[Brian Phillips]

Has anyone heard of this course or even played it?

It is a Greg Norman design and looking at the website it looking like it is going to be difficult to get on.  But it looks stunning....but then again I love links courses..

www.doonbeggolfclub.com
    
Here is what I found on the website:

"The Doonbeg Golf Club course is the product of the creative genius of Greg Norman augmented by the experienced golf design team of Kiawah Development Partners in association with Landmark National.
       Designed along the towering dunes on a crescent of Ireland's famed southwestern shore between Lahinch and Ballybunion, Greg Norman says, "This is the best piece of property I have seen anywhere in the world."
       Doonbeg was first considered as a site for a golf course over a hundred years ago, but due to better accessibility and transportation, the Lahinch site was chosen instead.
       Also recognizing the potential for this rare land by the sea, in the mid 1990s the Doonbeg Community Development Company formed a special golf sub-committee to promote a course here at Doughmore Bay in Doonbeg Parish.  At the urging of this hardworking sub-committee, Shannon Development, a governmental entity in Shannon, Ireland, obtained options to purchase some 380 acres of land from four neighboring farming families at Doonbeg. The Kiawah development team was introduced to the project and approved by Shannon Development to lead the project in the autumn of 1999.   Doonbeg Golf Club, Ltd., the Irish entity created by Kiawah Development Partners to own and operate the new course, then acquired the options from Shannon and closed the sales in December 1999.
       In the last 22 months, the Kiawah-based entity has proceeded to lead and assemble the development team with several key Landmark National personnel having roles in the project.  Kiawah Development Partners has won a number of significant awards for environmental sensitivity at Kiawah Island, South Carolina.   These awards note KDP's record for careful dune preservation and sensitive integration of Kiawah's golf courses with nature.  KDP's team of professionals specializes in close attention to detail, with particular care given to planning and compatibility of the man-made environment with
nature."  

[fos]

I was down in Kiawah recently to play both the River & Cassique courses. I had the opportunity to spend sometime w/ Pat McKinney, Buddy Darwin's partner at Kiawah & Doonbeg. They are delaying the opening from April until later in the summer (they just notified the tour groups of this change) due to Norman being unwilling to make a few changes to make the course more playable for the average player. Anyone who has played at The Medalist or any of Norman's courses knows that Norman equates toughness w/ good. Apparently after quite a row he's now back at it w/ a few changes. Should be spectactular.

[SPDB]

Brian-
this course has been discussed a bunch of times on this site. I believe it was even the subject of a couple of threads, might be worth searching the archives (even if it only covers the time since the site was redesigned).

The overall tenor of people's comments was that it was a disappointment. Some thought it was overly difficult.

[Paul Perrella]

   Brian,

 Doonbeg was one of the courses featured on a piece about Ireland on the Golf Channel about 2 or 3 months ago. It showed several holes with the most spectacular one being a par three that headed directly towards the ocean. It was, I believe, a fairly strong hole of about 190-200 yards. I happen to like Medalist and the Experience at Koele so I am certainly looking forward to this course.
                            Paul

[Tim_Weiman]

Brian:

As SPDB said, this topic has been covered several times in the past.  I've made four site visits, the first before Norman & Co. began their work and was probably the person who made the first report here at GCA.

Being a great lover of Ireland and knowing how much this project can bring to the local economy, I'm not inclined to offer any criticism.  But, GCA does exist, in part, to share  candid observations about golf venues, so I'll repeat a few of my earlier comments.

First, I believe Doonbeg is a good but not great site.  For golfing value it does not measure up to Lahinch, in my judgement.  You will see some great photos of sand dunes, but much of that is unplayable or was declared off limits during the environmental permitting process.

Second, I believe mistakes were made by the Norman team with the design.  Generally speaking, the course was built to test very skilled players, but I seriously question whether this is what the market really needs.  At Lahinch, most people can have a great deal of fun.  Doonbeg, as I last saw it, appeared tough, but probably missed on the "fun" part.

In particular, some of the bunker work needs to be reconsidered.  I made a visit with a friend and we came away arguing which bunker was the worst.  He claimed my choice for the worst made it to #4 on his "worst bunker list".

On one of my tour of the course I walked around with a fellow from Limerick who indicated he plays to a 15 handicap.  He told me "I will play Doonbeg......once".

I find the comments of FOS interesting because it is my understanding that the project team is well aware of some the concerns about the course, but nobody wanted to personally criticize Greg Norman and this has delayed addressing the issue.

