OTWAY GC: Drifting in Donegal Dos

[Sean_A]

Situated 15 miles from Letterkenny, on the idyllic shores of Lough Swilly, Otway GC claims to be one of the oldest golf clubs in Ireland. Having celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2018 Otway is certainly well-established. In recent years there were rumours of Otway’s demise. The main land owner couldn’t negotiate satisfactory lease terms for a field which contained an integral section of the course. Three greens and two tees were ripped from the course, but the landowner had the chutzpah to redesign the course using a separate plot of land he owned. This land houses the new holes; 7 & 8. The miniscule third hole was created by playing up the plateau used by the NLE 5th green. The outstanding 2nd is also a new hole.  Some may lament the passing of the old course, but the new arrangement may well be a blessing in disguise. The densely bunched nine holes are a marvel of shrewd design. Of course, it isn’t perfect golf, but more often than not Otway is worthy golf and a valuable member of the rich Donegal golf family. Yes, Otway is very much open. In fact, the day before our arrival a club event was held.





The scorecard makes little sense as 18 holes. When will clubs learn to embrace what they are rather than what they are not?


Course Map


As signs instructed, we knocked on a bungalow door and were greeted by the land owner's mother. After a brief chat of which I caught about one in two words, we duly paid our modest green fee and sauntered to the 1st tee. Having seen the set-up of a small house (separate from the payment bungalow) and a parking space reserved for the Chaplin, I sensed something singular was about to unfold. I wasn’t prepared for the beauty of the opening tee shot. I suspect travellers on the WIld Atlantic Way with no intention of playing golf stop to rest here.  Playing over the 9th green, the 1st green sits on the low ground near the beach. To the right is more golf leading to a peninsula with a Martello tower at its edge. Macamish Fort is a Napoleonic battery built by the British circa 1813 to defend the bay of the same name against French invasion or the Irish Rebellion. I nearly gave up the game in favour of a walk, but my better senses turned me straight. Back to the shot at hand.




An awkward hitch in the routing has us reclimbing the hill to play the 2nd. I wonder if folks hit their tee shots for the second while on high ground? I don't like the walk, but there can be no doubting the vicious quality of the hole. The club generously allows for two shots to reach this 210 yard hole...the shortest par 4 I have ever encountered. There are two more holes of par 3 length registered as par 4s. The card says total par of 64 (should be 32!), but that is more indicative of a bogey score. 30 is the par for expert players. Regardless of the par designation, the 2nd is certainly an All-Ireland candidate.




No green can outshine the tee shot, but the 2nd is one of a few provacative greens.


Despite being billed as links, Otway most certainly is not.


The third barely reaches a yardage of triple digits, but feels like an assault course.  The course yardage disguises the difficulty of the design.


More to follow.

Ciao

[Marty Bonnar]

Magic, Sean.
This is EXACTLY the sort of place I want to visit on next year’s Ireland motorhome excursion.
Cheers,
F.

[Thomas Dai]

Glad your visit was drier than when I popped by Otway a few years ago. The course is certainly a bit different to the norm - https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58477.msg1372238.html#msg1372238
It’s golf though and if folks have fun playing it then all the better.
‘Assault course’. Nice description. Could apply to a few other rural and rustics in various parts of the globe. In fact I recall playing a course laid out on a Far East army base a zillion years ago that was literally in and around an army training assault course complete with all sorts of pretty significant and painful looking obstacles.
atb


Marty - definitely somewhere to visit and afterwards if you drive to Portsalon GC you get amazing views across northern Lough Swilly.

[David_Tepper]

Speaking of crossover holes, looks like a helmet might be a good idea on a busy day.

[Richard Fisher]

I am guiltily conscious of having shared this Bernard Darwin quotation before on GCA, but it is about Otway, so


‘I still have ecstatic memories from more than forty years ago of a day’s golf course on a little course at Macamish, on the shores of Louth 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 sand hill in blissful peace and solitude’.


This comes from an essay in Every Idle Dream (1948) on The Spirit of Picnic, which also contains a similarly elegiac passage about a more recent picnic of Darwin and his friends on the Pebble Ridge at Westward Ho!

[Sean_A]

Glad your visit was drier than when I popped by Otway a few years ago. The course is certainly a bit different to the norm - https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,58477.msg1372238.html#msg1372238
It’s golf though and if folks have fun playing it then all the better.
‘Assault course’. Nice description. Could apply to a few other rural and rustics in various parts of the globe. In fact I recall playing a course laid out on a Far East army base a zillion years ago that was literally in and around an army training assault course complete with all sorts of pretty significant and painful looking obstacles.
atb

Marty - definitely somewhere to visit and afterwards if you drive to Portsalon GC you get amazing views across northern Lough Swilly.

As you know our plan was to play Gweedore and Cruit. Being the Tin Man I convinced the others to run away from the rain and play Otway. Those knuckleheads were drowned trying to steal 18 holes from the Lord back at Rosapenna after we played Otway. I was content with a quick spin around the front nine on the OTM course and a few hours of watching Gaelic football and hurling. A very kind Irishman joined me and spoke at length about Gaelic games and their importance to Irish culture. A memorable and dry afternoon.

Thank you Richard. Cool quote.

Ciao

[Mike Sweeney]

As you know our plan was to play Gweedore and Cruit. Being the Tim Man I convinced the others to run away from the rain and play Otway. Those knuckleheads were drowned trying to steal 18 holes from the Lord back at Rosapenna after we played Otway. I was content with a quick spin around the front nine on the OTM course and a few hours of watching Gaelic football and hurling. A very kind Irishman joined me and spoke at length about Gaelic games and their importance to Irish culture. A memorable and dry afternoon. 😎

Ciao

Tim Man?


