Before I go into it, I looked at the pictures here…
https://golfclubatlas.com/countries/inniscrone-golf-club/ - and it's obvious that a LOT of bunkers have been removed and replaced with… rough, or "grass bunkers," or similar. Some were not too much in play, some were very much in play. The 16th looks quite different now, for example.
Then:
Now:
Inniscrone a great golf course? Puhleeeese. It is awful.
I'm in agreement here.
Based on the Fried Egg article, I played Jeffersonville on Thursday and Inniscrone on Friday. I wish I had taken Friday off, or just gone back to Jeffersonville again. As much as I liked Jeffersonville, I disliked Inniscrone. And it's not due to the conditioning (though, before the thunderstorm that hit that day, the first tee was sopping wet. The course played soggy all day, even before the thunderstorm).
On a 1-5 scale…Holes:
1 - Good. 4
2 - Good, though I thought the green was well to the left, and I'd have played a hybrid if I played it again. 4
3 - Okay. 4
4 - Played like 360, despite the card saying 430, but I have no idea where you could fit some 430-yard tees. This hole wasn't very good. Too narrow, would be a hybrid in the future. 2
5 - Horrible. 1
6 - Okay. I don't even mind that you can be blocked out by hitting it 270 in the fairway from the back tees. 3
7 - Dangerous? Line is right between 3 and 7. 2
8 - Kind of a redan, but set at 90° instead of maybe 30° to 45°? Meh. 2
9 - Blind second shot is not ideal. We were hit into as we waited at the top of the hill to see when the group ahead of us would drive off. 3
10 - Terrible. 1
11 - The only hole I took a photo of. Best on the property perhaps. 4
12 - Okay. Really long when your ball plugs, but… okay. 3
13 - Meh. Another hole that takes driver out of your hands… the second time you play it because you know better. 2
14 - Meh. 2
15 - Decent. 3
16
[size=78%]- Meh. 3[/size]17 - Not good. Too long to be this narrow. The opposite of "width and angles." 2
18 - Strange finishing hole, but not bad. 3
In other words, I see no "really good" holes and a lot of bad holes.
The 4th green is pretty close to the same elevation as the 5th green, and currently, you have to hike uphill to the 5th tee, hit you half lob wedge down the hill, and then backtrack uphill, while the group behind waits. Why not have the 5th tee where the current green is, and have a semi-blind uphill par 3 to the current tee location, perhaps surrounded in bunkers, Short-style? That solves all the 'problems' that the current hole has. Even elevation (and shorter) walk to #5 tee, uphill walk to green, very short walk to next tee.
Kid you not, we saw the marker down by the green and thought that the hole originally played uphill. I've never seen what seemed like a tee stone/marker (those big metal plates) by the green. They're generally near the tees. And the routing even seemed to say "tee off from here, hit it up there." We even said "maybe they changed it because people on the tee box for #6 were getting hit into all the time?"