07/17/19 11:31:00
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07/16 11:28 CDT Column: Open returns, but only after 'The Troubles' subside
Column: Open returns, but only after 'The Troubles' subside
By TIM DAHLBERG
AP Sports Columnist
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland (AP) --- Darren Clarke was a teenager working at a
bar in his hometown of Dungannon when the call came in.
The message was simple: Get out or get killed.
It was a few days before Christmas in 1986 and Northern Ireland was at war with
itself --- and by proxy, the government in London. "The Troubles," as they are
euphemistically known here, were raging and no one knew who the next target
would be.
Clarke and his fellow workers took heed and got out.
"The bomb scare at 8:30, everybody out, bomb went off at 9:00," Clarke said,
"and the place was flattened."
Clarke recalled the close escape this week amid preparations for a home British
Open he thought he would never see. The Open is back in Northern Ireland for
the first time in 68 years, and Clarke will step up to the first tee early
Thursday morning and hit the first shot.
As with anyone who grew up around here during the time, though, The Troubles
are never far from his mind.
"That was life in Northern Ireland. Bombs were going off quite frequently,"
Clarke said. "And a lot of people, unfortunately, paid a heavy penalty for
being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The Troubles that killed more than 3,700 people have largely ended, thanks to
the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998. Still, tensions between unionists,
mostly Protestant, and Roman Catholic supporters of a united Ireland still
simmer beneath the surface and there are occasional incidents like the shooting
death earlier this year of journalist Lyra McKee during rioting in Londonderry.
But with prodding from Clarke --- the 2011 Open champion --- and some others,
the R&A felt comfortable enough to bring the tournament back to Royal Portrush,
where it was last held in 1951 --- the only time it had ever been played in
Northern Ireland.
And with more than 200,000 fans expected to flood the course before play ends
Sunday, the focus for both them and Clarke is now on golf.
"It goes without saying, it's a huge thing to have it back here in Northern
Ireland again," Clarke said. "It's going to be an amazing tournament. The
atmosphere is going to be sensational."
Indeed, the atmosphere might already be ahead of projections, with fans
streaming out of the nearby train station to get a glimpse of their favorite
players in Tuesday's practice round. In between they could look at the
spectacular vistas that spread for miles from the links course perched on a
cliff overlooking the sea.
It's a bucolic setting that belies the violence that is mostly past. And it's
an important way to spread the idea that Northern Ireland is not only the home
of major champions like Clarke, Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell, but some of
the best golf courses in the world.
It's also a way to show the world that Northern Ireland is moving on from its
past.
"We want people to think of Northern Ireland and immediately then think of
golf," Peter Robinson, the then-deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, said
when the tournament was announced five years ago. "Those are the positives from
a Northern Ireland point of view."
The golf, at least at Royal Portrush, could be as spectacular as the views.
This is a British Open with a little of everything for golf fans, from Tiger
Woods trying for another major to McIlroy, McDowell or even the 50-year-old
Clarke winning on home soil.
Quite a change from 1951 when an Englishman named Max Faulkner, who spent one
winter milking cows to strengthen his golfing hands, won an Open that only two
Americans bothered to enter. But one thing that hasn't changed all that much is
a golf course as pleasing to see as it is to play.
"The thing about Royal Portrush, it's a fair golf course," Clarke said. "If you
play well around Portrush you should have the opportunity to score well. If
you're missing too many shots you're not going to get around Portrush, and
that's the way it is."
Still, to a newcomer there seems to be an increased police presence outside the
course than there has been at other Opens. There are signs posted that warn
plainclothes officers are around, too, should anyone contemplate anything
nefarious.
But to Clarke things seem far different from when he was growing up playing
rugby and soccer nearby. The course he played most in Dungannon, he said, was
probably the most bombed clubhouse in Northern Ireland for a time.
"I had friends and relatives who were murdered, all sorts of bits and pieces,"
Clark told the Daily Mail last week. "It just happened."
___
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to
him at tdahlberg@ap.org or http://twitter.com/timdahlberg
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