Tom Coyne, author of Paper Tiger, is making his way across Ireland on foot this summer, playing every links golf course in the country. In Fall 2008, he'll publish a book about his adventures, A Course Called Ireland. In the meantime, he'll be writing a travel journal for GOLF.com. This is the tenth installment; the rest are here.
Before setting off for my journey around Ireland, my wife, Allyson, asked me which traveling companion I was most looking forward to meeting up with, aside from herself, of course. I explained that it was my English mate Julian's visit that I was most anticipating. Not only because Julian is a big-personality extrovert, the kind of guy who could make a best friend at an IRS audit, but because he has a great can-do, no-worries, it'll-get-sorted attitude. Translation: Julian was going to do next to nothing to prepare for this trip. It was a vacation, how tough could it be? And thus he brought with him the sort of potential travel disaster that was the stuff of bestsellers.
When Julian met me in Belfast, my hopeful suspicions were confirmed. I'd whittled my pack down to the absolute bare essentials — one sweater, two shirts, two nylon pants, wicking and waterproof everything, no cotton. Julian, on the other hand, seemed to be showing up for every meal in a new ensemble. He forgot to pack his toiletries, left the waterproof hat I gave him at home, and while he wouldn't give me a final tally, I counted at least a half-dozen t-shirts. Three pairs of shoes, two dozen golf balls (I tried to limit my load to six), Julian would eventually admit that he had packed for his two weeks on the road in slightly less than five minutes. It took me five months to carefully allot every square inch of my backpack, and I still felt unprepared. This was going to be a horrible. I couldn't wait.
It was a short walk to Crossgar, where Julian learned the emotional dangers of taking too much hope from the roadside mileages ("Six more miles! The last sign said six more miles!"). But he made it to town in his sneakers, through the orange blisters and the all-over shin pain that have become welcoming gifts to everyone who has joined me on the road thus far.
We met up with Allyson in Downpatrick, her second of three visits we've planned, and we all made our way down to Ardglass. We settled down for two nights in Margaret's Cottage, the most supremely located B&B of the trip. If you stumble coming out of the lovely little cottage, you just about fall into the Ardglass Golf Club clubhouse, a fifteenth century castle set on the edge of the sea, waves crashing against the first tee, the most jaw-dropping parking lot view I've ever seen. Turn left out of Margaret's, just past Aldo's, a restaurant well above Irish standards, and you're a dozen paces to the Old Commercial Bar, one of those great old pubs that it is much harder to get out of than into.
Ardglass was not only very playable, but the sea was in view on almost every hole, a trait I've found uncommon, even for a links (on most links courses, playing down in the dunes, you hear and feel the ocean, but don't always see it). The clubhouse was as elegant inside as it was ancient outside. Good food, great golf, perfect pub, within about 10 square feet. After counting the days to the end of my Irish adventure, Allyson found herself poking around town, looking for houses for sale. That's what we thought of Ardglass.
So it was with full bellies and floating hearts that we set out on the road to Newcastle, to take on one of THE courses on this trip, a links that many consider second to none on the planet, Royal County Down. Shaving miles was a priority on this leg of the walk, considering Julian's bursting backpack, and Allyson's spousal nudging, so I planned a route that would turn our 19-mile day into a more manageable 15. By walking along the beach and skipping the A2 coastal road, we would not only save steps, but a day strolling the beach is always better than an afternoon truck-dodging on the asphalt. That is, unless that beach is covered with jagged, slimy, ankle-breaking rocks, and unless it rains like Ireland had cast a plague upon American golfers.
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