2019 Open Portrush

mafitz

With the next Open in Portrush, looking for a thread for folks to use

For Tickets: https://2019portrush.theopen.com/

For Travel:Trains planes and cars...

For Accommodation: Hotels Camping hostels B&B's

Helping people to see one of the biggest sports events of the year

I just booked my Tickets and Accommodation, looking for help with travel from our base in Belfast, train from Belfast to Portrush any tips will there be buses from station to course? any help would be great.

Deeper Blue

Thinking of heading up to this, do people reckon I should sort tickets soon? I'd imagine it'll sell out eventually.

Mushy

NDWC wrote: »

Thinking of heading up to this, do people reckon I should sort tickets soon? I'd imagine it'll sell out eventually.

It didn't sell out this year, so don't know if that will happen. I'll likely get tickets at end of the year.

Wife is from Donegal so can stay at her parents and trek across on the day, long journey but worth it. If there's public transport from some point will likely do that, be a long day.

mafitz

Tickets are on sale at the moment for members of the one club, this is the first stage, prices rise in the second stage (don't know when that will be) and again on the third stage. So if its a day ticket shouldn't be to much difference, but for the full package it might be significant

Chopper83

Pretty sure this will sell out in advance. There will definitely be buses on from the train station to the course.

Benicetomonty

How are people finding it as far as getting accomodation? Have tickets for friday, 6 of us heading up thursday but sfa places to stay that I can find!

mafitz

Advice I got from a local was to stay in Belfast and take train up

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

bilston

Benicetomonty wrote: »

How are people finding it as far as getting accomodation? Have tickets for friday, 6 of us heading up thursday but sfa places to stay that I can find!

You'd be as well staying in Belfast and getting the train up. Trains go direct to Portrush. Although I reckon they will be crammed.

redhill

bilston wrote: »

You'd be as well staying in Belfast and getting the train up. Trains go direct to Portrush. Although I reckon they will be crammed.

I wouldn’t really recommend Belfast for the Open in Portrush and taking the train, trains are a nightmare here, the “express” to Portrush takes just under 2 hours from Belfast, never gets there on time etc, is a horrible old train carriage and generally just two carriage trains which will be invariably packed as they’d hardly have the foresight to put on more services etc. Your looking at 4 hours Extra journey time onto an already long day....
Might be ok for a one day trip but any more days And you’d be knackered.

Alternatives, you could try the Open camping village, put on by the R& A it’s basically just tents ! Back to student days, it’s cheap at £40 a nite, kids are free and it’s next door to the course and it’s good craic.

https://www.theopen.com/Spectators/Camping
Not open as yet for next year but this gives you an idea.

If you are staying in Belfast then I would drive up, for 2012 in Portrush the traffic was very manageable,( many thought it would be a disaster), but the Park and rides worked very well.
A better bet could be drive to Coleraine, (nearest large town, 1 hours drive from Belfast, 80% of drive is motorway or dual carriageway, 3 miles from Portrush), leave car at railway car park (20 pence an hour last week!) and get train from Coleraine to Portrush, May well be a Park n ride organised from here anyway.

thewobbler

Ah i’d expect they’ll all have all sorts of extra trains on for the Open from Belfast, most of them express services.

There simply isn’t the accommodation on the north coast and this would surely have been agreed as part of the package for them getting the gig.

Deep Thought

I have a B&B booked in Bushmills..14 miles from Portrush.

Gonna get tickets later..got them last September for this years, so no mad rush yet.

redhill

thewobbler wrote: »

Ah i’d expect they’ll all have all sorts of extra trains on for the Open from Belfast, most of them express services.

There simply isn’t the accommodation on the north coast and this would surely have been agreed as part of the package for them getting the gig.

Accommodation will certainly be a problem no doubt, not helped by the prices currently being charged, as stated there simply is no express train to Portrush, you have to get a slow train to Coleraine and then change lines to get Portrush train

coylemj

The thread called The 148th Open at Royal Portrush (opened on July 9th last) must be feeling very unloved at this stage.

bilston

redhill wrote: »

bilston wrote: »

You'd be as well staying in Belfast and getting the train up. Trains go direct to Portrush. Although I reckon they will be crammed.

I wouldn’t really recommend Belfast for the Open in Portrush and taking the train, trains are a nightmare here, the “express” to Portrush takes just under 2 hours from Belfast, never gets there on time etc, is a horrible old train carriage and generally just two carriage trains which will be invariably packed as they’d hardly have the foresight to put on more services etc. .

I guess this is tongue in cheek but of course Translink will put on extra services!

I'd agree though I'd drive up rather than take the train if you're going up for the day.

backspin.

