10 Tips for a Budget Golf Trip to Ireland
Bargain hunters rejoice. There has never been a better moment for a golf pilgrimage to the Emerald Isle.
Ballybunion Golf Hotel Closes its Doors
A famous course-side hotel is closing due to Europe’s refugee crisis
You Need to Play in The Great Irish Links Challenge
Getting to go to Ireland is on just about every golfer’s bucket list. Getting to play in a tournament while there makes it just that much better
Golf Travel: The Top 10 Courses in Ireland
Irish eyes are smiling as World No. 1 Rory McIlroy returns home to host the Irish Open at Royal County Down this week. Scotland may be the Home of Golf, but the best seaside links in the Emerald Isle are simply the finest in the land. Here are the LINKS top 10 courses in Ireland. […]
The Top 10 Places to Fall in Love (Again) With Golf
By Brian McCallen Australia If Melbourne’s sublime collection of Sand Belt courses were located in the northern hemisphere, the competition would wither. What makes them great? Sand-based terrain, minimalist design, classic bunkering, and lightning-fast greens. Don’t miss Royal Melbourne (East and West courses), Kingston Heath, Metropolitan, Victoria, and Yarra Yarra. Consider a sidetrip to Tasmania, […]
Waterville Golf Links, Ireland: Revisited
Ireland’s southwest has become a standard on any wandering golfer’s bucket list, thanks to courses like Ballybunion, Tralee, Lahinch, Old Head, and Doonbeg. (The most thorough travelers add Dooks and Ceann Sibeal to their lists.) But rarely do Americans recall any more fondly than Waterville on the Ring of Kerry. Maybe it’s the way the long sunset kindles Waterville’s sands, or the wind finds your back more often than you would expect. Maybe it’s that they arrive on a course with distinct and generous fairways that remind them of home, with a soft opening hole (called “Last Easy,” in case you thought you wouldn’t need the rest of the balls in your bag), and a statue of a relaxed and smiling Payne Stewart. Or maybe it’s a Yankee favorite because there is genuine American love and sweat in the Waterville dunes.
Rosapenna Golf Resort is Expanding
Despite a continued sluggish economy, this club in the west of Ireland is taking bold steps forward
Carne Golf Links Revisited
Despite a continued sluggish economy, this club in the west of Ireland is taking bold steps forward
My Design at Doonbeg by Greg Norman
The two-time British Open champ didn’t have to do much to the 567-yard 1st at Doonbeg, which is just how he likes it
The Next Great Irish Links
In the way that legendary breaks like “Jaws,” off the north coast of Maui, or “Mavericks,” near San Francisco, are magnets for big-wave surfers, it’s a certain kind of golfer who is attracted to big-dune links courses. They’re hardy and fun-loving, more accepting of quirky design, and, perhaps, a bit more interested in pulling off heroic shots than strictly adhering to a card-and-pencil mentality.
Scotland has its share of big-dune designs—Donald Trump’s new layout in Aberdeen is just the most recent—but the west coast of Ireland is its equal. There’s Lahinch, of course, and bruising Enniscrone, and Robert Trent Jones Sr.’s intense Cashen Course at Ballybunion. But the Big Daddy of them all is Carne, which this past summer opened a new nine that should quickly gain renown as one of the best big-dune circuits in the country.
