The Open’s Best-Kept Secret: Why Golf’s Greatest Venues Remain Locked Outside the Door

After 35 years covering professional golf, I’ve learned that the most interesting stories aren’t always the ones making headlines. They’re the ones hiding in plain sight—or in this case, hidden behind the velvet ropes of some of the world’s greatest golf courses that will likely never host The Open Championship.

I’m not being pessimistic here. I’m being realistic, and there’s a difference. The R&A has a formula that works: major cities, substantial infrastructure, television-friendly logistics, and enough hotel rooms to house the traveling circus that is The Open. But what fascinates me—what’s kept me scribbling notes through countless rounds—is that several courses ranked among the planet’s finest remain perpetually overlooked, not because they lack quality, but because they lack convenience.

The Royal County Down Paradox

Royal County Down sits atop most serious rankings of the world’s courses. Ranked No. 1 in the source material, it’s routinely cited as the best course never to have hosted The Open—or frankly, any major championship. When I finally made the pilgrimage north to County Down last summer, I understood immediately why serious golfers speak about this place with an almost reverent whisper.

“This is without doubt the best course not to have held The Open, probably also a Major. Having not played here before I played here last summer and it went in comfortably as my new No. 1. The front nine is sensational, the back nine just outstanding.”

The Mourne Mountains create a dramatic backdrop that no television production truck could fully capture. The routing is immaculate—which I’ve seen maybe a dozen times in my career—and holes 2 through 4 constitute some of the finest succession of golf holes I’ve encountered anywhere. But here’s the rub: getting there requires commitment. Logistics, as they say, get in the way. And in modern championship golf, logistics trump pedigree nearly every time.

What strikes me about County Down is that it represents everything The Open should theoretically want: authentic, challenging, beautifully routed links golf without the municipal feel. Yet it will almost certainly remain a pilgrimage destination rather than a championship venue. That’s not a criticism of the R&A—it’s simply how the business works now.

The Irish Question and Portmarnock’s Moment

Here’s where it gets genuinely interesting. According to the source material, the R&A’s outgoing chief executive Martin Slumbers essentially green-lit a conversation about The Open going international. Portmarnock in Ireland could host as soon as 2030.

“If the R&A aren’t keen on a particular venue then they very smoothly put a line through it without causing too much offence. At last year’s Open the outgoing chief executive Martin Slumbers explained that they would be supportive of the club asking the Government for help in putting together a case for taking The Open outside the UK for the first time ever.”

In my experience covering professional golf through various iterations of tradition versus modernization, this is significant. The Open Championship is history and pageantry personified. Having it leave British and Irish soil for the first time would represent a genuine inflection point. Portmarnock, ranked 24th globally, is a worthy candidate—fair, naturally beautiful, and possessed of a closing stretch designed for championship drama. But I wonder if we’re ready for that shift, and more importantly, if the membership base at venerable links clubs is ready to accommodate it.

The Premium on Practicality

What I’ve noticed over decades of covering tour events is that championship venues increasingly cluster around one decision matrix: can we build infrastructure around this? Can we service 40,000 daily spectators? Can broadcast trucks access the property? Are there five-star hotels nearby?

This is precisely why Royal Dornoch—ranked 6th globally and situated in the Scottish Highlands in what the source describes as “one of the most romantic and idyllic spots on the planet”—will never host The Open. The romance is precisely the problem from an operational standpoint. Getting there is half the adventure. That’s wonderful for the cognoscenti. It’s a nightmare for event logistics.

“If you were able to host an Open miles from anywhere in one of the most romantic and idyllic spots on the planet, then lets’ head to the Highlands.”

And yet Dornoch possesses world-class holes—the gorse-lined routing, the brilliant quartet of par 3s, the 14th hole called “Foxy” with its devilish architecture. It’s genuinely a shame that accessibility and market concerns override pure golf merit.

The Courses We’ll Watch From Our Armchairs

We do get glimpses of some of these venues. Kingsbarns appears annually in the Dunhill Links coverage. Royal Porthcawl has hosted The Senior Open and the Women’s Open. North Berwick remains a tantalizing “what if” with its legendary finishing stretch: the Pit, the Redan, and Home.

Here’s what gives me some optimism: the fact that these venues are staging significant championships at all suggests the R&A recognizes their quality. Porthcawl hosted The Women’s Open last year. Kingsbarns hosted The Women’s Open in 2017. These aren’t consolation prizes—they’re affirmations of genuine championship caliber.

After three and a half decades watching this sport evolve, I think what we’re witnessing is golf’s eternal tension between tradition and practicality. The best courses aren’t always the most convenient ones. The most authentic experiences rarely come with adequate parking. But that doesn’t make them any less worthy of our attention, or any less worthy of hosting major championships.

The Open may never come to County Down or Dornoch. But that doesn’t diminish what those courses represent: the essence of links golf, unsullied by the requirements of modern championship infrastructure. Sometimes the greatest venues are greatest precisely because they remain untamed by the machinery of professional sport.