Welcome
Welcome to the fifth edition
of Destination Golf Ireland
The year 2019 will be remembered for a long time as a great
one for Irish golf. The staging of the Open Championship at
Royal Portrush was an enormous success, and not just for
Shane Lowry as Irish golf received global attention. It wasn’t
long after that the revamped Adare was given the nod to host
the 2026 Ryder Cup. There were many other highlights but
these two will have the largest lasting impact. It all bodes well
for the coming years.
One other exciting piece of news announced formally last
year was that Tom Doak, one of the world’s most creative golf
course architects, is working on the old St. Patrick’s Links now
owned by the Rosapenna resort. It probably won’t open in
2020, but combined with Gil Hanse’s remodeling of Narin &
Portnoo it means that two fabulous and phoenix-like links will
be making headlines in the very near future.
The good news is tempered by the sad, and Dunmurry
Springs closed late in the year while West Waterford was
put up for sale. Dunmurry Springs made this 150 guide
comfortably and I was a fan. Fingers crossed that both find a
new lease of life during 2020.
I, for one, suspect that more closures will come and as much
as that saddens me it also offers hope for other clubs that are
struggling. We need more golfers and the sterling efforts of the
CGI need to matched by all clubs to reinvigorate golf on this
island. The headlines look rosy but the smaller clubs continue
their struggles so if you get a chance to play somewhere new,
please take it and enjoy what that course has to offer.
GOLF A
Kevin Markham
Editor
Destination Golf Media Ltd.
World's
Best Golf Travel
Magazine
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