Derry city is about 30 miles away and accommodation shouldn't be too dear there.

Adiaga 2

coylemj wrote: »

The thread called The 148th Open at Royal Portrush (opened on July 9th last) must be feeling very unloved at this stage.

I checked in on it earlier, it's doing ok

I got tickets for the Friday with parking. Was going to hold off on the parking as there's bound to be park and ride options. There's £5 off the ticket prices and parking if you pay with MasterCard so £10 didn't seem to bad. Plan to head up very early and stay til the death so hopefully getting in and out won't be too painful.

I think this will sell out. It's always been said about Portrush that it wouldn't be able to host a modern day Open Championship so I'm assuming tickets will be more limited than usual. Also, for this year's Open, there was the option to buy a 1 day ticket for any day. But for 2019, it seems to be specific day tickets - so far at least.

Anyway, always wanted to go to one so can't wait for this. Hopefully we'll get the weather.

charlieIRL

We head to the Northwest 200 (motorbike racing) every year and stay just outside Derry, we travel into Portrush on the Saturday morning. It's about 35 miles or so if i remember correctly and only a few minutes spin on the bikes but would be a long run in a car. Place we stay is around €50 a night and the guy that owns it often dropped us into Portrush and collected us again no charge. Might be an option.

redhill

Adiaga 2 wrote: »

I checked in on it earlier, it's doing ok

I got tickets for the Friday with parking. Was going to hold off on the parking as there's bound to be park and ride options. There's £5 off the ticket prices and parking if you pay with MasterCard so £10 didn't seem to bad. Plan to head up very early and stay til the death so hopefully getting in and out won't be too painful.

I think this will sell out. It's always been said about Portrush that it wouldn't be able to host a modern day Open Championship so I'm assuming tickets will be more limited than usual. Also, for this year's Open, there was the option to buy a 1 day ticket for any day. But for 2019, it seems to be specific day tickets - so far at least.

Anyway, always wanted to go to one so can't wait for this. Hopefully we'll get the weather.

I have it on very good authority that 20% of tickets were sold in first two days of ticket sales alone, another spike in sales was expected this week after Carnoustie was finished as well

Northern Monkey

mafitz wrote: »

Advice I got from a local was to stay in Belfast and take train up

Derry and the train would be a better bet if you don’t want to drive to it. If you don’t mimd a small town, Walsh’s Hotel in Maghera might be worth looking at. It would be circa 30 minutes of a drive from portrush on a normal day.

redhill

redhill wrote: »

I have it on very good authority that 20% of tickets were sold in first two days of ticket sales alone, another spike in sales was expected this week after Carnoustie was finished as well

This has now been confirmed....


Leanne Rice, Tourism NI's golf marketing manager.
"Staging an event like the Open will help us take golf tourism to the next level," she said.
"The overall economic benefit of hosting the Open Championship is expected to exceed £80m, which will be phenomenal over the the space of a week.
"The knock-on effect for hotels, restaurants, bars and the retail sector will also be sizeable.
"When people watch the tournament on TV, like they have in their millions with Carnoustie, it will make them think: 'I want to be in Portrush in 2019, not just for the golf but also for the many attractions that Northern Ireland's north coast has to offer.'"
Are tickets still available?
"If you haven't got your tickets yet, you can still buy them, although within 48 hours of them going on sale, 20% were sold so demand is high," said Ms Rice.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-44924744

thecretinhop

thanks a million for this thread going saturday staying in brothers in letterkenny for a few days. so exicted feckin a year away tho lol. great value imo.

redhill

Re tickets, meant to also add that there are 3 ticket windows, the price of each ticket rises in each ticket window and as such the price of for example an adult weekly ticket is nearly 30% more expensive in the last ticket window than in the current first window.
Can’t see any dates at the moment for when each window opens and closes

Irishdaywalker

I had the pleasure of playing the course with a member, who turned out to be a pro, and nearly qualified for the open this year, anyway when I heard the open was heading there this year I was thinking of potential accomodation issues, I stayed in the Ramada Hotel in the town, and from what I remember that was the only hotel in town, it will probably be a headache, might be a case of driving up and down on the day - I have done this before (from Dublin) although it is a long journey, it's not too bad - I think I came across 2 sets of traffic lights for the entire journey (and that was just entering Belfast) ! ! It will definitely be a sell out event I believe!

thecretinhop

talked to my dad last night he had played there a few times. says it looks very simple but is very hard to play.

Chopper83

thecretinhop wrote: »

talked to my dad last night he had played there a few times. says it looks very simple but is very hard to play.

Yup definitely not an easy course and it will be interesting to see what way they will have it setup. I'm playing it next week.