I didn’t want to Jack J Winick’s thread and I’m not sure the discussion group can bear another Ireland trip thread, but for what it’s worth here are some random thoughts on my trip.
I visited the Dublin area, Northern Ireland, Co Donegal, Co Sligo and Co Mayo (for Carne). I played 17 rounds in 12 days which was a bit over-ambitious. Getting it down to 17 was a challenge and I had to skip some courses that I would have liked to have seen such as The European Club, Portstewart, Murvagh and , Strandhill. If I was to do it over, I’d probably limit it to 10 rounds in nine days, with a day off in the middle just to be a tourist. The problem would be determining which courses to skip as there was not a course on my itinerary that I didn’t like… and none that I regret playing. There were just different degrees of fun and value. I’ve been to Scotland and England for golf trips several times each, but this was my first visit to Ireland… and won’t be my last. I really enjoy planning my trips. They are like putting together a puzzle, piecing together the tee times, accommodations, driving distances etc. The planning for this one started almost a year in advance. It was amazing to me that even that far in advance certain hotels were fully booked and courses were not available on specific days due to competitions and other events. As a result, the itinerary isn’t exactly what I would have wanted, but reflects the most efficient way I could get in these 17 courses.
Day 1: The Island
Day 2: Portmarnock
Day 3: Ballyliffin Old and Glashedy
Day 4: Portsalon
Day 5: Rosapenna OTM and Sandy Hills
Day 6: Cruit Island and Narin & Portnoo
Day 7: Enniscrone
Day 8: Carne
Day 9: Rosses Point
Day 10: Portrush Dunluce and Valley
Day 11: RCD
Day 12: Baltray and Portmarnock Hotel
None of my friends were fanatic enough to join me for 12 days (we are all in our 60’s), so I had two American friends for the first six days and had planned to have two friends from England join me for the last six days. We landed in Dublin and on Day six the second two guys were to fly into Donegal to meet me for the second leg and the first two guys departed from Donegal airport back to Dublin to meet there wives for a couple of non-golf weeks. It was a great plan, and the flight between Dublin and Donegal is less than 80 Euro. There were only two snags. (i) one of the guys from England went into (the) hospital with an emergency two days prior to the day he was supposed to join me and had to cancel, and (ii) I had planned to have one of them added to my car rental contract so I didn’t have to do all of the driving. Unfortunately there is only one car rental company at Donegal airport (Enterprise if I recall correctly) and it wasn’t the one I used, so I ended up as the only driver for the entire trip, which added to my exhaustion (1,100 miles). That was the only flaw in my plan.
Charles (Chuck) Lund joined us for our days at Ballyliffin, where he is a member, Rosapenna and Portrush. Chuck is a machine off the tee with a gentle draw that puts him in the middle of almost every fairway.
RCD, Portmarnock and Portrush were the three very expensive green fees, although Portrush is relatively a better value if you average the cost of two rounds by also playing the Valley course, which is a “no-brainer”. Rosapenna was a great value with a package that included two rounds and hotel. I had read some complaints about the hotel being in need of a refresh. I think they must have put some money into the place as it was very nice in all respects.
The courses that most exceeded my expectations were Portsalon and Narin & Portnoo. They represent everything I like in a course. I like to smaller scale and remote locations. The welcome was fantastic and there were no mobs of touring golfers. I loved RCD, Dunluce and Portmarnock, but I didn’t like the tour buses filled with visiting golfers and the longer rounds that resulted at those courses. It was interesting that Dunluce was mobbed during our morning round, while for the afternoon round on the Valley we basically had the course to ourselves.
I also loved Rosses Point. It’s a great piece of land and standing on the fifth tee looking out over the course was like golfing heaven. It was similar to how I felt the first time I was on the 4
th tee at Ballyneal. I don’t know how to accurately include the feel of a place when evaluating a golf course, but Rosses Point, Portsalon, Narin & Portnoo and the Island all had those “goose bump” moments.
During the trip I came to realize that I liked a lot of holes that have blind shots. At the end of each day when I replayed the rounds in my head and thought about my favorite holes, often times they were holes with blind shots. Some examples: #5 at the Island, #9 & 10 at Narin & Portnoo, #12 & 13 at Enniscrone #17 and #18 at Rosses Point and 5 or 6 holes at RCD. That being the case, I should have loved Cruit Island, but I thought it was just okay. It’s a fun memory (getting there is half the fun), but if I had to whittle down my itinerary, it would probably not make the cut, although it was the least expensive round of the trip.
I was disappointed at Carne that the new (Kilmore) 9 was closed. The woman in the pro shop indicated that it has been closed for many months but that they plan to re-open it soon. After our round on the original (Hackett) 18, our caddy took us on a quick tour by buggy around the Kilmore 9. It was sad to see the condition it was in. It was completely dormant with many bunkers overgrown with grass and weeds. I hope it is back to normal in time for BUDA.
