Going for Golf

Lahinch

Drive up the coast and spurn the delights of the Shannon and Limerick if only to get to County Clare and Lahinch, one of the world’s great links courses. Lahinch is often called an Alister Mackenzie course, but his 1927 work was a re-design of Tom Morris’s lay-out. It was then much eroded by nature as much as anything else until Martin Hawtree restored it, giving the greens back their size and slope, adding bunkers and reshaping fairways without sacrificing its quirky charms. He re-routed four holes and added two new par-threes, the 166-yard eighth and the 170-yard 11th, both set deep in the dunes. Sixteen tees were rebuilt and only four greens left untouched.

Hawtree wisely left the magical Klondyke and Dell holes alone and the former is possibly the best hole on the course. It’s a 475-yard par-five with a blind second shot over a monster sand dune about 200 yards from the green. Carry that and you have a chance of a long iron or rescue club which needs to carry all the way to a green which seems in splendid isolation, but has its fair share of danger.

There are good arguments that Dell – which is all that remains of the Morris original – is the real star. It is a magical par-three of 154 yards, with the narrow green completely hidden behind a massive sand dune and tucked into a hollow with three sand hills in attendance – a marvellous hole, and on the homeward nine, the 10th and 15th are among the strongest par-fours in golf.

Lahinch also features another 18-hole track, the Castle Course, designed by JD Harris, but it’s the championship course that golfers flock to and also, perhaps, to see the weather-forecasting goats who will graze out on the dunes in fine weather, but will seek the shelter of the clubhouse when they sense rain. The only goat I could recognise was one holding my golf clubs and attempting to come to terms with some of the most testing shots I’ve faced on one of the best golf courses I’ve ever seen.