Dublin City Golf Club

We arrived at Dublin City yesterday a lot earlier that we had planned so with loads of time to kill we sat in the bar and drank a couple of pints while we caught up on the happenings in the US Open. It was also there where we discovered ‘Hooked’ - the book by an amateur golfer who played and reviewed all of Ireland’s 18 hole courses (349 of them); we seemed to agree on a lot of them. After our tea we returned to the bar for another go at the Guinness before deciding enough was enough.

We were hooked up to play with two other guys and they both turned out to be excellent company so our thanks to Dave and Colin (good luck on your wedding to the Tyrone girl!) for their craic on what turned out to be mainly a poor golf day.

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South County Golf Club

After a great evening seeing a fantastic performance by the Kilcock Musical and Drama Society, a musical called ‘Sweet Charity’, we arrived at South County to find the gates locked! Luckily there was a bit of a lay by up the road so we parked there for the night and awoke to a much better morning - chilly, but blue skies and the promise of a fine day.

South County is an 18 hole parkland course in south Co. Dublin, near Brittas. From the first tee there’s a great view out over the course and the surrounding countryside. Magnificent though the view was I got the impression that it was just going to be a boring course but I could hardly have been more wrong. The spectacular views continued - there’s barely a place on the course you could call a bad view. And whilst it did feel wide open the holes were not boring in any way. The front 9 holes had a different feel to the back 9. They were more elevated and had better views, whereas the back 9 was lower and had all the water features on the course, including a couple of excellent par 5s where a stream criss-crosses the fairway.

Big thanks to Liam and Paul who kept us entertained on the way round.

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Turvey Golf Club

We had been to Turvey before but the course was closed due to the bad weather so we didn’t get to play. When we spoke in at the hotel/clubhouse there were two ladies there, one of whom sort of remembered us from last time. We chatted for a few minutes and found out that the electricity will be off in the area the next day so the ESB could repair a pylon, or something and that the bar would be open til 11:30pm. It was still fairly early so we headed into Swords to see a film (The Mist, it was excellent) before returning to Turvey to make our dinner and enjoy a couple of pints.

By the way, when I say hotel it’s not like Mount Wolseley or Druid’s Heath - it’s a much more low-key affair with a comparatively small hotel and a small block of apartments nearby.

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Donabate Golf Club

We made our way up to Donabate and were immediately impressed by the size of their clubhouse. But that has it’s disadvantages as far as we’re concerned as we’re less likely to get talking to some of the locals. Which is exactly what happened here. We asked at the bar (we later found out his name was Robert, he played in one of the three-balls behind us in the competition) if the Captain was here and he directed us to the changing rooms. We met the Captain, John Galvin, and pitched our story. He was a nice enough man but there wasn’t much chat in him and didn’t seem impressed at all about with our story - probably had Captain’s duty on his mind. So, job done and parking accomplished we set about downing a couple of pints. On our own. The bar was pretty busy - looked like there might have been a presentation later.

On the way out we asked Robert who won the Scottish Open and were pleased to hear it was Graeme McDowell. Clive asked him about the cricket scores but he had a bit of difficulty tracking them down on RTE’s web site! One great thing about the bar was the images of the past Captains on the walls - they were all caricatures.

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Slade Valley Golf Club

So we arrived at Slade Valley around 9:30pm, asked at the bar if there was an official around and were directed to David Kennedy, the Vice Captain. He was sitting at a table with three other people so we just mosied on over there and interrupted him! There was a comical moment as we did so - Clive simply looked at David and said his name and I could see that David was trying very hard to recognise this person standing before him, perhaps a long-forgotten friend or school chum? Eventually Clive twigged what was going on and before long we were launching into our usual patter about this will be course number whatever and can we park overnight. David said that would be fine and we continued to have a great laugh with him and the three other people at the table (one of whom was the Lady Vice Captain). We could hardly have asked for a warmer welcome and we were already liking Slade Valley. David’s guests left soon after but he stood on with us for a while longer and told us his own pretty amazing golfing story - he took it upon himself to collect the signatures of all the Ryder Cup players from 2006 in a commemorative booklet that had postage stamps in it (I think I’ve got that right). He must have been keen as in order to get Tiger Woods’ he went to Dubai! He’s also been in Florida and was just back from Loch Lomond (though his attempts to get Olazabal’s autograph were thwarted by his non appearance! David said it was the most expensive autograph he didn’t get, and he had to stay an extra night in Loch Lomond on account of the delays at Dublin Airport).

