Tom Coyne, author of Paper Tiger, made 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 wrote a travel journal for GOLF.com. The complete journal is here.
This story started over a year ago, when I began circling golf courses on a map of Ireland. By the time I was finished, there were far more circles than I expected, and the map started to look less like a map and more like a challenge. What I had laid out was a vast, wandering golf course of its own, one long loop to end all others. I would play it all, and when I was finished, I might have learned — nay, earned — something important about this country that the tourists, the golfers, even the Irish themselves didn't fully understand. Did it work? Was it worth it? Buy the book and find out.
I suppose this story really began 130 years ago, when a great-grandmother and her sisters left Crossmolina in Mayo, packed up their lives and stepped on a boat and headed to Scranton, Pa., never to return. When the road has gotten too tough, the time away from home wearing me down to my last bit of resolve, I've thought of my great grandparents from Swinford and Foxford and Crossmolina, and the courage and character it must have taken to leave their homes and set out on these roads, risking their lives for something better. My rainy walk feels like a Sunday stroll in comparison.
When I set off on this trip, I wanted to know more about the connection between Americans of Irish descent and this country, if it was more than Guinness commercials and Riverdance, more than shamrocks and cliches and an excuse to throw up in your hat on March 17. I wanted to know why so many Irish once wanted to be called American, and why so many Americans now want to be called Irish. I think I've got some answers beyond telling you that the grass is always greener. And with this summer's endless showers, the grass over here is greener than ever.
I designed my itinerary so that I'd be saving the best for last, and as I work my way through Kerry toward Ballybunion, I think I've done just that. This southwest swing is tremendous, the tourist standard for good reason. We were blessed with a dry day in Waterville, and enjoyed a morning at Skellig Bay, a new course that is certainly worth your time. Owned by one of the men behind Old Head, it is a dramatic cliff-side golf course with spectacular views of waves crashing on an idyllic beach.
Just a few years old, the course still needs to grow up a bit, but a tad more definition and it could be a real stunner. I'd certainly play it before Waterville rather than after, because it's tough to stand up to one of Ireland's supreme links. Not only is Waterville a superb course, but it also has a lot to love besides the holes — the welcome from the Irish links legend Liam Higgins, the Payne Stewart memorial, the plaques and remembrances of the men who made the course what it is. Basking in the week's first bit of sun, it was love we were feeling.
I wasn't planning on visiting Ceann Sibeal at the tip of the Dingle Peninsula (it was a week's walk that I just couldn't squeeze in), but thanks to my cousin's arrival, and his rental car, we were able to cheat our way out to Ireland's most westerly golf course, and I'm grateful that we did. Crawling my way up the uphill 18th, fighting stinging rain and a 60-mile-an-hour breeze, I felt like I had come to the edge of Ireland for a swift kick in the groin. The fact that I still enjoyed myself, that I would have come back for another kick the next day, was a testament to Eddie Hackett's design, as natural and enjoyable as every course he touched.
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