HOMETOWN HERO

Fred Daly, the first Northern Irishman to win a Major, was born and bred and died in Portrush. Robin Barwick looks back on the life of a local legend

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Fred Daly was born in Portrush, raised there, and emerged from those famous dunes and gorse as a golfer who would ultimately vanquish the very best in the game. Daly earned renown as Northern Ireland’s first Open Champion and first Ryder Cup player. He could have chased riches in America, yet he preferred to stay in Northern Ireland and never lost sight of his hometown, nor his affection for it.

Like many of the ‘Open’ towns around the shores of the British Isles - Troon, Southport, Lytham St Annes and Hoylake to name four—Portrush enjoyed a Victorian heyday as a seaside resort. A fishing village before that, the heart of Portrush lies on a mile-long peninsula, Ramore Head, which reaches out from the coastline and into the uncompromising North Atlantic. This isn’t the northern-most part of the province, but it isn’t far off, and stoic Portrush withstands the prevailing south-westerlies that whip in off the ocean.

“A 20-mile-an-hour wind is normal here,” warns one of the caddies at Royal Portrush. Porridge for breakfast in Daly Portrush warms up golfers and holds them down when the breeze picks up. In a good B&B it might come with a “drop of Bush”, a dram of the locally distilled Bushmills whiskey.

Daly was born in a terraced house in Lower Causeway Street in 1911, the son of a blacksmith and youngest of six. By the age of ten, he was established among the caddie ranks at Royal Portrush. Caddying would get hold of the young the old-fashioned way and there was little romance about it; it was the money.