The American Golfer's Guide to Ireland

Play Golf the Irish Way With Brian Keogh Strangers Are Friends That Haven’t Met There are stuffy golf clubs all over the world, places of privilege where the ordinary Joe will never tread unless he’s fitting new tiles in the showers or dropping someone there in his taxi. Thankfully for lovers of the Irish game, those places are rare on the Emerald Isle, where strangers are simply friends that haven’t met yet. Ireland is not known as the land of a hundred thousand welcomes for nothing and wherever you choose to play, you’re guaranteed to make friends and many of them. Take Lahinch, known far and wide as the St Andrews of Ireland, given the role that men such as the legendary “Old” Tom Morris or Augusta National designer Alister MacKenzie played in creating the wonderful County Clare links, just a few miles from the world famous Cliffs of Moher. Many visitors had the pleasure of playing golf there with the legendary Ennistymon butcher Mick O’Loughlin, who was a fine amateur golfer in his day. Years ago, when a couple of American visitors asked about the chance of a game with some of the local members, club secretary Brud Slattery offered to join them, adding: “And I'll send one of the caddies up to the village to fetch the butcher.” O’Loughlin duly arrived, wiping his hands on his bloody apron before removing it for battle. After a few holes, one of the bemused visitors turned to Slattery and whispered: “Say, if the local butcher is so readily available to play golf, he sure can't make much money.” To which 'Brud' replied: “No, but he sure makes a lot of friends.” That anecdote says it all about Ireland, which had more than 400 golf clubs at the end of 2010. That may not seem like a great number compared to the 18,000 or so to be found in the United States. After all, Ireland is smaller in area than Indiana and only slightly larger than South Carolina. It would be naive to think you’re going to see it all on a short trip. It is a pretty small place until you get into a hire car. Yet that’s where the real fun starts according to multiple major champion Pádraig Harrington, who knows every back road and boreen (a little road or laneway) of Ireland as well as he knows the manicured fairways of Augusta National. Padraig Harrington’s Advice on Playing Golf in Ireland He’s Ireland’s official golfing ambassador and many of the people who join him for pre-tournament pro-ams around the world are planning to visit Ireland for that golfing trip of a lifetime. So what kind of advice does he give them? “It all depends,” says Pádraig, who’s traveled all over the 32 counties, 26 in the Republic of Ireland and six north of the border, since his amateur days. “This is a once in a lifetime trip for most people and many of them have been saving up for years.” As a qualified accountant, Harrington knows that finance plays a crucial role in planning any major venture. “A lot of what you might plan to do is determined by your budget. But the most important thing to remember is that road maps can be deceptive! If you can, hire a driver to take you from golf course to golf course. If you can’t, remember that if the course you want to play is 60 miles away on a map, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to get there in 45 minutes. “But that’s the beauty of Ireland. You could head north from Dublin [Republic of Ireland] for a game at Royal County Down [Northern Ireland] and end up stopping off at Baltray, which is about halfway up the coast outside Drogheda. Not many people know that you can get a room in the clubhouse and stay the night there. And the Boyne salmon in the restaurant is famous. “Planning what to do when you finally make that trip all depends on your expectations. The scenery in the Northwest of Ireland, say Donegal and Sligo, is what many people imagine Ireland to be like. My advice is to stick with the B&B's in that part of the country because you are going to get great value.”