The Scale of Ballybunion

[Neil Regan]

January 1, 2009 Thursday

 Most of you have probably never seen Ballybunion except in pictures. Here are some others to show you its scale.

  That’s my brother Hugh about 120 feet above fairway level, which is about the same as the sea beyond & below the next tee.
  The green is maybe 60 feet up from the fairway, and 60 below my brother.
  He pulled his 2nd shot high left on this par 5. He has about 120 yards to the green.

  I took the picture from a higher dune, in play.

  The second picture was taken a little later. I shopped my brother out, and replaced him with some figures from an old golf postcard. The wind was from the southwest, Waterville and Dooks.

  We played that day till dark , past 11. Another measure of its scale.

[Mark_F]

Awesome, Neil. 

Does the club provide Sherpas as well as caddies?

[Jim Nugent]

Fantastic photos.  Are they untouched? 

[Rob Rigg]

Neil,

Ballybunion can be overwhelming! It is an incredible place, the likes of which I had never seen before.

When the wind gets howling it is not that difficult to end up traipsing through those high dunes searching for balls!

[Neil Regan]

Mark.

  It's funny you should think that way. I was first drawn to Ballybunion on my way home from climbing in Himalaya. But the course is really only this severe if your golf is too. The hills and winds will beat you down until you control yourself. Then it is the most benign and splendid golf you will ever play.


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[Neil Regan]

Fantastic photos.  Are they untouched? 

Jim,

  The 2nd photo has golfers from an old postcard replacing my brother, who hit his shot from the high dune down to fairway bottom.

  The photos were taken with an early digital, so I photoshopped the light settings to bring out the sky, and fiddled a bit with the colors, and sharpened it all. So yes they are more than touched, but IMHO not much distorted. I only wish they could better convey the sea, sky, wind, turf, slope, and isolation.

--

 

[Eric Smith]

Wow.

Ballybunion looks like an incredible place - kind of like golf in Tolkien's Middle-earth.

My achilles aches just thinking about your brother's climb in the dunes.

I would love to go there someday.  Thanks for the pics.

[Neil Regan]

Eric,

  It's funny you should say that too. Tolkien's stories, my favorites, are quests. No golf course that I know presents itself as a quest more than Ballybunion.


--

[Gene Greco]

   Neil:


        Does Hugh putt from those situations as well?


          Gene

[Tom_Doak]

Neil:

You didn't mention that is the Cashen course at Ballybunion ... probably deliberately.  There is almost as much elevation on the last three holes of the Old course.  I once pull-topped my tee shot on 17 and was in a place much like your brother in the photo.

However, I think your elevation numbers are a bit exaggerated.  I've actually got a map of the Cashen in my office, from when we were looking at the possibility of working there ... I will check the elevations today if I can remember to do so.

[RJ_Daley]

They have a nice website which includes a fun little video: http://www.ballybuniongolfclub.ie/index.htm

[Neil Regan]

Tom,

  I have often been told that the highest dune on the Cashen (the site of the old, now unused 12th green) is 160 feet above sea level. I never checked that. My brother is on a nearby dune, so I just guessed based on 160. I'd love to hear the actual accurate numbers.


----

Gene,

  Did I ever tell you about what my brother did one day, in a match on Ballybunion Old from the tips ?
The first tee, as you know, is right under the Manager's window and below the upstairs bar.
With a small crowd watching, perhaps a bit nervous after 3 fine tee-shots from the rest of us, Hugh topped his tee shot,
which scuzzled barely past the end of the long tee-ramps and into the long grass
before the fairway begins, still within earshot of Patsy Walsh and the rest of the crowd.
While we remained on the tee, Patsy, hoping to help, said loudly enough for all to hear
"Your brother's a fine golfer. He'll have no problem today." 
Hugh had reached his ball by now.  He hit his 4-wood into the cup for a 2.
Patsy announced "Off you go, boys. Hugh has finished the hole, and we don't want the rest of you to be holding us all up."


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[RJ_Daley]

Neil, that one qualifies...as a seanchaí of a shanachie.
http://www.answers.com/shanachie

[Jeff_Brauer]

I think scale is an undervalued feature of golf design.  Ballybunion has it in spades.....

