Castlewarden Golf Club
We’re not used to these late tee times, today’s was at 2:15pm, and with nothing much else on the cards we went to the club early (10am!) to see if there had been any cancellations. But the time sheet was packed and everyone seemed keen to play so we just hung around in the camper reading and whatnot until it was time to go.
While we were waiting the wind picked up. And then it picked up some more. It was a nice, sunny day up to that point. It was still warm and the sky was still blue but I don’t recall ever having played in such a persistently strong wind.
But anyway we arrived at the tee box to find that we were playing with a chap called Damian, playing off 7. He seemed like a nice person but boy was he hard work. Not only was there no craic out of him whatsoever and even less in the way of actually speaking. He made no effort to engage us in conversation. He didn’t wait for us or help us look for balls or say things like ‘great shot’ (though to be honest there wasn’t much in the way of great shots going on). Maybe he was having a bad day, maybe he didn’t like northerners, but whatever the case we may as well have been playing in a two ball for all the effort he made to play with us.
Despite that, Castlewarden turned out to be the best course so far on this trip. Again, it was in top class condition. The clubhouse used to be a farmhouse (there’s a very nice tree-lined avenue to negotiate on the way up to it) and the practice putting green is in a great looking walled garden. The 1st plays over water (which shouldn’t really come into play unless you duff your shot) and whilst not the nicest on the course it’s a good opener. There are few other holes with water and the 4th, which doglegs around a pond, is probably the best – short enough to be easily reachable in two, provided you don’t get wet of course! The par 4 7th had the trickiest green on the course – there was a pretty big slope to contend with and the green looked like it used to be a potato field there were so many little ridges running across it.
Apart from having to deal with the very strong wind and a playing partner who didn’t want to talk, we were also playing behind The Slowest People In The World. The threeball in front of the threeball in front were just awful. Nothing worse than being stuck behind poor golfers with poor etiquette.
Castlewarden Golf Club is signposted off the N7 out of Dublin towards Naas.
Thomas says:
Pity that the best course so far produced the worst golf so far. In fact, the worst golf ever. I had an especially miserable 15 points. It’s the wind you see, and I’m not using it as an excuse (I worked hard to earn my 15 points). If the wind is especially strong I just can’t deal with it. The wind messes with my head and makes me play bad golf – fact. Maybe I need to see a golf shrink?
Anyway, apart from the atrocious golf and the wind and the guy who didn’t want to talk – nice course. My favourite hole was probably the 8th, a par 5 dogleg over a hill. It’s my favourite because I got a par at it!
Clive says:
I agree with Thomas’ sentiments about our playing partner. I actually thought of saying something to him but I held my peace. There were lots of pretty holes, some reasonable par 3s and the hole I liked the best was the short par 4 10th which played out of the walled garden and over a river right on to the green. The threeball in front of us was still on the tee when we arrived because the young fellow was going for the green – I was skeptical but he did hit the green and presumably got a 3. His playing partners were two nice ladies of indeterminate age, one of whom had the most excruciatingly slow swing – although, to be fair, she seemed to hit the ball OK.
I played better than Thomas today because the wind doesn’t bother me too much. It’s a very fine course which has just been there for about 18 years. I am totally amazed at the numbers of wealthy Irish men who arrive at these fancy clubs driving the most enormous cars. Quite a change nowadays – us Northerners are the poor relations now. However I could easily recommend this course which is quite accessible off the Naas road.
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