The Missing Links: June 2015

Friday 26 June 2015

Waterville, County Kerry, Eire

www.watervillegolflinks.ie

White tees par 72
Red tees par 73

This is a wonderful golf course and takes a place in our top three. It is rare to encounter a course in such a beautiful setting which is of the highest calibre without any weak holes. Lying on a promontory between the estuary of the Inny river and the North Atlantic on the west coast of Eire it has views to the intriguingly named Macgillicuddy's Reeks mountain range which has the highest peaks in Ireland. We had a very friendly welcome in the club which is popular with Americans. Payne Stewart accepted honorary captaincy before his premature death and is commemorated by a brass statue in front of the clubhouse.

Waterville is a haven for hares.
This is reflected in the use of a hare on the club badge
and the tee markers

Golf was brought to Waterville by the workers on the first transatlantic cable which was laid between nearby Valentia island and Newfoundland in the middle of the 19th century. In 1889 the first formal golf course was laid out with nine holes. The club failed in the 1950s but was resuscitated by Jack Mulcahy, an Irish American who bought the course in the 1960s and commissioned Claude Harmon and Eddie Hackett (see Connemara) to build an eighteen hole course which opened in 1973. The original nine holes make up the current first nine which run beside the estuary. The second nine run closer to the Atlantic with the last few running along the beach.

Christy's choice - the second hole

The Mass Hole

The first hole is probably the easiest on the course and appropriately named Last Easy! The second is pleasing to the golfer's eye and is a left to right tilting par 4 with a green framed by the estuary. It was chosen by Christy O'Connor senior as one of the 18 best golf holes in Ireland. The par 3s at this course are remarkable for their quality and crowned by the 17th which is played from a tee 250 feet above sea level. If you can drag your eyes away from the magnificent views you will see the green across a sea of dunes described 'as an emerald oasis amidst a jungle of nature's own terrain'. The par 3 12th is 'The Mass Hole' named for the use of its deep valley to celebrate Mass in times of persecution in the 18th century. The finishing hole maintains the standard of the rest of the course as a classic tough par 5 with a narrow fairway and a green angled to the left.

Worth a visit? Unquestionably

The magnificent views from the 17th hole

Tuesday 23 June 2015

Connemara , Eire

http://connemaragolflinks.com/

White tees par 72 SSS 73
Red tees par 72 SSS 72

Connemara is on the west coast of Eire in an isolated but beautiful spot between the Twelve Pins (or Twelve Bens) mountain range and the Atlantic Ocean. Although founded as recently as 1973 it feels as if it has always been there. It was designed by Eddie Hackett who is renowned for designing golf courses with minimum disruption to the natural landscape and who designed almost a third of the links courses in Ireland.

The first hole is a dogleg from right to left.
The green is framed by the Twelve Pins mountain range

We played Connemara on a day of light breezes and hazy sunshine in late June when the wildflowers were carpeting the rough. The first nine holes follow the natural contours of the machair and lull the unwary into a false sense of security. The second nine are much tougher, with the real sting in the tail starting at the par 3 13th with a chasm between the tee and green. Four of the last five holes have steep plateau greens and three of them are par fives. Water comes into play at the front of the 16th green and across the 18th fairway. As you leave the eighteenth green you know that your golf has been tested.

Worth a visit? It is a testing course in a beautiful part of the world but it is remote.

The Links Project

There are 246 true links golf courses in the world and this blog is a record of our attempt to play all of them. My husband Ron and I are keen golfers and I came up with the idea of this project after he gave me the book by George Peper and Malcolm Campbell 'True Links' which lists them all.

The commonest question we are asked about our project is 'How do you define a true links course?' This will be debated by aficionados for long after we have (hopefully) completed our quest and there will never be a correct answer. The strict definition is from the British Golf Museum:

1. The course must be beside a river estuary

2. It must offer partial or occasional views of the sea

3. It must have few trees

4. It must have numerous bunkers

5. It must have nines that run out and back, the front heading to a far point and the back returning to the clubhouse

Peper and Campbell defined their list as follows:

Terrain - how close is the course to the sea? Do the fairways run fast and hard? Do the greens favour a run-on approach? How open is the site? How natural? Is there a freedom from trees? Is the invasion of gorse and brush controlled? How light is the environmental footprint on the land?

Turf - is there a sand base? What grasses are dominant on the fairways and greens? Is the rough managed ( creating biodiversity for flora and fauna)? How well does the course drain?

Weather - how exposed is the site to the elements? What are the typical wind conditions? Does the course play hard and fast all year round? Must temporary greens and tees be used in winter? Is the course susceptible to winter closure?

Peper and Campbell included courses which supplied the correct answers to most of these questions. But however defined, to me the poem by Sir John Betjeman encapsulates the feeling of links golf.