Former Ryder Cup captain believes weather forecast will bring 'volatility' to The Open at Royal Portrush

While it was sunny and calm for large stretches of practice at the iconic Dunluce links, the 156-player field were met by rain on Thursday as they got their rounds underway.

That’s expected to continue throughout the remainder of the tournament while the wind is also set to pick up – coming in from different directions on each day of The Open, providing another tricky challenge.

The arrival of inclement weather will result in changing conditions on the north coast course and McGinley feels it’ll provide a fascinating spectacle as the leaderboard takes major turns.

"We’ve got a bit of everything coming in and I like that,” McGinley said on Golf Channel. “I like the volatility it brings to the playing conditions...not only are the ground conditions going to change with the rain, it’ll soften up a little bit and the greens will slow down quite a lot, but we’re also going to have some shifting winds as the week goes on.

"Volatility is good, whether it be on the golf course, in the scoring or in the weather – I think that brings a little bit more intrigue to what’s going to be a great week.

Royal Portrush was designed by architect Harry Colt, who played a role in either designing or redesigning 300 courses, including the likes of Wentworth, Sunningdale and Muirfield.

The Northern Irish venue is playing host to only its third Open Championship – and first since Shane Lowry’s triumph in 2019 – and McGinley has spoken about the differences of playing at Portrush compared to other courses around the United Kingdom.

"This golf course moves in so many different directions and that’s what’s great about it,” he added. “Golf courses historically are built 100 years ago, some a couple of hundred years ago, so if you go back to the old courses like Royal Troon, it’s like a hammer and nail.

"Then you go to a square one like Muirfield...this one is more like an American football shape and what we got is you start out and then you go into spaghetti junction and you’re all over the place.

"As the players talked about, you're constantly looking at the wind map, constantly looking at yardages.

"Last year at Royal Troon going out, in general if the wind was right to left you’d have it for six or seven holes in a row, and then vice-versa coming back in – that’s not the case at Royal Portrush.

"It brings caddies into it, it brings wind maps into it and a little more volatility into it.”