Controversial! Is Ballybunion really a "traditional links course"?

[OChatriot]

This is not a critic of Ballybunion.
I absolutely adore BGC, both courses actually. The long views, the tortuous fairways, the massive dunes, the feeling of being away of it all on Cashen, the warm welcome, the strong wind and a general excellent presentation. It is one of my favourite places to play golf; I have been going there regularly for 25 years. And for some bizarre reason, it seems to lift my game too which is great!

Generally ranked as one of the top links course on the planet, the Old strikes me as not completely belonging to that category, and I would be happy to read the GCA members reliable opinion about it.

I was reading about FineGolf and running-golf and had the following thought:
BGC is on links terrain. It's a GREAT course. But it's not a "great links course"!!
I think Ballybunion Old is predominantly a target golf course, and maybe that is why it is so popular with American visitors?

How many holes on that course can you actually roll the ball on the green? Aim short left or right and let the contours bring your ball to the pin?
Let's list them for mid green pin positions.

1- Yes. The green is wide open, but the most obvious route for the short downhill shot is a high soft short iron landing in the first quarter of the green and releasing to the middle.
2-  No. Very uphill shot to a plateau green, with rough halfway up.
3- No. Downhill defended green . Too hazardous with the short central bunker. A mid to long iron high shot for a soft landing
4- Not really. It's a short par five with an elevated green. If you are not within chipping range in two, the best way is to land a short iron like a SW onto the slight bowl green, The apron would take a rolling ball right towards the bunker in no time if your ground stroke wasn't perfect. You can roll the ball...but there's no reason for it.
5- Yes. But only if massively downwind. Otherwise plenty of green to work with. And the fairway in front of the green is quite tortuous, it might send your ball in random directions.
6- I may be wrong, but no. An elongated upturned saucer green like this requires well struck spun shot that hits your target and stops quickly. Any rolling second shot slightly offline will dribble far down left or right.
7-yes. A long low second shot on the ground from the left can do.
8-No.
9-No. Unless you hit a massive drive to the left. But still a very difficult shot to judge up a steep slope to an elevated green. Aerial landing better again.
10-No. There is just no rolling terrain in front of the green.
11-No. The gap is way too narrow. And the rough there steep and thick. Hit over the dunes to a green bigger than it seems.
12-No. Plateau green on top of a hill.
13- No. Again, a very short iron hit low on the uphill green seems better. Gully to the left would gobble your ball.
14-No. Hit the green with a short iron. Same sort of green as 13, raised with a valley to the left.
15-No. Like on 10, there's just no place you can roll the ball. Another target golf green, but this time it can be up to a 3wood if into strong wind.
16-Yes. But again, the steep apron doesn't really help. Aerial route to an uphill green is better.
17- Yes. Small green, very exposed second shot, downhill, a bit of a punchbowl green. The fairway is also tortuous but you can roll the ball on the green.
18- No. Uphill blind shot to a sunk sheltered green.

Score? 5 out of 18
As for the brilliant Cashen Course, I make the count 3 out of 18..!

So what do you think? More target golf than traditional links?
What's sure is it is exceptional, and lots of fun, and I'd play there any day. Maybe it's the case that Ballybunion cannot really fit in a box.
It just stands on it's own.

A friend of mine came back last week and told me the greens were unbelievably hard and difficult to hold. (They changed the greens and grass a couple of years ago remember?). Now, we want fine grasses, and low maintenance,  but target golf+non-receptive greens+ potential very strong wind will make the courses even more of a challenge! I will report in August..

Oliver

[Thomas Dai]

In relation to the Championship course, has set-up and maintenance practices, particularly irrigation, altered the playing character over the 25 yrs you’ve been visiting?
Atb

[Jim Nugent]

Is the ground game a requirement for a links course?  Or does links simply refer to the land the course sits on? 

Haven't played any of them, but does Oliver's question about ground game options also apply to Portrush?  Royal County Down? 

[Ally Mcintosh]

Not to beat a dead horse but....


....Many big dunes courses and courses with large undulations are great to look at and admire. But those who play links courses all the time generally get more kicks out of flat courses with less contour precisely because there is more opportunity to use the ground.


Sure, the best of both worlds includes smaller scale undulations where balls can be fed in to greens. But the bottom line is that the more predictable the bounce, the more often you use the ground.


And I love using the ground.


Sure Ballybunion is a real links course and a great one at that. But there is a disparity in current thoughts and rankings between the big contoured courses and the seemingly featureless flat ones.


The best in my book fall somewhere in the middle. The elegance of Portrush or Dornoch or Sandwich or Deal. And the mother of them all in TOC. Courses where the approach bounce offers a high percentage chance of expected result.


But the ones where you use the ground most of all are the even flatter ones, the Portmarnocks and Carnoustie. Those kind of courses are underrated because hit and run GCA nerds don’t see many beautiful contours. And those less connected with GCA don’t see wow holes with big dunes.

[OChatriot]

In relation to the Championship course, has set-up and maintenance practices, particularly irrigation, altered the playing character over the 25 yrs you’ve been visiting?
Atb

Hi Thomas
Thank you for your reply
I'm not 100% sure but it seems to me the course is more receptive today, more lush than it was in the past.  I will ask this summer about irrigation. I always go in April or October. August will be a first and I am curious to see if we play half baked fairways. I guess not given the requirements for aerial game.
The new marram grasses they planted extensively frame the course nicely but make it look too artificial in my opinion.  They have turned all the paths of the Old into grass too. That looks very nice too, but again it's lost some of the wild character and probably demands a lot of maintenance. Greenfees are not cheap now...

