Dublin Golf Courses Guide

Expert View: Eoin Arthurs, East of Ireland Champion

The area in and around Dublin has got dozens of great courses, it really is a superb place to play. Portmarnock Old is probably my favourite because it’s such a fair test of golf. I was a student member there and just loved the fact that good shots were rewarded and bad ones punished. It’s got a huge amount of history too and when the wind blows it’s supremely tough. The European Club has to be the most underrated course around. It’s absolutely superb and would be hosting big tournaments if it wasn’t so isolated and low-key. It just doesn’t have the facilities needed to hold the Irish Open. County Louth, or Baltray as it’s often known, is in my top-five in the country. It’s an amazing course a little way north of Dublin and although I’ve done well there it always manages to kill me in one round. It can be a brute.

K Club – Palmer Course

The European

This utterly stunning golf course is only 15 years old, but is already well established as one of the greatest links courses in Ireland. Enormous towering sand dunes give Pat Ruddy’s labour of love as good a natural setting as any golf course in the world, and despite the quirks – such as a 127-yard long green – it should be one of the first courses on your list if you’re coming to play in the Dublin area. Considering the overall quality and the prices charged at some of the other courses in the area, it’s also a very reasonably-priced golf – particularly in winter.
www.theeuropeanclub.com, +353 404 47415, 180 Euros (100 in winter)

Portmarnock Old

In a country with as many wonderful golf courses as Ireland it’s almost churlish to start talking about which is the best, but when those discussions inevitably take place it’s never long before the name of Portmarnock Old crops up. A true classic links that has long been whispered about as a potential Open venue (should the R&A ever decide to go back to Ireland, of course) this stunning dunescape is links golf at its best. Though it doesn’t have quite the same line in enormous towering dunes as The European or The Island, it is perhaps all the purer a test of golf for that. One of the greats.
www.portmarnockgolfclub.ie, +353 1 8462968, 180 Euros

Portmarnock Links (Hotel)

The Portmarnock hotel’s own Bernhard Langer-designed course is not quite up to the same standard as its more illustrious next-door neighbour, but is not that far off and is maturing all the time. It’s an excellent, albeit slightly quirky, test of golf with several stretches of the course that compare with anything in the area, being blessed as they are with some fantastic sand dunes which make the holes visually exciting. That amazing land runs out in one or two areas giving rise to a couple of holes on the outward nine that are comparatively mundane, but it’d be a real shame to miss this one out – and the picturesque hotel is an ideal place to stay.
www.portmarnock.com, +353 1 846 0611, 125 Euros

Malahide

A little further up the coast from Portmarnock is Malahide, a slightly unusual parkland course whose three distinct loops of nine offer a gentle and pleasant challenge. Worth looking at as a change of pace if you’re playing the nearby links at The Island and Portmarnock, but not worth a special trip in its own right.
www.malahidegolfclub.ie, +353 1 8461611, 60 Euro (40 in winter), green fees on weekdays only

K Club

The K Club’s Palmer and Smurfit courses may not be masterpieces of golf architecture to rival Portmarnock Old or The European, but nobody can deny the quality of the facilities at the venue – and nor should they be able to, considering the price: the Palmer Course demands one of Europe’s most expensive green fees. What you’ll get for your money is the best facilities, course conditioning and service that money can buy, on a pleasantly undulating stretch of parkland that offers some undeniably dramatic holes, particularly over the closing stretches of both tracks. There’s also the bonus, on the Palmer Course, of being able to re-live Europe’s most emphatic Ryder Cup victory to date. There’s still the problem of that price, but credit-crunch-friendly special offers (e.g. winter stay-and-play for 205 Euros on either course) make it a lot more affordable than you might have thought.
www.kclub.com, +353 1 6017 200, 365 Euro (Palmer), 195 Euro (Smurfit), both including lunch.

PGA National Ireland Palmerstown House

Though less than five years old, there’s a quality about PGA National which has seen it become a very popular stop-off for Dublin’s golf tourists. The Christy O’Connor Jr design is extremely good, and in common with the other top-end parkland courses that line the road west of Dublin, facilities are superb and conditioning generally faultless, even if the overall feel is a little less swanky than the K Club or Druid Glen. The best holes are the dramatic, water-lined par 5s, particularly the awesome 16th with its green which juts out into a lake. Having said that, though, the over-riding impression is of a course which flows beautifully: it’s one of those places which just feels right.
www.palmerstownhouse.com, +353 45 906 901, 160 Euros (185 Fri-Sun, 80 in winter)

Druids Glen

An attempt to bring a little bit of Augusta to this corner of County Wicklow might have sounded fanciful, but if there’s anywhere in the Emerald Isle that bears comparison to the Masters venue then this is it. That’s a testament to the beautiful garden-like feel of many of the holes, the staggeringly good course condtioning and the use of creeks (and the familiar-looking bridges), and while the layout itself may not be in quite the same league, it’s a very good golf course with some superb holes on the back nine in particular. The Druids Heath course is a nice new addition to the venue, with a very different and wonderfully natural character all of its own.
www.druidsglen.ie, +353 1 2873600, Druids Glen course 150 Euros, Druids Heath course 90 Euros

Carton House

The Montgomerie and O’Meara courses at Carton House have extremely different characters, but are both extremely good courses. The older O’Meara course (designed by the eponymous 1998 Open and Masters champion) is a US-style target golf experience, while Monty’s creation is an inland links whose bright green fairways are defined in summer by tall, brown wisps of rough. The hotel recently won the title of European Golf Resort of the Year at the IAGTO awards, the top accolades in the golf travel industry.
www.cartonhousegolf.ie, + 353 1 6517720, Both courses 115 Euros Mon-Wed, 135 Thurs-Sun. 75 Euro before 9am Mon-Fri. Winter offers available.

The Island

If you’re the type of golfer who enjoys weaving your way through towering sand dunes, then The Island will be a little slice of golfing heaven. This stretch of links land across the estuary from Portmarnock is one of those pieces of real estate that makes you think God must have been a keen golfer: there are huge changes in elevation that have been gratifyingly incorporated into the layout, greens nestled into nooks of the dunes, bunkers which look like they’ve, and views out across the Irish sea. As seems to be the case around Dublin, green fees are very high by most standards, but nonetheless do avoid the cut-price winter deal: club rules insist that you drop at the side of the fairway between November and March inclusive.
www.theislandgolfclub.com, +353 1 8436 2051, 135 Euro (70 Euro until March 31)

Royal Dublin

Dublin’s royal golf club has undergone extensive work in the last few years, making what was a very good, though slightly outdated golf course into an excellent layout that is a great challenge even with modern equipment. The land here is naturally very flat – the course is located on its own island, just north of the city – but the fairways and greens still buck and roll in true links golf fashion. And quite apart from the golf, the clubhouse (which is packed with memorabilia) serves what might just be the best pint of Guinness in the world.
www.theroyaldublingolfclub.com, +353 1 833 6346, 170 Euro (100 in Jan-Feb, 135 March-April)

Powerscourt

The two courses at this top-end are a fantastic, relatively recent addition to golf in the Dublin area. The newer West Course, designed by David Maclay Kidd, is a thoroughly enjoyable test that makes the most of the natural undulations of the land and the spectacular views around the area. The older East Course, designed by Peter McEvoy, is renowned for having some of the best parkland greens in the area.
www.powerscourt.ie, +353 1 204, (Golf+dinner 79 Euro in winter)