PORTRUSH,🐓 Northern Ireland — There are some scenarios in sports, some stories that have the potential to unfold before 🥀the actual competition begins, that are simply too perfect to fathom.
Graeme McDowell winni♕ng the British Open this week in Portrush, the tiny seaside village in Northern Ireland where he grew up, would count as one of those too-good-to-be-true scenarios.
McDowell is the quintessential local boyꦺ who made good, but the notion that he grew up playing on the regal links of Roy🎀al Portrush, where the 148th British Open will begin with Thursday’s opening round, is a misconception.
McDowell cut his teeth in g💜olf as a member of the Rathmore Golf Club, playing on Royal Portrush’s other golf course, the Valley Course.
Royal Portrush is the elite of the 🌃elite. The Valley Course is the working-man’s course.
It was from the Valley Course and the tiny Rathmore clubhouse, which sits about a quarter-mile down Bushmills Road from the Royal Portrush clubhouse, where the 2010 U.S. Open champion rose to stardom. It is inside that Rathmo🃏re clubhouse where the McDowell’s U.S. Open trophy resides, inside a glass case.
And it was inside that modest clubhouse where McDowell, at a charity breakfast Monday morning, looked around at the coffee cups on his table and said, “That could be the Claret Jug by Sunday night.’☂’
“Now that,’’ McDowell♔’s father, Kenny, told The Post over a couple of late-morning pints of Guinness, “would be a dream come true.’’
The truth is: If McDowell were to s💮omehow make that dream come true and become “the Champion Golfer of the Year,’’ there might not be enough Guinness in the entire town of Portrush to handle the crush of celebration ▨Sunday night.
“It could be that this clubhouse wou♕ldn’t close until sometime in Octob🌄er,’’ said Robbie Doherty, a 35-year member of the Rathmore Golf Club.
Win or miss the cut, McDowell always will remain a prodigal child of Portrus🐓h.
“It’s unbelievable what he’s done for this area,’’ said Charlie Mooney, a Rathmore member of 25 years. “From where he came from and where he’s ended up … it’s like a fairy taಌle. As a boy, Graeme used to do his homework in the locker room. He was just an ordinary kid. There’s loads of them here. He just made the break and things worked out. He worked hard for this. Nothing came easy to him.’’
Nor did qualifying for this Open. McDowell, fighting all year to elevate his ranking enough to qualify for Portrush, didౠn’t get into the field until an eighth-place fin🐟ish at the Canadian Open last month qualified him.
“There wouldn’t have been an Open for us without 🐷Graeme playing in it,’’ said Graeme’s 47-year-old✅ brother George, who owns a painting and design business in town.
“If I hadn’t qualified for the Open, I wouldn’t🐭 have been able to go to the event; it would j👍ust have been too painful,’’ McDowell conceded. “I definitely contemplated that scenario if I hadn’t qualified. Thankfully, I managed to get over the line at the RBC Canadian Open.’’
Doherty said everyone around town was on pins and needles as McDowell fought to qualify the last several months.
“We were all keeping our fingers crossed, because we fel🍃t for the Open to come back to Portrush for the first time in 68 years and f♓or Graeme, the local boy, not to be there would have been a great disappointment — not only to him, but to all of us,’’ he said. “The spirit’s been lifted all over the area. We’re all looking forward to a very good performance this week.’’
The♒r♊ein lies a rub: How will the immense pressure of expectations affect McDowell this week?
“We’re worried the level of expectation might weigh a wee bit heavy on his shoulders,’’ Doherty said. “You can know the topography of the course like the back of your hand, but on the day you have to do it. But he is the type of person that can put that to the background and play his best. He always was great at focusing. In 🥀match play, you could not shake him off, and in stroke play you did not want to see him in your rearview mirror.’’
McDowell’s 73-year-old uncle, Eul (short for Samuel) Loughrey, who taught McDowell from ages 9 to 2🦋0, recalled thinking Graeme’s younger brother, Gary, would be the better golfer “because Gary had the better swing.’’
“But Graeme was a great competitor and he had it in here,’’ Loughrey said, pointing⛄ to his midsection. “He had it in the belly, in the guts.’’
Gary, at age 39 a year younger than Graeme, is on the greenskeeping staff at Royal Portrush and, Graeme said, even busier than he 🍌is t🍷his week.
“This all feels like a 🎀dream,’’ Kenny McDowell said.
“It was my dad’s pride that made me stay where I was ⛄and he taught me to never forget my roots and show some loyalty for the people that had given me the game of golf,’’ McDowell said. “I literally cannot wait to see the power and the force of the home support. I am going to try and use their energy as motivation to play well and do everyone proud.’’