McGinley - Royal Portrush Set The Standard

Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley says Royal Portrush has set a ‘new standard’ for The Open Championship going forward. The Irishman was in attendance as countryman Shane Lowry won his first major after a superb four days of golf.

Lowry beat Tommy Fleetwood after showing nerves of steel last weekend but the crowd and hosts were also praised by sections of the media. A sell-out crowd of 235,000 watched Lowry make history and reports have claimed the event could host the 2024 Open Championship. Some landlocked venues now may suffer as a result and McGinley claims that is down to Royal Portrush’s high standards.

He told the Scotsman: “That’s the new standard. That’s what every venue has to aspire towards. I saw that in the Ryder Cup and I saw that in hosting the Irish Open. You look for ways of trying to improve it. “I wouldn’t say putting pressure on other venues, but what it does is it raises the bar. Whatever you are doing, you want to continuously be raising the bar. I think what we saw last week was a significant raising of the bar by Ireland.”