Revealed: The real reason why there is internal out of bounds on the 1st and 18th

Internal out of bounds: What is it and why did it penalise Rory McIlroy in the first round of The Open at Royal Portrush?

The first round of the 148th Open Championship at Royal Portrush will always be remembered for what happened to Rory McIlroy. 

It wasn’t a pretty start for the hometown hero. After pulling his tee shot on the par-4 1st, his ball cracked into a spectator and came to rest on the wrong side of an out of bounds stake. He then played three off the tee, hacked his way up to the green, and eventually holed out for a quadruple-bogey eight.

Cue stunned silence, and lots of spectators asking the same question (minus the swear words): What the hell happened and why is there out of bounds on the left when it sits besides the 18th?

The answer, as R&A Chief Eexecutive Martin Slumbers explained yesterday, is simple and it all relates to a long-running tradition dating back to before you and Rory were born.

“The reason for that is if you go back in history the club did not own that land,” Slumbers said. “And so it was somebody else’s land in years gone by. As the course has developed, they’ve always kept that historically as out of bounds.

Royal Portrush members still play the Dunluce course this way – despite the club now owning the land between the 1st and 18th – and The R&A decided to keep it that way for this year’s Open.

“We felt that was highly appropriate to do so this year as we’ve rebuilt the course,” added Slumbers. “We try to stay true to how the course is played.”

The 1st, known as Hughie’s, was described by European Tour pro Stephen Gallacher as “little more than an iron and wedge” during BBC commentary, and yet it still threw up eight double bogeys or worse on day one of The Open, no doubt because of how tight the landing area is off the tee.