Delightful Tralee By The Sea

The second hole at Tralee. Photo courtesy of the club.

The biggest problem you'll face when playing Tralee is keeping your mind on the game. The Arnold Palmer design in Barrow, County Kerry, Ireland, not only has a succession of excellent holes, but every one of them has a full view of the Atlantic and many have fascinating stories and features to go along with the views. Like the 12th century Norman tower behind the third green and the sandstone boulder between the fourth and fifth fairways allegedly hurled there by Cuchullain, one of the great heroes of Irish mythology, from the top of the Sliabh Mish, the mountain that can be seen to the south. Plus the smugglers' harbor behind the seventh tee box, the shoreline behind the sixteenth green where a ship from the Spanish Armada ran aground in 1588, and the beach along the second hole where scenes for the 1970 epic movie Ryan’s Daughter was filmed.

But pay attention! You're there for golf, right? You won't be disappointed. Tralee presents a fabulous links golf experience. As the club slogan goes, it was created by God and designed by Arnold Palmer. The front nine is fun, the back nine simply spectacular, with a parade of dramatic holes that equal the best you'll find anywhere in the world. In a country noted for great golf, Tralee should be at the top of your must-play list.

The first hole sets the tone as you drive your ball directly toward the ocean. By the time you reach the green 404 yards away, you've seen the water on three sides (although not in play) and tested the stiff Atlantic breezes, the quirky rolling fairways, and navigated around the stone wall that guards the green approach on the left. The course routing continues in that vein. A round at Tralee calls for strength, length, accuracy and touch, not to mention a bit of luck and a sense of humor capable of taking the funny bounces of links golf in stride.

The 12th hole at Tralee. Photo courtesy of the club.

A bit of tactical play comes in handy, too. At the surgical 399-yard eighth hole, for example, most players should leave the driver in the bag and lay up to the mound on the right side of the excruciatingly narrow fairway that drops off the cliffs on the left side. The eleventh hole, a 595-yard uphill par five, is simply brutal, while the twelfth, a 461-yard par four, can only be described as punishing, with a semi-blind drive followed by a a long second shot that must carry a deep gully on the left of the green to give you a chance at par.

The par threes on the back side are particularly exciting. The thirteenth is only 159 yards, but it's all carry to a shallow green and generally plays with a left to right wind that makes club selection and aim a test of nerves. The sixteenth, known as "Shipwreck," plays toward the ocean in a setting as dramatic as you'll find on the Monterey Peninsula. The tee shot must carry 185 yards over a yawning canyon in the dunes and the pin can be as deep as 216 yards onto the two-tiered green.

The finishing hole at Tralee, a 486-yard par five, gives you an excellent chance to close out your round with a birdie, which is always a nice touch. You'll need to be accurate, though, especially off the tee, since there are thirteen bunkers waiting to add a stroke or two.

Tralee plays par 72 at 6,991 yards from the championship tees. It's a good idea to consider playing the forward tees, though, since the golf is just as good and the views are still excellent.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf

Beat A Path To Ballybunion

The 18th on the Old Course at Ballybunion. Photo courtesy of the club.

There are many old golf courses and more than a few great ones in Ireland, but you can count on one hand the number that are both old and great. The first or second finger on that hand signifies Ballybunion's Old Course, where 120 years of great golf have been played. How great? Tom Watson, winner of five British Opens, called it the best links course in the world.

When you walk out of the modern clubhouse to meet your caddie on the first tee, you're following in the footsteps of nearly every great golfer who ever played on either side of the pond, as well as thousands of devoted duffers from all over the world. The latter group includes countless notables like former President Bill Clinton. His enthusiasm for Ballybunion, not to mention his role in settling the religious strife in Ireland, earned him a statue at the main crossroads in town as well as life membership in the club. Caddies still talk about the drive he supposedly sliced into the cemetery bordering the first hole.

Don't laugh too hard at the man's errant drive, however, until you've successfully hit one to a fairway you can barely see in a 30-mph left-to-right crosswind. That's what you can easily encounter at Ballybunion where, like any great links course, the wind shapes your entire round, pushing the ball wherever it wants in the air and frequently even on the ground. The wind can easily blow a standing ball uphill and caddies develop a particular skill in teeing the ball at a slant to stand up to it.

Wind isn't the only element that can wreck your score at Ballybunion. Missing the fairway can bring on scorecard disaster whether it comes about from an unfortunate gust or shear duffer-ness. Countless pot bunkers await in all the most inconvenient places. Even worse is the marram grass, which is like fescue only meaner since it falls over in the damp air and smothers the unfortunate ProV you just took out of the sleeve and launched into the wind.