[OChatriot]

Is the ground game a requirement for a links course?  Or does links simply refer to the land the course sits on? 

Haven't played any of them, but does Oliver's question about ground game options also apply to Portrush?  Royal County Down?

Thanks for your reply Jim
Yes exactly. More a question of classification. Should there be rankings for traditional running golf links like the awesome Cinque Ports and some for the wow looking links like Ballybunion and Tralee?

[OChatriot]

Jim, thanks for your comments.
Yes I agree with you all the way. And Deal is so much fun.

Whatever the style, they are a joy to tackle!
They are all links, but the different kind of games played on them maybe should trigger different sorts of ranking? That was my point, which you all helped clarify. Thanks.
 

[Niall C]

Ally

Thank you for your post. It has saved me quite a bit of time trying to compose something along the same lines but I'm sure wouldn't have been half as eloquent as you.

I was fortunate to play North Berwick West course again on Monday and once again it struck me how magnificent the 3rd green was and how in comparison to the more vaunted greens like the Redan and the Gate hole, and for much of the reasons you describe.

Niall

[Tim Gallant]

Ally

Thank you for your post. It has saved me quite a bit of time trying to compose something along the same lines but I'm sure wouldn't have been half as eloquent as you.

I was fortunate to play North Berwick West course again on Monday and once again it struck me how magnificent the 3rd green was and how in comparison to the more vaunted greens like the Redan and the Gate hole, and for much of the reasons you describe.

Niall

Niall,


Good pick-up. David M and I are in agreement that the best greens on the course are 3, 7, 12, 14, 15 and 16. The latter two get all the attention, but 3, 7 and 12 have some serious movement, and in my mind, can drastically alter your decision on how to play the hole. Especially on 3 and 7, a running shot is almost the preferred shot.

[Thomas Dai]

The 7th green on the Old course was significantly altered a couple of years ago. There’s a thread herein about it.
Don’t take the 9th green for granted either, it’ll bite your backside pretty quick if you do (as will the 6th). Sometimes less obvious green sites hurt the most.

For what it’s worth, the Cashen Course has quite a few terrific green sites too.


As to the Old being a ‘traditional links course’, I for one deeply dislike the general level of irrigation used these days on many a more famous ‘links’ including in this case the newish (irrigated!) rye grass pathways and the various other additions like the stone bridges, the stone walls alongside the ditches and all the similar types of candy features that have been incorporated over time.

Atb

[David McIntosh]

Niall,

Good pick-up. David M and I are in agreement that the best greens on the course are 3, 7, 12, 14, 15 and 16. The latter two get all the attention, but 3, 7 and 12 have some serious movement, and in my mind, can drastically alter your decision on how to play the hole. Especially on 3 and 7, a running shot is almost the preferred shot.

Niall,

Spot on re the 3rd green - it’s the best on the course for me.

Tim,

Agreed on the greens you list. Fantastic movement on all of them and you can find yourself in positions on each where three-putts are more likely than not.

You must really be playing well if you’re running approaches up to 7 now  .

[Niall C]

He's probably walking on water 

Niall

[Tom_Doak]

Ballybunion is way greener than when I first played there in 1983, but it is a victim of its own success.  There is so much more play now that they have to pump up the fertility to handle all the traffic.


(Note that I have not been back for +/- 10 years but this was true by the mid-1990’s.  It’s also unfortunately true that most of the big courses that charge premium green fees are now maintaining their courses for the expectations of overseas visitors paying top dollar.

[Thomas Dai]

Ballybunion is way greener than when I first played there in 1983, but it is a victim of its own success.  There is so much more play now that they have to pump up the fertility to handle all the traffic.


(Note that I have not been back for +/- 10 years but this was true by the mid-1990’s.  It’s also unfortunately true that most of the big courses that charge premium green fees are now maintaining their courses for the expectations of overseas visitors paying top dollar.

Various changes driven by European environment concerns are coming into effect in respect of what chemicals, products etc can and cannot be applied to courses so it will be interesting to see what effect this might have on the conditioning of all courses down the line. I doubt there’ll be water use restrictions on the usually rather rainy west coast of Ireland however so the desire for greenness might still prevail ..... although you never know!
Atb

[Sean_A]

Ballybunion is way greener than when I first played there in 1983, but it is a victim of its own success.  There is so much more play now that they have to pump up the fertility to handle all the traffic.


(Note that I have not been back for +/- 10 years but this was true by the mid-1990’s.  It’s also unfortunately true that most of the big courses that charge premium green fees are now maintaining their courses for the expectations of overseas visitors paying top dollar.

Various changes driven by European environment concerns are coming into effect in respect of what chemicals, products etc can and cannot be applied to courses so it will be interesting to see what effect this might have on the conditioning of all courses down the line. I doubt there’ll be water use restrictions on the usually rather rainy west coast of Ireland however so the desire for greenness might still prevail ..... although you never know!
Atb

Does anybody know if Brexit will ease some of the environmentally generated restrictions coming the UK's way?

Ciao

[Mark Pearce]

Sean,


Not in the short term, at least.  All existing EU law will be grandfathered into UK law as if UK statute, so any changes will need new legislation.  Given the carnage that will ensue, I suspect it will be a long time before parliament has time to worry about restrictions on golf course maintenance.

[Ulrich Mayring]

The ground game is of course essential to links golf, but there is a lot of ground game at Ballybunion. It's not only the approaches to the greens, which are mostly wedges anyway, because GIR is not what the average golfer has in him. It's also how the drives roll out and, probably most vexing for target golfers, the short game.

Ulrich