So the best days are the ones where unscheduled events work out beautifully…
I was back down in Connemara at the weekend for a family break and on the spur of the moment we were contacted by a friend who has a house there and invited us round for coffee / food / drink etc… Having not visited her house before, I was most pleasantly surprised by its lonely position over what appeared to be a private beach and headland (it was in fact common land but with no other road there, it is always deserted and may as well have been private)… Initial pleasantries exchanged and drunk, it was time to go a-wondering with my 9 year old son and a couple of golf clubs in hand… With her house acting as the temporary “clubhouse”, you are greeted with this view:
Eighteen stakes on a Sunday afternoon proceeded to be enacted out with faithful precision…. Here’s a sample of the odd delight:
“Gibraltar” – 180 yard Par-3. Perhaps the easiest hole to see, the green is 35 yards long by 26 yards wide, the bunkering already in place.
Approach in to the final hole:
“Punchbowl” – 370 yard Par-4. An incredibly subtle punchbowl this one; a wonderful green site (in the distance where the jackets lie) hanging over the beach with perfect natural undulations.
“Chasm” – 155 yard Par-3.
As much as I love the course at Ballyconneely (only 5 miles up the road), I was more than happy to forgo a round there for this little beauty… Playing as firm and fast as any links I’ve ever seen, there was no downside…. Sean A may quibble that the first tees and last green were remote from the house but when it’s an adventure over the beach to get there, I think even he may have allow this slight negative in my routing….
I have decided the best way to play this course is as a two-club challenge where you are deemed to have holed out when within one club length of the flag….
Maybe if the BUDA does come to the west of Ireland, some of you may join me before to play a few holes at this World Top-100 certainty… The next “great” course
Ally