Ballybunion's Old Course was thought to be first laid out by a local professional, James McKenna, in 1892. It's been redone, extended, revised, and otherwise tinkered with through the years with the latest design changes overseen by Tom Watson in 1995. Today it plays par 71 at 6,802 yards.

Caddies say the real course begins on the sixth tee since the first five holes are little more than warm ups for the fun the come. The sixth hole is also where the Atlantic comes first into full view. Most golfers would hesitate to dismiss the opening holes as trivial, however. After all, they include a 224-yard par 3 and back-to-back par fives, the second of which, at 560 yards uphill, plays plenty tough.

The eleventh hole, a 473-yard par four, is the signature hole on the Old Course. It plays full along the ocean for both your drive and approach and the elevated green sits nestled against a marram-covered hillside with only a narrow lay-up option 50 yards in front.

While the front side has back-to-back par fives, the second nine has back-to-back par threes. The fourteenth hole is a 133 yard uphill tester with trouble on every side. It's immediately followed by the fifteenth, a 216-yard monster with a 200-yard carry.

16th Hole at Ballybunion's Cashen Course. Photo courtesy of the club.

Ballybunion also boasts a second course, the Cashen, designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr., that opened in 1984. Depending on your frame of mind, you'll either find the Cashen Course a tremendous challenge or simply impossible. It features tight blind fairways, forced carries off the tee and to the green (sometimes on the same hole), and approaches with no safety zones for cautious players. The Cashen Course is par 72 and only 6,306 yards, but don't be fooled into thinking it an easy walk along the seashore.

The place to stay in Ballybunion is Kilcooly's Country House, a congenial small hotel with character, a fine dining room, and an intimate, well-stocked bar. The place is filled with antiques and tasteful bric-a-brac, but unlike so many old-world hotels, the rooms are spacious and uncluttered. It's worth requesting that your golf packager include Kilcooly's in your itinerary.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf.

Lahinch Epitomizes Great Links

Sixth hole at Lahinch. Photo courtesy of the club.

You'll find every distinguishing feature of great links golf at the Old Course at Lahinch in County Clare, Ireland. Hard, fast greens. Narrow, rumpled fairways. Blind shots. Tangled rough. Wind, rain, intrepid golfers, and goats. Yes, goats. Local lore holds that when you encounter the goats munching their way around the course, you can expect an interlude of bad weather. From my experience, local lore is dead-on.

But it's the links landscape that makes Lahinch one of the world's great golf courses. When Alistair Mackenzie first saw saw it in 1927, he said, "Lahinch will make the finest and most popular course that I, or I believe anyone else, ever constructed." Mackenzie, whose credits include Augusta National, Cypress Point, and Pasatiempo, used the natural features of the wind-swept seaside to shape his holes among the dunes.

The course was originally laid out in 1892 and re-designed by Old Tom Morris in 1894. The present fifth hole, a 154-yard par 3 that plays more like 180 over a dune that blocks all but about 20% of the green, was Old Tom's handiwork. In 1999, Martin Hawtree modernized the course.

From the tips at 6,950 yards and at par 72, Lahinch demands a firm stroke and steady nerves. The heavy, wet wind off the Atlantic affects every single shot, including your putts. You play the wind from every angle, too, since Mackenzie routed the holes so that six play into it, six play with it, and six play across. But you play the landscape as well. Fairways can be as narrow as 20 yards and thread their way through dunes covered by knotty rough. The heavily contoured greens look slow but they roll fast and are guarded by numerous deep bunkers.

The fairway on the fourth hole at Lahinch. Photo courtesy of the club.

Blind shots add to the fun. The fourth hole, for example, is a simple 475-yard par five. It plays straight away downwind, too, which should mean a birdie fest. But forty-foot-tall Klondyke Hill stands in the middle of the fairway about 300 yards from the tee, blocking all views of the fairway and green beyond. It blocks the hole so completely that a club employee is stationed atop it to let you know when it's safe to hit over. Your strategy? Hit your blind second shot over the white rock on top of the hill and trust it.

The par fours make Lahinch. Eight of them are over 400 yards and none are automatic pars. Even the uniquely short 279-yard thirteenth hole can give you fits. It's eminently drive-able, but be sure to hit the green or you'll be left with an impossible up and down. It is followed by two monsters, the 461-yard fourteenth with its deadly mounds blocking the approach to the green and the 460-yard fifteenth hole, where bunkers off the tee and near the green challenge long hitters.

A good second round (or a first if you're looking for an easier warm-up) is the Castle Course at Lahinch, which plays a little shorter through less hilly terrain, but still requires precision shot making due to several water features. It's par 69 at 5,488 yards.

Among many other books, Dave Donelson is the author of Weird Golf: 18 tales of fantastic, horrific, scientifically impossible, and morally reprehensible golf