[RJ_Daley]

That might be a good subject for a new thread... which I just edited questions I posed here so as not to threadjack something on the great Ballybunion...

[Peter Pallotta]

Neil - thanks. 

I'm not well-travelled, and so the scale of the Cashen course has thrown me for loop, i.e. that there should be such a place for golf in Middle-Earth...I mean Ireland.  (My limitations, obviously, not the course's.)

Just an aside - reading the history of the club, it's interesting that it took a relatively long time for Old Course's reputation to take hold. What I mean is, whether 100 years ago and today, many of the great and wonderful courses I read about seem to have been identified/accepted as such by the cognoscenti very soon after opening. But the course/club there opened, then closed, then opened again in 1906, and it still was another 26 years before it was chosen to host a championship.  Not that any of that means anything, just noting it...

Peter

[Bob_Huntley]

Neil,

This is all very well but can you putt the ball to the green from 150 yards out?

Bob

[Neil Regan]

Bob,

  150 yards is not a problem. 2 yards is.

-

Peter,

  Ballybunion is a great example of a course designed by committees.
The architects who have contributed all seem to have restrained themselves.
Most notably, Tom Simpson told them not to change almost anything.

  But the weather forces changes. The current seaside 7th green is
the 3rd version in recent times, the other 2 having crumbled away.
The 18th green is constantly discussed, and may one day be moved a bit.
Recently the dunes were built up along the 17th shore,
where the fairway can get sprayed and even flooded by high seas.

  I know committee work is often disastrous.
But I think if you were to list the best courses by Unknown ,
that list would be impressive next to any other list.


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[Tom Jefferson]

Neil;

Can you explain why the cloud formations in the two photos are identical???
How do you explain that, in light of your narrative..."the second picture was taken a little while later."
 
Might you be playing tricks on all of us??

Hmmmm,
Tom

[Joe Hancock]

Tom,

Look at the clouds position in relation to the ground. They've moved.

No conspiracy theory from your neck of the woods is complete without UFO references...

 

[Tom_Doak]

Neil:

I looked for the maps in my office for about a half hour today but couldn't find them.  I'll look again next week if I have time.

Your numbers are not way off, but I think you have the fairway lower than it really is.  My recollection is that the green on that hole is about 90 feet and the dunes behind it are 105.  Your first picture is taken from well above the fairway landing area ... from the actual fairway you can't see water over the dunes behind the green.  (I was thinking of knocking those down, for that reason.)  So the fairway landing area is, say, 95 feet, pretty similar to the green.  I'm guessing the bottom of the fairway is 45-50 feet above sea level, and your brother is hitting from about 120 as you said. 

But for sure, your brother is lower than you are at camera height -- otherwise he would stand out above the horizon and he is way below that.

[Tom Jefferson]

Joe;

Well, yes, in relation to the land, the clouds are in a slightly different position.
But the camera is as well, so that different point of view will affect things.

However, the entire array of clouds across the sky is identical in each photo....the shapes, the clouds relation to each other, etc.  IDENTICALIMISMO!

You know, Joe, Neil was in the Himalayas..............what was he doing there?
Meditating?  Smoking the rarified plants there??  Tell me that!

No UFOs needed here on the left coast!  Just organic living in Bandon and the joy of Jubelale!

Maybe the cold winter is getting to you, friend!
Have a great new year, Joe!!

Tom

[Bill Gayne]

Post deleted. I identified the wrong hole (12 not 15).

[Gene Greco]

Neil;

Can you explain why the cloud formations in the two photos are identical???
How do you explain that, in light of your narrative..."the second picture was taken a little while later."
 
Might you be playing tricks on all of us??

Hmmmm,
Tom

            The cloud(s) in the left center portion of the pictures appear to me to have moved. Indeed, Neil is a trickster but is always truthful when presenting the facts as they may be.

[Tim_Weiman]

Neil,

Wow! Love the pictures.....they look a bit like Kevin's work, don't they?

Hope all is well for you....I've got to go over real soon.

Tim Weiman