I don't care to criticize personally criticize Norman either, but it is worth pointing out that early on people criticized the New course at Ballybunion and it has never been able to shake its negative reputation.  From a commercial point of view, the Doonbeg management should think real hard about that experience.

I want to see the project succeed.  The location is very convenient relative to Shannon Airport and Lahinch.  By way of the Tarbert ferry, Doonbeg is also pretty close to Ballybunion and other venues down in Kerry.

If you are looking for something hard, Doonbeg may be your site.  If you are looking for pleasure a la Lahinch, it is probably not your kind of place.

[Mike Vegis @ Kiawah]

Brian--

Kiawah Development Partners is a separate entity from Kiawah Island Resorts.  However, I am friends with their PR guy.  I'm going to give him a call to see if he'll come on the site and give you more information...

[Bill_Norton@Kiawah]

Brian:

Glad you found our website.  I'm the PR director for Kiawah Development Partners -- owner of the private courses here at Kiawah, as well as Doonbeg.  Looking at this thread, as well as some of the old ones, it is evident that many of your colleagues feel strongly about Greg Norman's track record of producing difficult courses.  I won't try to convince you otherwise -- most of you have played more Norman courses than I.

In fairness, however, I would suggest that you wait until Doonbeg Golf Club opens (July 1) before passing final judgment.  Greg has made about 20 site visits and has tweaked Doonbeg's design each time.  As FOS suggests, Greg's most recent changes were discussed in December and will not take hold until after the spring growing season, thus the delay from April.  My point in all of this is that you can't accurately judge Doonbeg from past visits or even our website photographs, for the course that the world plays this summer will be different than what you've seen so far.

Play the course after the opening, when there are actual yardages to work from and caddies to explain the blind shots (how many of you would've considered Ballybunion fair with absolutely nothing to guide you?).  Then play it next year once the rough has been trampled down by use.  Like any true links, Doonbeg will soften with time, and grow more familiar through play.  And that's the way it should evolve -- naturally.

I look forward to reading about your future playing experiences.

[Tim_Weiman]

Bill Norton:

Thanks for joining in.  We very much want to attract more folks from the industry.

After four site visits, I'm fairly familiar with Doonbeg.  Can you detail the changes we should look for and why each was made?

[Bill_Norton@Kiawah]

Tim,

Sorry for the lag time in my reply -- as you might expect, things are getting quite hectic with less than five months until Doonbeg's opening.

Anyway, as to your question: What Norman has tried to do throughout the course is use the natural contours of the land as much as possible, as the founders of Lahinch and Ballybunion did a century ago.  But in a couple of places, that resulted in holes that were unfair (as opposed to simply challenging).  Hole No. 9 is a good example.  It's a stunning par 3 right at the end of our crescent beach, and if you have a strong prevailing wind coming in off the sea, you'll have to hit out over the beach to the left and trust the wind to bring you back.  That is challenging, just as links golf should be.  Where it was unfair, however, was in the narrow green opening -- the rising dunes on the right created a slope that bounced the ball out toward the beach unless your shot was perfect.  When Norman saw that, he softened the slope somewhat.  So, depending upon the weather, No. 9 can still be a very difficult hole, but now it's a fair challenge.

Hopefully that gives you some insight as to how we've progressed.  Beyond that, though, I'd have to defer to Norman's design staff -- it's really their place to comment on both the overall course design and way it has evolved.  And again, the best way to evaluate it is by playing Doonbeg once it opens -- I hope you'll come back for another four trips.  Or, read the assessment of someone more qualified to comment than I am -- Brian McCallen will give us his take on Doonbeg's design in the April issue of Golf Magazine.

[Paul Daley]

Brian:

Thanks for opening up this interesting thread, and to Tim for his sensitive, insighful comments about Irish Links golf. It is true that Ballybunion's Cashen Course was severly panned shortly after opening and it didn't recover - in spite of later rejigging. I'm sure that Norman's team is well aware of this, and will tweak accordingly, but it also begs a certain amount of "considered" opinion by the golf scribes before sprouting off.

At any rate, Links lovers will have an other reason to travel to Country Clare, and the golf traffic should be good, right from the outset. Martin Hawtree has been commissioned to 'soften' the blindness aspect at Lahinch, and so it will make an interesting study to compare the degree of blindness between Doonbeg and Lahinch - post Hawtree.

I concur, it is a pleasant surprise to read of Bill Norton's input to this site. Bill, would you be kind enough to email me your email address for a private chat.

fswing@bigpond.net.au

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