastern every day of the tournament.

Golf YouTuber Grant Horvat made a show of not accepting an invite to play in the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship this week. He said it was because PGA Tour regulations wouldn’t let him bring a film crew to capture his own version of the event. It kind of feels like there’s another reason, though, and there are a few possible ones that fit.

Xander Schauffele said he doesn’t know where his Olympic gold medal from Tokyo is these days. He doesn’t want trophies or adulation in his house because he’s not wired like that. I love that.

Scottie Scheffler’s multi-minute explanation of the emptiness of winning and golf greatness really struck me. It wasn’t nihilism at all, rather realizing that the point of the journey isn’t the accomplishment, it’s what it took to get there and the people that make it all worthwhile.

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What Happened?

It’s been a while since I’ve done The Break, and there are a few big reasons behind it. I’ll try to keep the explanation short.

For the last 16 months or so, I’ve had to completely change the Golf News Net business model. Our website was effectively cut off from the biggest search engine because of a problem we didn’t even cause. The GNN website was copied a handful of times by an overseas black-hat syndicate with the intent of tanking us. Ultimately, it worked. The very people who were supposed to help fix that problem did nothing, and it eventually went away at the end of last year but not before shattering how I made a living. Fortunately, the problem finally got resolved this month, and things are looking (mostly) like the way they were.

In the meanwhile, I pivoted, doing more video, audio and social content to reach new audiences. Turns out, Golf News Net now reaches more people than ever — by a big multiple.

Anyhow, now that things have settled down on the web side, and our on-demand streaming video service is coming, it was the right time to come back to doing something I love.

My goal is to send out The Break twice per week, just as I did for years, on Mondays and Thursdays. I’m also going to do web-only posts of The Break for commentary and special writing that I will only post here.

Getting to write in the long form and being creative are my favorite things, and I really appreciate all of you who take the time to interact with this and me.