Northwest Ireland's Golf Courses

The lure of golf in Ireland was never merely its famous links courses. There was also the thrill of discovery -- stumbling upon treasure tracks few travelers had seen. Today, that thrill is increasingly rare. Most of those formerly hidden gems are on full, fluorescent display, while the paths to all the major shrines are clogged with bag-toting pilgrims. Toss in sky-high greens fees and five-hour rounds, and ennui has come to Eire.

But there is a last frontier.

Ireland's northwest corner holds some terrific seaside courses that are half as expensive and twice as much fun as better-known venues -- and you don't need to call a year in advance for a tee time. This is the Ireland that existed before Ballybunion became the Pebble Beach of Europe. In fact, the Northwest can lay claim to the finest array of links courses in the world (sorry, St. Andrews).

The first rule of Irish golf: Ignore the weather forecast. Showers are predicted every day, but I endured just one wet day in the course of a week-long trip. Otherwise the weather was as dry as the locals' humor. From Dublin I hopped a puddle-jumper to Derry over in Northern Ireland, then drove back .into the Republic of Ireland around the Inishowen Peninsula to Ballyliffin Golf Club, the island's most northerly club. (A new ferry service from Magilligan Point in Northern Ireland to Greencastle in County Donegal cuts the journey by 40 minutes.)

Ballyliffin presents two strikingly different challenges. The 6,612-yard Old Links is a rumpled rug of a course where perhaps just a few teaspoons of sand were displaced to make way for tees and greens. Nick Faldo was gobsmacked by the place when he first visited in 1993, calling it "the most natural course ever." Faldo asked members on the 1st tee, "Do you play bump-and-run here or do you just run and bump?" You'll understand when you get here -- the fairway ripples are so pronounced that you'd be seasick if you drove this quirky links in a cart.

Facts & Contacts
Ballyliffin Golf Club 011-353-74-9376119 www.ballyliffingolfclub.com Greens fees $58-$90*
Carne Golf Links 011-353-97-82292 carnegolflinks.com Greens fees $38-$64
County Sligo Golf Club 011-353-71-9177134 countysligogolfclub.ie Greens fees $83-$102
Enniscrone Golf Club 011-353-96-36297 enniscronegolf.com Greens fees $64-$81
Portsalon Golf Club 011-353-74-9159459 Greens fees $44-$51
Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Links 011-353-74-9155301 www.rosapenna.ie Greens fees $58-$77
*Rates at press time, converted from euros. PLUS: North & West Coast Links, a 15-year-old consortium, has broadened its base and now lists 10 clubs as members, including three facilities in Northern Ireland. 011-353-91-526737; westcoastlinks.com.

Ballyliffin's second course is Glashedy Links, named for the muffin-top rock that rises from Pollan Bay. Designed on a lunar landscape of tall dunes by Pat Ruddy and Tom Craddock, it is a stern, wind-lashed test with fiendishly deep bunkers and nasty rough. From the 7,135-yard tips, Glashedy is a beast -- Grendel with a hangover. The 183-yard 7th hole plays so steeply downhill that you almost expect to grab an elevator to the green. The finishing holes are marked by wicked doglegs threaded through corridors of shouldering dunes. You will play courses with more charm, but few with more bite.

From Ballyliffin, drive south to loop around Lough Swilly and onto the Rosguill Peninsula. Its beacon is the Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Links, designed for the fourth earl of Leitrim by Old Tom Morris and tweaked by Harry Vardon and James Braid. The 6,476-yard Old Tom Morris Course is characterized by lilting fairways and punch-bowl greens. Last summer Rosapenna opened its new Sandy Hills Links. My playing partners here were two wizened members who looked too old and infirm to walk, much less play golf. Neither lost a ball, while I spent the day ploughing through the spongy, thigh-high marram grass that blankets the dunes of this 7,155-yard links. The two elderly gents offered to carry my bag on the 18th, so worn out was I from fighting the elements.

Sandy Hills is the work of iconoclast Pat Ruddy, Ireland's answer to Pete Dye. Ruddy counters advances in equipment with the crafty use of doglegs and sunken and domed greens. Each hole is tucked in its own compartment of dunes, and those who gamble can easily go broke. Sandy Hills needs a little time to embrace the land, but its two opening par 4s (495 and 463 yards, respectively) are among the hardest in Ireland. Next year Ruddy will marry nine new holes to the original front nine of the Tom Morris track for a sterling layout, leaving a nine-hole Academy Course made up of holes by Braid and Vardon. Now that's a nice pedigree.

My most joyful discovery was Portsalon Golf Club, a short drive east of Rosapenna. The club was founded in 1891 and occupies a stunning location on the shore of Ballymastocker Bay. It survived as a funky curiosity for generations until Ruddy built 11 new holes, revised a few others and knit the whole thing together. The result will bring a smile to the lips of even the most jaded campaigner. The great opening holes cross an inlet and skirt the tawny strand. The 476-yard 6th hole is a perfect emblem of the new Portsalon, which reopened in 2002. A tiny ribbon of fairway snakes through a cleft in the dunes and curves gently left to a platform green surrounded by swales and hollows. Beyond are the Knockalla Mountains with the Atlantic Ocean glimmering to the left. When the sun hits the rock-studded hills in the east, the course literally glows.

From Portsalon it's a 90-minute drive south to Donegal town, where you ought to set aside time to shop for heathery tweeds at Magee of Donegal, whose jackets wear like iron. Farther south, you come across Ben Bulben, the stunning flat-topped mountain that inspired William Butler Yeats, the revered poet who put into words what everyone feels about "the land of heart's desire." Pause briefly in the tree-shaded Drumcliffe churchyard to read the sobering epitaph inscribed on his gravestone: Cast a cold Eye/On life, on Death./Horseman, pass by!

On a crumpled neck of land nearby is County Sligo Golf Club, an H.S. Colt design more commonly called Rosses Point. This fantastic 6,609-yard layout from 1927 is the equal of Ireland's big four: Portmarnock, Ballybunion, and the two Royals, County Down and Portrush. The opening holes play hard uphill, eventually offering a top-of-the-world view of Ben Bulben, the Ox Mountains and the whitewashed homes of Sligo town. This is sublime links terrain where shotmakers will prevail -- if they avoid the narrow, meandering brook, called a "drain" over here. The most famous hole is the 421-yard 17th, the Gallery, which calls for a bold approach over the shoulder of a hill to a narrow tongue of green. But the whole is greater than the sum of the parts at Rosses Point. The greens are flawless, perhaps the truest, most velvety in Ireland.

At most Irish courses, the 19th hole options are plentiful. In Sligo town, seafood houses line the quay on the peninsula, notably the Waterfront restaurant. Just north of town, Yeats Tavern is a local favorite for tippling, though Hardagan's on O'Connell Street has private snugs and a marble bar.