Ballyliffin and Rosapenna reminded me of one another, each having one old school course and one more modern, brawnier course built into the higher dunes. I would have been okay playing just one or the other, but hard to decide which I would cut. I was not as turned off by the par 3 7
th at Glashedy as Ran was (see Confi Guide). I think for many visitors the long drop shot is one they like and the view is pretty nice too. We had a lot of fun in the Ballyliffin club house. They made us feel like we were members, especially two brothers from Belfast who go by the nick-names Bruno and Pedro. I was glad I only had to drive a couple hundred yards to the B&B that night.
Weather: We were extremely lucky as every day of the trip there was a prediction of 70% chance of rain, but it only rained while we were playing on three occasions and each of those was for 30 minutes or so. The worst of those was on the Old Tom Morris course at Rosapenna. The sky opened up and we played #6 and #7 in a deluge. There were actually streams of water flowing down #7 green and standing water in many places on the course for the remainder of the round. My LLBean rain pants were fantastic, the full length zippers let me get them on in about 5 seconds so I remained perfectly dry. As to the umbrella debate, there was very little wind so the umbrella was helpful. I was actually disappointed that we had so little wind throughout the trip. I’ll post a link to photos below, and as you will see, the flags were limp on more than half of our rounds and there was rarely even a full club wind. The most wind I had was on the last day where there was a two or 3 club wind at Baltray. Temps were in the 60’s every day with a couple of days getting into the 70’s . Very comfortable for walking 36. We even wore shorts a couple for days. Most days were very overcast with thick clouds and morning fog. We had two sunny days at Narin & Portnoo and Carne.
Lodging: We stayed in B&B’s and small hotels trying to stay away from the tourists in the big hotels. There were a few standouts that I would highly recommend:
In swords (a few minutes North of Dublin airport and very convenient to Portmarnock and the Island, we stayed at
Evergreen B&B. Mary and Jimmy Canavan made us feel like family and the breakfasts were great. This B&B is next to two parkland courses that we didn’t play, but we had some good food at the Roganstown Golf Club.
In Newcastle just a few minutes from RCD,
the Briers, a beautiful place in a beautiful location
In Enniscrone, just a few minutes from Enniscrone Golf Club,
Waterfront House is a very nice small hotel, with huge well-appointed rooms, a great restaurant and fantastic breakfasts.
Also in Enniscrone, not as nice as Waterfront House, but just outside the entrance to Enniscrone Golf Club is
Eagle Heights B&B is a bargain alternative. We stayed here one night because Waterfront house had no rooms available.
Near Donegal Airport and Cruit Island
Caiselain Oir Hotel is a great place to stay to participate in the Craic. One night they had an all-night poker tournament, the next night live traditional Irish music, a great pub and a nice restaurant in the lobby. Not fancy but the real deal and quite inexpensive.
In Ballyliffin, we stayed at
Doherty’s Country House, which is at the end of the driveway of Ballyliffin golf club. It wasn’t fancy, but it was clean and very convenient when we stayed at the club house until closing time.
As mentioned above,
Rosapenna Hotel was very nice .
Refunds: As I mentioned above, One of my friends had to go to hospital and miss the trip. It left me having to scramble in the middle of the trip to make calls and send e-mails to amend our reservations and see if I could get refunds for him. Every hotel, B&B and golf course gave him a 100% refund except Royal County Down. Even though I notified them a week before our tee time, RCD only refunded 25% which meant he lost 150 pounds. When we spoke to them after our round all they would say was that is our terms and conditions and you agreed to them… In any event, glad to say that he is now home and will soon be playing golf again sans 150 GBP.
Caddies: I used a caddy at Carne, Dunluce and RCD as my back and shoulders were getting tired by that point of the trip. So many rounds pulling trolleys and so much driving had taken a toll. My caddy at Dunluce was great. The one at RCD not so much (although the caddy for a guy we got paired with there was excellent.) At Carne, my caddy was a young man of 14 years called Cormac. He was a great kid and decent caddy. The best part was just hearing his perspective on life in Be
lmullet, golf and caddying.Water: I note that there was some discussion on the other thread about lack of water on the courses. I had a water bottle that I filled each morning and many of the courses had a place on the course where you could re-fill and some of the courses returned to the clubhouse after 9 where you could refill. All of the pro shops sold water so you could pick up a bottle or two before you started if you didn’t already have one. For me it was a non-issue.
Photos: If anyone is interested in viewing photos, they can be found here:
[size=78%]https://www.flickr.com/photos/golfcoursepix/collections/72157669255656750/[/size] I've only posted 10 of the courses so far, but will do the rest next weekend.
edited to insert space between paragrpahs