When you’re tasked with creating what in all likelihood may be the last links course built on dunesland in Ireland, you don’t want to mess it up. Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Resort put its faith in Tom Doak to deliver the trophy course the Northwest needed to put itself on Ireland’s crowded golf map.
Based on the immediate ratings among the top-100 courses in the world, the visually stunning St. Patrick’s Links has delivered on its promise.
“When we were going to build St. Patrick’s, it had to be special and had to be unique,” said John Casey, who along with his brother, Frank Jr., run the operations at the family-owned Rosapenna. “So we had to make sure we got the very best and Tom (Doak) showed interest and it seemed crazy not to work with him.”
Doak has been blessed with plenty of stunning settings to carve out some of the world’s most treasured new courses: cliffside gems such as Pacific Dunes and Cape Kidnappers; sandy seaside tracks at Tara Iti and Barnbougle Dunes; inland prairie marvels such as Ballyneal.
Dramatic dunesland such as St. Patrick’s on Sheephaven Bay don’t come along much anymore.
“The opportunity to build a seaside course in Europe is almost impossible to come by now,” Doak told Golf.com in 2017 before starting the project.
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