Ard-Aulinn

Great Courses

Northern Ireland is a small country锟斤拷 but a big player in the world of golf.

County Tyrone锟斤拷s Darren Clarke is one of the game锟斤拷s top professionals and, apart from Tiger Woods, was the first man to win two World Golf Championship events.
The place on the world map also extends to our golf courses...Royal County Down and Royal Portrush are consistently rated among the very best and offer supreme links challenges that have been met and praised by legends such as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Tom Watson.

But there are more than 90 courses to choose from in Northern Ireland, with degrees of difficulty that will suit everyone from the skilled exponent to the high-handicapper.
For all, the handicap is often the difficulty in taking their eyes off the scenery, from the Mountains of Mourne to stunning views over the Atlantic Ocean.

There is always lively discussion about which golf course is better than another, but none is more passionate than the debate over the relative merits of Royal County Down and Royal Portrush. If you haven锟斤拷t played either of them yet, we recommend a golf trip to Northern Ireland; you certainly won锟斤拷t be disappointed by Royal County Down.

Royal County Down is at Newcastle, a little holiday town nestling at the feet of the majestic Mountains of Mourne. It锟斤拷s an exhilarating location for a classic links golf course where the Bay of Dundrum sweeps out into the Irish Sea and where the mighty peak of Slieve Donard (3,000 ft.) casts its shadow over the town.

Old Tom Morris was paid the modest sum of four guineas to design the course and it opened for play in 1889. Harry Vardon modified it in 1908, the same year King Edward VII bestowed royal patronage on the club. Royal County Down maintains tradition; the 锟斤拷Hat Man锟斤拷 still mixes the pairings for the Saturday matches (foursomes in the winter and four-balls in the summer) as he did around 100 years earlier.

Old Tom was presented with an idyllic piece of ground on which to design a golf course. The sand dunes are rugged but beautifully clad in purple heather and yellow gorse, the fairways are naturally undulating, shaped by the hands of time. The greens are small and full of wicked borrows, or to put it in Bernard Darwin锟斤拷s words, 锟斤拷they lie, moreover, in a good many instances, in those pleasing little hollows which are the most adroit flatterers in the whole world of golf.锟斤拷

Measuring more than 7,000 yards from the back tees, Royal County Down is a brute. It锟斤拷s an absolute mystery to us that this fantastic course, with one of the finest outward nine holes in golf, has never hosted an Open. Factor in the ever-changing wind and you have as stern a test as any Open Championship venue.

The 4^th and 9^th holes are both featured in the book, the 500 World锟斤拷s Greatest Golf Holes. The 4^th must be one of the most scenic long par threes in golf: 锟斤拷Innumerable gorse bushes, ten bunkers, three mountain peaks, and one spire equal the most magnificent view in British golf锟斤拷. The 9^th, a long par four, is perhaps one of the world锟斤拷s most photographed holes, the line from the elevated tee is directly at the Slieve Donard peak and the sweeping fairway lies eighty feet below - magnifique.

Sure, the course has a level of eccentricity; there are a number of blind drives and some of the bunkers are fringed with coarse grass, which gathers the ball with alarming regularity, but this simply adds to the charm. If a measure of a great golf course is the number of holes that you can remember, then Royal County Down is one of the greatest courses of them all.

Here's a review of Royal Portrush from Top 100 Golf Courses

The Giant's Causeway - on the Finn MacCool trail "Portrush stands on a rocky promontory that juts out into the Atlantic, and, if I may allude to such trivialities," wrote Bernard Darwin in, The Golf Courses of the British Isles, "the scenery of the coast is wonderfully striking. On the east are the White Rocks, tall limestone cliffs that lead to Dunluce Castle and the headlands of the Giant's Causeway. On the west are the hills of Inishowen, beyond which lie Portsalon and Buncrana and the links of Donegal."

Since its foundation in 1888, Royal Portrush has undergone a transformation in more ways than one. It was originally a 9-hole course, known as the County Club. The following year it was extended to 18 holes. In 1892, its name changed to the Royal County Club, with the Duke of York as patron. In 1895, the Prince of Wales came along and the name finally changed to Royal Portrush. Why who knows?

However, the biggest transformation came along when Harry S Colt redesigned the course prior to the Second World War. Colt felt that Royal Portrush was his finest achievement, even though Muirfield was one of his earlier projects.

The Dunluce links is named after the ruined Dunluce castle that overlooks the course. It was the venue for the first professional golf tournament in Ireland, won by Sandy Herd in 1895. The Open Championship has been held outside of Scotland and England only once; that occasion was here at Royal Portrush in 1951 when Max Faulkner triumphed. Faulkner was the last British Open champion until Tony Jacklin lifted the claret jug in 1969 at Royal Lytham & St Annes. More recently, American Pete Oakley won the Senior British Open here in July 2004.

View overlooking Portrush from the coast road Surely Royal Portrush has the most dramatic entrance to any golf course. As you wind your way towards the course along the coastal road, the crumpled, undulating links land suddenly appears in front of you, flags fluttering in the breeze.

This is a seaside links paradise, located in an evocative setting on the north Antrim coastline, blessed with magnificent ocean views. On a clear day (from the 3^rd tee) you can see the Paps of Jura and the island of Islay.

The fairways nestle in natural valleys between towering sand dunes. The small greens blend perfectly into the landscape, one of Colt锟斤拷s masterstrokes. The greens are generally protected by natural grassy hummocks rather than sand bunkers, further adding to the understatement.

The most spectacular parts of the course are down by the shore. The 5^th hole (called 锟斤拷White Rocks锟斤拷) is an absolute stunner. It锟斤拷s a short, downhill par four with a left to right dogleg. The elevated tee provides a platform to soak up the vista. The green is perched on the very edge of the course some 50 feet above the seashore. The 14^th, called 锟斤拷Calamity锟斤拷, is a 210-yard par three; a deep chasm to the right of the green makes it a nervous tee shot.

Few bunkers maybe but avoid "Big Nellie" at 17 at all costs! Royal Portrush is a seriously tough cookie and requires solid driving to hold together a decent score. It will intimidate many golfers; the rough is penal (and sprinkled with heather and briar). It has very few bunkers but frankly, it doesn锟斤拷t need them. The course has enough natural hazards to wreck a card, not to mention the ever-present wind.

A trip to the Giant锟斤拷s Causeway may provide some respite after a gruelling round, followed by a nip of whiskey at nearby Bushmills, the world锟斤拷s oldest distillery