I only see a martial arts guy via a Brave Search. Do you mean Tin Man aka Wizard of Oz?


Once again, I appreciate your write ups as they include the journey of life before and after the course.


Thanks again.

[jeffwarne]

Whoa.Otway-where the sheep wear helmets.
Glad to see much of it has survived.
I played it in 2011 when the area (on your diagram) left of 2 green was a large field which housed multiple fairways.
The most amazing thing about my visit was how the shared fairway worked as players tended to be on the tees at the same times, then hitting away from each other to the greens down in the field.
Clyde Johnson had expressed his dismay to me about the changes and I wasn't sure it worth a return trip-I may have to give it a go.

[Sean_A]

Whoa.Otway-where the sheep wear helmets.
Glad to see much of it has survived.
I played it in 2011 when the area (on your diagram) left of 2 green was a large field which housed multiple fairways.
The most amazing thing about my visit was how the shared fairway worked as players tended to be on the tees at the same times, then hitting away from each other to the greens down in the field.
Clyde Johnson had expressed his dismay to me about the changes and I wasn't sure it worth a return trip-I may have to give it a go.

This is the old routing. I obviously didn't get to see the old holes, but 7 & 8 are interesting. The map I posted shows separate fairways, but its a shared fairway playing around an empty house on a hill. Plus, creating the 2nd is an epic change for the better.



Ciao

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Bernard Darwin enjoyed Otway that much, he wrote about the course in his classic book The Golf Courses of the British Isles which was published in 1908;

I must put in one word for the quaintest and most charming little nine-hole course at Macamish, also on the shores of Lough Swilly, which can be reached by sailing across from Buncrana or by driving anywhere else an interminable number of Irish miles over a rocky make-shift road. It is the most purely amateur course in the world, and also, if more than two or three are gathered together upon it, the most perilous. The holes cross and recross each other and everybody aims at his own particular hole in a light-hearted, pic-nicking frame of mind, and perfectly regardless of the lives of others. For pure, unadulterated fun I have yet to see the equal of this course.

[Sean_A]

OTWAY TOUR CONT

The 4th (named Kyber!!!) is a bit crazy. The green is on the far side of the high ground used for 1 & 2 tees and 9 green. Players can be coming down the 9th fairway directly past the 4th green that can't be seen.  Fortunately, the carry is about 210 yards so many will layup then send a player ahead to scout the green. The low area near the path (Kyber Pass?) is the layup area. The green is on the other side of the hill.


Spangles and Doc scouting the green.


The green from near the 5th tee. The green is shared space with the 9th fairway whose tee is on the peninsula. 


A short downhiller, the 5th features another cool green, but is basically a blind tee shot.


Given the proximity of the road and garden, the tee shot from here makes more sense.


The green is diamond shaped.


We get a chance to open the shoulders on the 6th. This is another green sitting in the 9th fairway....and it too is very good.






More to follow.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

Splendidly wacky!
If only there was a conventional golf ball that wouldn’t hurt if it clonked someone on the bonce or cause damage then more golf could be akin to this. This may well have been the case a long, long ago.
Atb

[Sean_A]

Otway Tour Cont

7 & 8 are on the new part of the course. The 7th is a good design, but once we have to hit a longer shot, somehow the softer conditions mean more. On the previous holes softer conditions makes sense for such a shooting gallery.  The drive is awkward because it looks as though the fairway should be in the saddle to the right. As it is, the fairway leans toward OoB on the right as indicated by the fence. 


For many, the steeply uphill approach will cross over the property line.


The 8th is essentially the inverse of the 7th.  Many will try to drive the green some 277 yards away. I suspect many also skip 7 & 8  .


We now take a walk out toward the fort for the home hole. A beautiful spot which is also intriguing. The three greens we see are not the 9th...practice paradise It's not often one plays a hole which crosses four holes! Photo courtesy of Doc Hiseman.


If the drive is weak going for the green in two is futile for most. Below is a look at the approach past the 5th green.


Behind the green.


Short and sweet! On a busier day or when the course is keen I might not enjoy it so much. On this day, with rain threatening and not a care in the world, Otway did it for me. Otway goes straight into my Nifty 50. 2022

Drifting in Donegal Dos

https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,71512.0.html  St Pat's

Drifting in Donegal Uno

https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59070.msg1388131.html#msg1388131 Cruit

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59189.msg1391553.html#msg1391553  Rosapenna OTM LInks

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59240.msg1392946.html#msg1392946  Rosapenna Sandy Hills

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59129.msg1390457.html#msg1390457  Portsalon

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,59008.0.html   Narin & Portnoo

Ciao

[jeffwarne]

Thanks for the updated and old routings Sean.
That's quite a puzzle to work out.
If #4 is the old 6, they've preserved one of the wackiest holes on the planet.
In some ways, it almost appears to have more variety now, as the first 5 holes seemed to all play in the same field(simultaneously)
Those greens look amazing-can't say i remember that much contour-wow.

[Sean_A]

Thanks for the updated and old routings Sean.
That's quite a puzzle to work out.
If #4 is the old 6, they've preserved on of the wackiest holes on the planet.
In some ways, it almost appears to have more variety now, as the first 5 holes seemed to all play in the same field(simultaneously)
Those greens look amazing-can't say i remember that much contour-wow.

It did occur to me that some greens could have been rebuilt when the new holes came into play. 2, 5 & 6 are similar. But I don't know. We bumped into the owner on the course, it didn't occur to me to ask.

Merry Christmas