Mac, although with distance being being the obstacle, we will tee it up one day...more than likely on a North American course but in a perfect world it be would a links course...lets say Carne. A review of your trip wont happen online..it would be over the phone, would like to hear it first hand. And thanks for adding my review of "golf ratings", it is amazing the words one can come up with after a bottle and a half of a good red.
Tim, in respect to Carne and I am only on 2 glasses of red so my thoughts may not be as grandiouse. In all honestly, and my own opinion, it is the best. When discussing links golf, I believe there are 2 two types, classic links( TOC, Muirfield, Turnberry etc) and then you have the dunes courses(Carne, Enniscrone, Rosapenna etc). The way I have always described it for people who have asked for the difference between Scotland and Ireland is Ireland links is Scotland links on steriods. While that may seem simplistic, generally the links courses in Ireland have bigger dunes.
As for Carne, for me, it has both. It has been said that the front 9 at Carne is not as good as the back but I believe that is because the dunes are not as big. I think the front has the classic layout and the back 9 allows you to enjoy the links golf in the dunes. Much like Portstewart but opposite. At Portstewart, the front 9 is incredible in the dunes and the back is more flat but still an enjoyable 9 holes of golf. In all reality, unless you really send your drive off line, the dunes dont come into play but when you do........I had a shot on the 15 th at Carne that the ball was not only above my feet(as we may get on a North Amercian course in the fairway) but this ball was above my head as I was 40 feet up in a dune and all I could do was hood a 5 iron and hope the line would let the ball runout on the fairway. In North America when a ball is offline, it lands on the top of the tree and most likely bounces down to a bad lie in the rough. In Ireland, you have to climb the tree, find the ball and hope to hell you dont fall down the dune after you have swung. That is something I have come to love about links golf.
Carne has all you could want in a links course and more. The reviews say the front is not as good as the back but I would disagree. The back has great dunes holes but the front offers a more classic layout. Played it 3 times and have never come close to holding the green at 7. I remember hitting a great approach shot on the 6th out of the "smaller dunes", I was only 20 feet above the fairway as oposed to 60 feet. Trump has boasted recently that his new course has the best highest dunes in all of Scotland but he is an idiot...plain and simple.
I could talk all night about Carne but the best thing you could do is go to their website and see the "Fly Over" option they have. It will show you how great course is. I have been lucky enough to play 35 links course over 4 trips and Carne is the only only course where I can remember each shot.
Also, the people at Carne are top notch and make you feel like you are playing your home course. My dad and I are going to Ireland in May and we have decided to start with 3 days at Carne. We are playing Rosepenna, Ballyliffin, Portrush, Enniscrone and RCD but we love Carne so much that 3 days might not be enough................man I wish the new 9 was open!!!!!!!