Golf
Dun Laoghaire Golf Club sits nestled at the foot of the majestic Sugarloaf Mountains in the postcard-picturesque Ballyman Glen, on the borders of Counties Dublin and Wicklow. Widely acknowledged as one of Ireland’s most spectacular and challenging courses, the 27-hole championship course recently hosted the Curtis Cup, the biennial tournament between women amateur golfers from the USA and Great Britain & Ireland.
Greenside’s Alan Mahon paid Course Superintendent Des McGann a vist ahead of the tournament
Water feature on the Middle course I
n 1909, fifty-one residents of Kingstown and district gathered in the Royal Marine Hotel on December 9th, to attend the inaugural meeting of Kingstown Golf Club. Formation of the club got under way quickly and approximately two hundred men and seventy lady associates were elected and leases were taken out on thirty-six acres of land at Eglinton Park and Highthorn, where a nine hole course was laid out. A clubhouse was built at a cost of £1,265. In November 1910, a decision was taken
to extend the course to eighteen holes and approximately forty acres were leased and an extra nine holes laid out. At the conclusion of the Great War, the noted golf architect Harry Colt was employed to produce a new layout which stood the test of time. In 1922, the club’s title was changed to Dun Laoghaire (Kingstown) Golf Club and
finally, in 1951, after an acrimonious debate, Kingstown was removed. From the sixties to the nineties, all the
leased land was acquired by the club and the importance of this gradual and far-sighted activity was to eventually lead to a dramatic change. From the 1970s, difficulties arose with the club’s boundaries and it became obvious that it was not totally practical to maintain an eighteen hole course that was reasonably safe on just seventy-eight acres. An opportunity to relocate to 150 acres in
nearby Cherrywood in 1992/1993 fell through when a property developer made a verbal offer, but subsequently decided to go ahead with a housing and industrial development. In 2001, an offer that was too good to
refuse was made by The Cosgrave Property Group, which expressed an interest in the club’s lands and indicated that they would be
prepared to relocate the club to a 320 acre site which they had acquired at Ballyman Glen, near Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow. For historical reasons, the club went back
to the Royal Marine Hotel in June of 2002 where the offer was put to the 327 members present and, after a vigorous debate, 79% voted in favour of the move. Work commenced with Hawtree Ltd
supervising the construction of the course to their design. The club eventually moved to Ballyman Glen in August 2007, celebrating its centenary in 2009 with a magnificent course and state of the art clubhouse and facilities. It was a fairytale story and the envy of every club in the country at a time when many were financially falling apart. Dun Laoghaire won the right to host the Curtis Cup following a competitive bidding process. In being selected, it joined an esteemed list of previous host venues which
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