While Scotland claims to have invented the game of golf, the Irish believe they have, (as we did with whiskey), perfected it. And looking at any list of the worlds top golf clubs and courses Ireland is by any standard very well represented. As Philip Reid of the Irish Times reveals, its not just because we have natural golfi ng landscape; but also because great designers are eager to create amazing parklands and links courses on our beautiful scenery.
Facing: Tralee Golf Club is an environment to savour.
Above: Setting for many an Irish Open, Mount Juliet Golf Club boasts mature parkland.
R
ather than a blueprint, perhaps we should rename it a ‘greenprint.’ For, in designing a golf course, an architect must
fi rstly use the land which Mother Nature has provided – be it a course by a river or a lake, atop a cliff or amidst drumlins, or perhaps wonderfully positioned in towering sand dunes – and utilise the landscape to create a challenge which is both testing and enjoyable for the golfer. Ireland, for sure, is blessed to have some of the
world’s top course designers leave their imprint on our island. Some of them are home bred, others have come to our shores from overseas. All of them have contrived to ensure that Irish golf courses rank among the very best to be found anywhere in the world. The names of these golf course architects who have
left their mark on Irish links and parkland will resonate with those who know their golf. Jack Nicklaus. Arnold Palmer. Greg Norman. Robert Trent Jones. Bernhard Langer. Peter McEvoy. Nick Faldo. Or, of the home- grown breed, Christy O’Connor Jnr and Pat Ruddy and Eddie Hackett and Patrick Merrigan. And Jeff Howes, an adopted son who came to Irish shores from Canada to leave his mark.
Ireland has attracted some of the world’s great golf
course architects, from early-on in the origins of the sport when Alister Mackenzie – arguably the most infl uential architect of any era – put his artistic designs to work at Lahinch (Old Course) and Cork (Little Island) to James Braid, who fi rst put his talents to work at Ballybunion (Old Course) but also designed Mullingar and Tullamore in the Irish midlands to demonstrate an affi nity with parkland as much as sand dunes. Others, too, came to use Ireland’s wonderful
natural terrain to create masterpieces. Old Tom Morris used nature’s offerings in creating Rosapenna and Royal County Down, while Harry Colt – the fi rst truly professional golf course designer – put his name to Co Sligo (Rosses Point) and to Royal Portrush. And while foreign architects have touched the Irish
landscape with their brilliance, the home-grown course designers have used their own creativity wonderfully well. Christy O’Connor Junior is one of them. A hero of
the Ryder Cup at The Belfry in 1989 – when his famed two-iron approach to 18th gave him victory over Fred Couples – O’Connor has impacted the golfi ng landscape since swapping clubs for pencil and paper. Junior, as he is known, has earned rave reviews for his work on such
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