PLAY AWAY
By Tom Mackin
Stroll down the main street of Adare in Co. Limerick, Ireland, like I did this past week, and you’ll quickly notice colorful Ryder Cup signs in shop and pub windows starting to outnumber the small town’s famed thatched cottages. Like this framed poster (see photo below) hanging outside the entrance to the Pat Collins Bar, a family-run establishment that opened its doors in 1947.
It’s now officially a year out from the biannual event that will be played at Adare Manor next Sept. 17–19. But the country is buzzing with anticipation as I saw for myself during a recent visit to that event venue, plus old, new, and soon-to-be-new-again courses on both the east and west coasts. Elevating that vibe? Shane Lowry’s dominating Irish Open win two weeks ago at Doonbeg, GB&I team’s win in the Walker Cup at Lahinch, and Leona Maguire being part of the winning European Solheim Cup team. Irish golf is on a roll.
Various likely members of the 2027 European Ryder Cup team convened for practice at Adare Manor last week, including Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood, Bob McIntyre, Justin Rose, and Matthew Fitzpatrick. Even their well-traveled eyes must have popped a bit when they saw the course, already in near flawless condition after the installation of new grass everywhere and greens just last year.
Mine certainly did last week after a quick stop there to play three holes that could decide who wins, or retains, the cup. The 16th is an all carry-over-water par 3; the 17th is a straightaway par 4 framed on both sides by tall trees that lead to an elevated green; and the par-5 18th is as good a risk/reward finisher of any Ryder Cup host course. It remains the best conditioned course I have ever played. It’s also one of the most expensive: You have to book a room at the luxurious manor overlooking the course – starting at about $1,200 a night – plus a $630 green fee.
Resort owner and Limerick native J.P. McManus isn’t depending on the luck of the Irish to make this one of the country’s premier sporting events and far better than the only other time Ireland hosted the Ryder Cup, in 2006 at the K Club. He’s going all out. And if pictures of the course remind you of a place in Georgia, well, there’s a reason for that.
“I spent years with J.P. during the Masters,” says Tom Fazio, who completed an extensive renovation of the Adare Manor course in 2018. “He and his friends would come over, spend the week in Augusta, play golf around the area, and go to the tournament. J.P. had this passion for golf and the passion for the experience that you get at Augusta National. That’s the low cut, smooth grass, smooth conditions, and that’s how the project there evolved.”
Fazio and his team regraded many of the holes during the renovation, lowering elevations, raising tees, and stretching the yardage, which now can extend to 7,509 yards. “The course was originally built in the early ’90s by a developer who wasn’t a golfer and who didn’t have the resources to build what modern day golf is today,” Fazio notes. “So, it was like starting from scratch. The golf course plays like a parkland course and looks like a parkland course, yet it’s going to play a lot like a links course because you can bounce the ball, you can pitch and run up a shot. You don’t have to carry it through the air to a specific spot.”
As bright a spotlight as the Ryder Cup will bring to Adare Manor and Ireland next year, other golf projects will ensure steady attention for much longer.
Like the brand new Curracloe Links, where I played 11 already completed holes. Expected to open next summer, the Dana Fry and Jason Straka design is just north of Wexford town, some two hours south of Dublin. Owned by the Neville family (developers and hoteliers who also own Druids Glen, a resort with two parkland courses, one of which hosted the Irish Open four times in the late 1990s), the course sits atop a bluff just inland from the Irish Sea and above the beach where the opening scenes from Saving Private Ryan were filmed in 1996.
The routing is divided by a road and encircles the Ravenport Resort, which opened two years ago. Fry and Straka’s distinct bunkering style here – sprawling in size with steep grass-faced walls, plus entrance paths cut along said walls – already stands out even before sand has been added. Long distance views, especially from a high point at the ninth tee, take in the Irish Sea, nearby Wexford Town and the surrounding countryside. Edward Doyle, director of golf, calls the course a “love letter to Wexford” from the Nevilles, who are fiercely proud of their hometown.
Also underway and expected to be completed by next summer is Brittas Bay, the former European Club site in the country’s southeast coast and located right between Druids Glen and Curracloe Links. Kyle Phillips is authoring the design there, creating a true links layout adjacent to the Irish Sea that should prove more popular than its predecessor.
Over on Ireland’s west coast, Lahinch Golf Club debuted a sparkling new clubhouse before the Walker Cup, complete with large windows on the second floor providing full views of the first and second holes (to play those and the 16 others on the stunning layout will set you back about $500). From there you can also see the club’s Castle Course across the street that will soon get a complete renovation.
Another second course with a much higher profile sibling close nearby is the Watson Cashen Course at Ballybunion Golf Club, which just completed a thorough renovation of its own designed to make things a little easier on what was a notoriously demanding layout, in part by increasing the sizes and lowering the profile of the greens.
After only a night’s stay, my vote for Ireland’s best new hotel goes to The Hawthorn by Galway Bay, opened this past June with an ultra-modern feel you’d expect to find in a major city rather than in Oranmore, just outside of Galway. Better yet, it overlooks a well-worth-playing, Christy O’Connor Jr.-designed golf course set hard against Galway Bay.
I’ve been visiting Ireland for four decades now and the country’s golf landscape has never been more vibrant. And as for those thatched cottages in Adare, someone better check their fittings because I have a feeling the roars from the Ryder Cup next September might just shake them loose.
Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., Tom Mackin is a proud Bayonne, N.J., native who has been writing about golf travel for 25 years. You can usually find him in seat 21D on a United flight.