Out at Portrush, Embedded with the Moroney Bros

PORTRUSH, NORTHERN IRELAND—I knew I wanted to write this story as soon as I saw the text message from Mum.

This was on Tuesday evening, as I was leaving the grounds of the 153rd Open Championship. A handful of other folks were filing out at the same time and I fell into a conversation with brothers Gary and Kevin Moroney, as strangers at a golf tournament are wont to do. As we walked and chatted, Gary mentioned that earlier in the day they had enjoyed a fun encounter with Patrick Reed; he pulled out his phone to show me the selfie they took with the former Masters champ. Kevin broke in: “Did you tell him what Mum said?”

Gary laughed and, by way of a preface, said, “Keep in mind, if I texted her and said I’d been in a car crash I wouldn’t hear back for at least three days.” But four minutes after sending Teresa Moroney the photo she replied, “Ye met with the cheater.” Zing! This was my kind of golf family.

Covering a major championship can be a cloistered experience. Reporters usually have special shuttles to and from the course and separate entrances to beat the crowds. We spend a lot of time with our fellow scribes in the hermetically sealed press room. At the range and on the golf course we gather inside the ropes, close to the spectators but a world apart. It is a privileged existence that makes it easy to feel out of touch with the fans, who are the only reason any of us have a job in the first place. When the Moroney boys said they had tickets for the first round of the Open I recognized a rare opportunity to see how the other half lives.

Come Thursday morning, Gary and Kevin arrived at Portrush at an absurdly early hour while I, still on entitled reporter time, strolled in two and a half hours later. Gary said by text to meet them near the 7th green, which is practically in Scotland. It took me 40 minutes to hoof to the edge of the property and before I even arrived I was regretting my life choices. Then, as soon as I rendezvoused with Gary and Kevin, it started pouring. They couldn’t have been any nicer but I found myself pining for the press room, which at the Open is always equipped with blast furnace heaters and free hot chocolate.

The 7th is an uphill par-5 with a devilish green. We watched a handful of big-name players come through and play a thrilling variety of chips and pitches. The Moroneys had come up from Galway. Gary, 35, is a science teacher who binges on golf during every school holiday. Last year he won the match play championship at Athenry Golf Club. Kevin, two years younger, is a banker who doesn’t play nearly as much but spends every weekend gorging on PGA and European Tour telecasts. They were paying 55 pounds sterling apiece each night to sleep in the campgrounds that the R&A provides. “The mattress is more like a yoga mat,” said Kevin.

Added Gary, “It’s good fun. Kind of feels like a music festival, without women. It’s all men except for the odd guy who brings his wife…and a couple of hours later regrets it.”

We wandered through the rain to find sustenance. (In the press room, there is always a wide variety of hot entrees, salads, sandwiches, fresh fruit, desserts and sodas, all for free.) Near the fifth hole we found a food court. The options were fried prawns and chips, fried scampi and chips, fried chicken and chips and hamburgers and chips. If there is a green vegetable for sale anywhere on the course I never found it.

Kevin and Gary skipped the food and instead quaffed three Guinesses apiece. (I’m a lightweight; when I declined a beer because “I have to work,” I could see the disappointment flicker in their eyes.) We bumped into Gary’s friend Mack, who couldn’t wait to tell us how he acquired Brooks Koepka’s golf ball, a provisional that was abandoned after Koepka found his first drive. Across three plus decades on the golf beat I have become immune to the power of the players’ celebrity but it was charming to hear this grown man so thrilled about acquiring a stray Srixon.

The author, middle, with Gary (left) and Kevin (right).

We kept wandering, chit-chatting about LIV Golf (both Gary and Kevin follow the scores but never watch it), Rory McIlroy’s mood swings (they’re over it) and the wildly divergent cost of golf in the U.S. and Ireland (Athenry’s dues are 1,100 Euros a year!).

I asked if they’d rather Rory or Shane Lowry win the Open and Gary and Kevin were unequivocal in their answer: “Padraig.”

In the 11th fairway we encountered the man who had brought us together, P. Reed. He nearly got brained when his frustrated playing partner, Nico Echavarria, tomahawked an iron down the fairway. We settled in a raised viewing platform behind the third green. The single most exciting thing I saw all day was Justin Leonard holing out from a swale well below the putting surface…but Gary and Kevin missed it while on a Guiness run. We they returned we were smushed up against a trio of lads from Limerick and the way the Moroney boys laughed and joked with them I thought they were old friends. Nope, just fellow golf fans. It made me think of something Padraig Harrington had recently told me: “You put together two Irishmen anywhere in the world, they’re going to get on with each other. That’s just the way it is…They’re going to talk and they’re going to laugh and they might drink.”

After McIlroy played through the third hole—folks were literally climbing the sides of the grandstand just to catch a glimpse—we retired to a nearby food court so Kevin and Gary could get another round of Guinness. Inevitably, we bumped into more of their friends from Athenry, including a couple of biddies who were utterly charming in the seriousness of their fandom. Bidding adieu, Gary beseeched them to take it easy on his mom in an upcoming club tournament.

More walking, more talking, more golf shots. I became aware of how relaxed I felt. Normally when I’m on the course at a major championship it’s all business. I’m composing tweets, taking notes, writing paragraphs in my head, forever scanning the crowd to locate a swing coach or WAG to interview. What a delight to just Zen out and be be present, as Scottie Scheffler would probably put it.

We talked toward 18, where Kevin and Gary wanted to post up in the grandstands to watch the field come home. Along the way we crossed paths with yet another of their friends, Brendan. He was as droll and charming as every other Irish person I’d met in the preceding eight hours. Finally we made it to 18. With a heavy heart, Gary and Kevin and I said our goodbyes. (It was, at last, time for me to work.) My feet ached, my back was tight, I was hungry, thirsty and I had to pee. I became aware of another physical sensation, one that had never happened to me in 104 previous major championships: my cheeks were tired from smiling so much.