Clarke: Portrush Beats This!

Derek Lawrenson talks to Darren Clarke about the prospects of a Portrush hosted Open after seeing it answers all of the same questions Turnberry faced.

But, as Clarke drily points out: 'Turnberry answers all the accommodation questions, does it? With the new road (to Portrush), you're no more than 40 minutes from Belfast, where there's plenty of accommodation. There's plenty of room around the course for tented villages and so on, while the new tees mean that the course is plenty tough enough.'

Hill believes the venue could not cope with more than 15,000 people walking round it each day but Clarke doesn't buy that argument either.

'The bottom line is we're talking about a links course as good as any in the world, where the arguments against are less strong than they are for the return of Turnberry,' he said.