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Balbriggan Golf Club

Now this is more like it! The welcome we got here couldn’t have been more different to what happened at Kilcoole. When we arrived last night about half six the place still seemed quite busy - which we took to be a good sign. We went up the new looking shop where we met and had a good chat with Rory, the assistant pro. He told us that the new shop had only been opened for three weeks and that they were improving several holes on the course as well as adding a couple of new ones. We had no tee time pre-booked for the next day and we were looking to take advantage of an Open Fairways offer of 50% off. Rory explained that there was a big charity event on Monday and the tee was closed from 9am to 5pm and we told him we’d probably away off the first tee by no later that half seven. When it came to parking overnight Rory thought it wouldn’t be a problem but we should check with a club official just to be sure. As luck would have it David O’Connor, the Captain no less, came into the shop and said that should be fine. He even suggested having a quick 9 holes now - but we declined in view of the fact that we were tired and hungry! We made our way down to the harbour for dinner then came back to the clubhouse for Guinness. The Captain spoke to us again telling us to keep an eye out for the hares (of which there were plenty) and some buzzards (of which, sadly, we saw none).

Take that Kilcoole!

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Kilcoole Golf Club

Right. We’ll get the bad stuff out of the way first. Kilcoole became the third golf club in the hundreds that we’ve played to tell us that we could not park overnight in their car park. In fact, in the words of the manager on duty that night, we “have no mission”. In all fairness to the guy he phoned his manager and some security company who seemed to have something to do with the car park. But still the answer was was no. I think what annoyed us the most about this was that it wasn’t for any insurance reason (like Waterford Castle) or because they’re Dublin snobs (like Howth). The reason we couldn’t park there seemed to be just because. We were very disappointed to say the least. I had almost decided not to do a write up of this course up because of that but that would just be stupid and spiteful, so here it is.

(We later learned from the two guys we played with today that there have been run-ins with a man who owns some land next to the course - or may even have owned some of the land the course now occupies - which could have been a reason for us not parking there. Still, would have been nice to have found that out last night).

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Milltown Golf Club

There’s a story that goes along with this one so bear with us!

We arrived at Milltown Golf Club last night and went inside to find that there seemed to be a big function on. Feeling a little under-dressed and not sure which room the bar was in we retreated to the changing rooms where we asked one of the gents if a club official was around. He showed is up to the modernly decorated bar with white leather seats and we explained our story to the only two men there (I forget their names, but they were nice blokes and seemed to have something to do with the club). They thought it’d be OK to park overnight but that James was the man to talk to to get the official nod.

At this stage we were beginning to think ‘oh here we go again with the snobby Dublin clubs’!

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Balcarrick Golf Club

Balcarrick is an 18 hole course just north of Dublin between Donabate and Malahide - there are three or four other courses in the area. We heard from several people that Corballis, just up the road, is a great course so we’ll definitely try to pick that one up at some point.

This is the first of 5 courses we’re playing on this trip. We had a tee off time of 1:26pm and we set off from home early to get through Dublin in good time, arriving at the course in bright sunshine. The clouds weren’t far behind and they hung around, but only giving us a few minutes of rain at the start.

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St Anne’s Golf Club (220)

St Anne’s is a links course on North Bull Island in Dublin Bay and it’s a great setting. (Royal Dublin is on the same island). By the time we arrived after our wash out at Stackstown the weather had cleared, but the course was mostly deserted and the clubhouse was empty. Sean, the barman, gave us a friendly welcome and after showing us a bit of the layout of the course from the balcony of the plush looking clubhouse suggested that we speak to Joe Lynch, the President of the club, about parking overnight.

We watched Joe finish the 18th then accosted him in the car park as where we chatted for 5 or 10 minutes. He said it would fine to park overnight and so we headed inside for some of the black stuff.

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