Roscrea Golf Club

We played here yesterday much later then we normally do. They were having an open competition and we put our names down for around 2:30pm (with it being a Sunday Clive wanted to go to church). When we arrived there were no other people down to play with us and what with it being a fourball competition we were out of luck. But we were there to play golf and the chap we spoke to gave us the green fee at the open price of €15 each, which we weren’t complaining about.

Roscrea is an 18 hole parkland course in County Tipperary. It has been there since around 1911 but has only been 18 holes since the mid 1990s. The weather was still looking unpleasant. It was less windy than yesterday but in its place was a light, steady rain. Wet gear on, we headed for the first tee.

It seems that we have chosen very wisely with our courses on this trip as the greens here were once again in perfect condition. The early holes didn’t have us singing the course’s praises – aside from the greens it seemed run-of-the-mill and a little bit rough around the edges (these are probably the newer holes) – but from about hole 7 or 8 on we were really impressed. And it has to be said that the first tee is a bit dangerous as you have to pretty much tee off over the 15th green.

We got chatting with a former Captain in the changing room afterwards – he was just back to playing after having had operations on his knees – and he told us that their new clubhouse cost €1.5 million and was built in 5 months (including the time it took to tear down the old one). The clubhouse was a neat size and you could definitely see some of the money on show.

Thomas says:
The weather was a factor for me at this course. It was windy and a bit wet and this tends to put me off whatever slim hold I usually have on the game of golf as it means I have to keep wiping my glasses and blowing my nose.

I didn’t play particularly well – the usual run of a few pars plus some absolute shockers. My driving really started to deteriorate today and I found it hard to recover.

Having said that I really liked the course once we passed about the 7th hole. The greens were in superb order and there were some nicely shaped holes – the dog-leg 10th was once of the nicest. Aside from the 4th, where there was a pond to negotiate, the par 3s were fairly ordinary.

I’d give Roscrea 7/10 (maybe 8 if it was sunny).

Clive says:
I managed 4 pars out of the first 6 holes which, for me, is pretty good. After that things went a little downhill – but not too much. This is a lovely parkland course but not very outstanding. The long fifth I quite liked along two stands of trees – and I got a par!! I felt as if we were in and out of Roscrea and we didn’t have a chance to meet too many locals. In fact we were supposed to be playing in a fourball competition but there were no others to join us. They had all played in the morning when we were singing hymns in St Flannan’s Cathedral in Killaloe. But we got a good deal – just 30 euros for the pair of us.

Good greens were the best part of playing at Roscrea – it’s a good track if you like the trees. I think I’d give it 6 and a half out of ten – not bad, but probably rather plain as courses go.