Organisers of The Open golf championship at Portrush delivered a highly successful event in a land scorched by recent sporting failure. The collapse of plans to host matches in football's Euro 2028 tournament in Belfast damaged Northern Ireland's reputation in the world of sport.

Rory McIlroy insists playing in front of home support at The 2025 Open Championship is an “experience I will never forget” after arguably Northern Ireland’s greatest-ever sportsperson received a hero’s welcome in Portrush.

McIlroy could not reproduce his Saturday magic to catch Scottie Scheffler, but he still achieved a level of redemption at his home Open

The next visit to the Emerald Isle may actually come in Ireland, not Northern Ireland. Portmarnock Golf Club has been under consideration in recent years. Set on a peninsula which juts into the Irish Sea about 8 miles northeast of Dublin, the course winds its way through rolling sand hills on crisp turf and pot bunkers abound.

If McIlroy didn’t quite deliver, then Royal Portrush — where he shot 61 as a 16-year-old for the course record — certainly did, gaining widespread rave reviews.

Reality says Rory McIlroy isn’t going to hoist the Claret Jug on the 18th hole on Sunday evening here to deafening roars from the home fans.

So here is our final major big board of the year, ranking the top 30 golfers in the field. This is not simply the 30 best golfers in a vacuum. These are the 30 golfers that our crack team of Gabby Herzig, Hugh Kellenberger and Brody Miller believe are best suited to win this week at Royal Portrush.

McIlroy capped the Grand Slam in April, and called this “an awesome week' after tying for seventh place at Portrush.