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Alan FitzGerald CGCS MG

  • Karma: +0/-0
Otway Golf Club Closing
« on: February 15, 2019, 12:05:11 PM »
While not a GCA masterpiece it is sad to lose one of Irelands oldest courses and one I spent quite a bit of time around as a child.


https://www.donegaldaily.com/2019/02/14/dismay-at-closure-of-famous-otway-golf-club/
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Golf construction & maintenance are like creating a masterpiece; Da Vinci didn't paint the Mona Lisa's eyes first..... You start with the backdrop, layer on the detail and fine tune the finished product into a masterpiece

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2019, 12:35:45 PM »
Damn!  I was really hoping to go see this place since Jeff W has written so enthusiastically about it.
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Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2019, 12:59:22 PM »
What a shame. Seriously quirky. I have been and seen and posted some photos in this GCA thread - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58477.msg1372238.html#msg1372238
I'll leave it to Jeff W though to reiterate his wonderful comment about the sheep and their headwear!!! :)
atb
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Clyde Johnson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2019, 03:04:47 PM »
Tom have you ever tried figuring out the routing from an aerial? Even you might struggle!!


I'll post this view from the first as a tribute to one of the funkiest routings in golf...luckily I had the place to myself, as hard hats would need to be compulsory:





April, 2018
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Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +3/-1
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2019, 07:00:05 PM »
Clyde:


I did try to sort out the routing, and I'm not sure I had it right.  I know there is a lot of overlap.


Shek O in Hong Kong is somewhat of the same ilk, though there are not as many holes playing over the top of each other.


P.S.  That's a great photo of the place.
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M. Shea Sweeney

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2019, 09:18:36 PM »
No no no
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jeffwarne

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2019, 06:43:04 PM »
aaaaarrrrrggghhhhhh


so many asshole traps flourishing............and a gem slips away

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"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Dónal Ó Ceallaigh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #7 on: January 17, 2020, 08:01:17 PM »
Some good news. Otway is definitely not closed!!!! I drove down to Otway this afternoon and had a look. The green flags were a bit shabby, but it looked much like it has always looked. The weather was awful, so it was very wet and totally deserted. I would have loved to walk it and take some photos. I was very happy to see it is still open.
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jeffwarne

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2020, 10:56:44 PM »
Quote from: Dónal Ó Ceallaigh on January 17, 2020, 08:01:17 PM
Some good news. Otway is definitely not closed!!!! I drove down to Otway this afternoon and had a look. The green flags were a bit shabby, but it looked much like it has always looked. The weather was awful, so it was very wet and totally deserted. I would have loved to walk it and take some photos. I was very happy to see it is still open.


That made my year! (so far)
and it's been a pretty good year.
Looks like another sneak over to Donegal (missed 2019)
May is pretty  ;D :o quiet in the Hamptons......
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"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Clyde Johnson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2020, 03:37:53 AM »
I lasted visited in August. They are down to six holes, with the far field no longer in use - holes two, four and five out of play as they were.


They had started to build replacement holes, to the south of the seventh/eighth fairway - a tee above seven green will drive back across it to a fairway on the inside shoulder above Lough Swilly.


Here's hoping they succeed in preserving the club...!
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Richard Fisher

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2020, 07:01:33 AM »
Otway is, I am 99% sure, the course of which Bernard Darwin wrote so fondly in his essay The Spirit of Picnic, which appears in Every Idle Dream (1948): 'I still have ecstatic memories from more than forty years ago of a day's golf on a little course at Macamish, on the shores of Lough Swilly. Some sailed across the Lough from Buncrana, others drove innumerable miles from Portsalon: every one brought his own lunch and we ate it on the edge of a putting green under the lee of a sandhill in blissful peace and solitude'. It would be very sad indeed if this experience was no longer available - even if nowadays we expect (at the very least) a clubhouse!
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Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2020, 01:58:19 PM »
"innumerable" is an odd word for DB to use given that Portsalon is less than 10 miles from Otway, although in fairness to BD in 1908 it would have taken quite a while to travel between the two by road.
I posted an Otway thread including some photos herein a while back following a short passing visit although photoshop has done its best to make them now unviewable - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58477.msg1372238.html#msg1372238
atb
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Dónal Ó Ceallaigh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2020, 03:51:09 AM »
Clyde,


I didn't realise it was only 6 holes that are open. It was an awful day, so I just took some photos from the 9th green, so couldn't see to the far end of the course (even though the acreage is tiny). It would be great if they could sort out the land issues. I don't think many people in Ireland realise how important this tiny course is.


I was looking through some old 1980s cards I have from Otway and noticed a local rule regarding a free drop from the "Khyber". This must be the pathway through the gap to the 6th green I think. I love the exotic names that certain features of old courses are given.


It has been so long since I played there, I was confused about how to get to the clubhouse. You have to drive through the back yard of the bungalow, over an area where they have their clothes lines. I was worried someone would come out and give out to me. :D
« Last Edit: January 22, 2020, 03:53:34 AM by Dónal Ó Ceallaigh »
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Dónal Ó Ceallaigh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Otway Golf Club Closing
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2020, 03:52:17 AM »
double post by mistake
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