Lahinch Golf Club
SWING Golf Ireland
GALWAY, IRELAND | As I was motored around the Irish countryside last month, I reflected on what heady times these are for golf here.
Start with Rory McIlroy winning the past two Masters, the first of which, in 2025, made him the sixth golfer ever to secure a career Grand Slam. With last year’s triumph, the Ulsterman also became only the fourth player, after Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods, to take back-to-back tournaments there. And next April he will try to make it three in a row at Augusta National.
Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy
Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
It happens that McIlroy and his friend and sometime Ryder Cup partner Shane Lowry have done well at home, too, capturing the last two Irish Opens. McIlroy’s win in a playoff in 2025 was impressive, especially after he eagled the last hole of regulation. But Lowry absolutely destroyed his competition at Doonbeg this fall in taking the title by a staggering 11 strokes.
The week before that rout, the Lahinch Golf Club in County Clare hosted the Walker Cup on its highly regarded championship course, which was designed by Dr. Alister MacKenzie. And it was there that the Great Britain & Ireland team recorded its first victory in this competition since 2015 by overcoming a 9½-6½ deficit the final day to win by a single point.
As Irish golfers made their marks in the competitive realm, course architects were enhancing an already strong portfolio of places to play.
The 2026 European Solheim Cup squad fared just as well last month, edging the Americans, 15-13, with a team that included Leona Maguire from County Cavan and her 2-2-0 record.
This past summer saw the opening of the Watson Cashen course at Ballybunion, with Tom Watson and Graeme Webster adding their deft touches to the links that Robert Trent Jones Sr. had created as a secondary track to the club’s Old Course back in 1982.
Construction has also continued on the new Curracloe Links in County Wexford that Dana Fry and Jason Straka are crafting within view of the Irish Sea.
Curracloe Links
Mel Maclane, Curracloe Links
Just to the north of that site, Kyle Phillips is reimagining the former European Club track that architect Pat Ruddy opened in 1992 outside Dublin into a new links now known as Brittas Bay.
And Keith Rhebbs and Riley Johns are set to begin redoing the understandably unheralded Castle Course at Lahinch into something more interesting and fun to play, with a new, par-68 track slated to open in 2029.
A favorite topic of conversation among industry watchers in recent months has been the Portmarnock Golf Club outside Dublin, which is being touted by some as a lock to host a future Open Championship. If such a thing were to happen – and the view here is that it should – that would be the first time the world’s oldest golf championship is held outside of the United Kingdom, which is composed of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island.
Then, of course, there is the Ryder Cup, which is returning to the Emerald Isle next September when it is played at Adare Manor.
Clearly, Irish golf is having its moment.
John Steinbreder
