“Put it this way,” says Karl Seaton, as he pours another handle at the Kiwi Brew Bar on Portrush’s main drag. “We usually buy in 20 kegs a week. But this week we’ve had to up that to 90. It’s been very lively.”
Across the road, Andy Hill, the owner of the Troggs Surf Shop, is riding a similar wave at the Open, the first to be held in Northern Ireland since 1951. “It’s been phenomenal,” he says. “We’ve been opening until 11pm some nights and sales are up 40%. We have had visitors from every American state and every Canadian province.”
Homeowners are also capitalising on the Open Effect. One family let their large four‑bedroom house, about 10 minutes from the course, for £5,000. Another was in discussions to rent their massive villa to a TV company for £30,000 only to find their garden was six inches shorter than required.
According to the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University, holding the Open at Royal Portrush is projected to generate £80m for the country’s economy – which is calculated by looking at the additional spend by visitors travelling to the event and the media value of the global coverage to Northern Ireland. Admittedly, that is not as much as St Andrews (£140m) or Carnoustie (£120m) but its still a significant amount.
According to Tourism NI, £18m will be spent by visitors in Causeway Coast and Glens region, with 1,500 new jobs created for the event. Businesses have also been helped, with grants give to shops such as Troggs to help them give their storefront a fresh lick of paint.
However, walking around the town centre and the picture becomes more nuanced. Several cafe and restaurant owners say that while business is great during the evenings, it is quieter than usual during the day. The reason? The R&A does not allow ticket holders to return if they leave the course, so they instead have lunch there. Many fans also use park and ride schemes, and do not visit the town at all.
It means that many shop owners, such as Jamie MacDiarmid, the manager of Woodies Surf Shop, have not much benefit in the short‑term. “It’s only after 6pm that it starts getting busy,” he says. “And products that normally sell well, such as wetsuits, are well down. But having the Open has given us a new train station and lots of new paths, too. The hope is that the exposure Portrush is getting will encourage more people to come in the years ahead.”
That is certainly the intention of the genial Tourism NI chief executive, John McGrillen. “We have a strategy to turn tourism into a £1bn industry by 2020 and we are a hair’s breadth away from that,” he says. “We are growing at 6% a year, but golf tourism has grown 12% a year in the last five years, which shows how important it is.”
McGrillen says he has already noticed how people’s attitudes to the country are changing since it was announced the Open was coming to Portrush five years ago. “This has given us an opportunity to paint Northern Ireland in a very different light to people,” he says. “In the past we wouldn’t have necessarily been the first choice golf destination, despite the fact we have two of the best courses in the world in Royal Portrush and Royal County Down. But exposure to this has been phenomenal and I think will really changes people’s perceptions.”
McGrillen hopes that Northern Ireland’s biggest sporting event will also show that the Troubles are now firmly in the past. “This will fundamentally change the brand,” he says. “In some ways I compare it to Skoda. For years it had an image of something you wouldn’t particularly want to buy, but it has been transformed over the last 20 years. And Northern Ireland in a similar way has been completely transformed.
“The message people are seeing is that this is a place with wonderful scenery, unbelievably friendly people who are incredibly hospitable, and everyone is very welcome.”
