Going for Golf

Tralee Heaven - is a place on earth

Tralee

“I may have designed the first nine, but surely God designed the back nine,” the old master is quoted as saying about the majestic Co Kerry links – a gem of a line reproduced time and again around the course and its website, and no doubt by anyone who has tackled its eye-popping terrain.

Tralee is one of three Kerry golf clubs to have been named in the top 10 of Golf Digest Ireland’s top 100 ranked golf courses for 2010, alongside the famous Old Course in Ballybunion (home to a statue of former US President Bill Clinton, no less), and Waterville. This only tells some of the story, however. General manager Anthony Byrne says that, to the best of his knowledge, Tralee is one of only two courses in the world where you can see the water from every hole, with the front nine a flatter, level challenge, opening out to the hilly back nine.

Consider that the beach which runs around the back of the first hole and to the right of the second hole featured in the Hollywood epic Ryan’s Daughter; or that the sandy dunes north of the 15th tee box are part of Banna Strand on which Irish revolutionary Roger Casement was landed from a U-boat on Good Friday 1916. Also bear in mind he was promptly arrested, tried for treason in London, and executed. It certainly puts a lost golf ball or a few dropped strokes into perspective.

The Atlantic Ocean is your companion the whole way around this challenging course, with fabulous scenery and fascinating titbits of information constantly in view. Last July, everyone’s favourite sardonic funny man Bill Murray told the New York Post of his grá – the Irish for love – for Tralee’s premier golf course.

“The course at the Tralee Golf Club in Ireland is the most beautiful golf course I’ve ever played,” he said. “There’s one kind of stupid hole, but it’s a beautiful course – it’s right on the water. The holes are ridiculously pretty. It was built by Arnold Palmer and it’s just… the sea and the light and the sky and the hills and the fields. It’s just the prettiest one.”

When you take it on for yourself, you can work out which of the holes he found to be “kind of stupid”. There is a chance the great man may have been mistaken on this occasion. After all, you have to ask yourself: “Does God ‘do’ stupid?” According to Byrne, this “kind of stupid” line might have been a tongue in cheek quote from the famously dry actor. Indeed, Murray is not the only famous person to have played Tralee on a number of occasions – there’s king of country music Glen Campbell, golfer supreme Tony Jacklin, cricket legend Ian ‘Beefy’ Botham and Wayne Huizenga, former owner of the Miami Dolphins.

The course – designed by God’s emissary on Earth, Arnold Palmer – opened in 1984 and now has 1,000 members, including 250 from overseas, but according to Byrne, the club is not resting on its laurels.

“We have invested heavily in the last seven or eight years on improvements,” he says, adding that “it is a constant work in progress.”

At approximately 7,000 yards in length, it has some unique challenges. The 12th hole is the toughest on the course, but like all the others, you have the nearby ocean for company.

“One of the things I have been trying to recommend to people is to play it more than once,” added Byrne. “The first time you are only beginning to understand it. It is pretty breathtaking – it’s the most beautiful place. All of the par-threes would be my personal favourite – they are just dynamic. On the third hole you are playing across the rocks and you have the castle as the backdrop, and beyond that the mountains.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Factor in the proximity of three airports in the region, the glorious scenery of Co Kerry and the range of shops and restaurants in Tralee, and you’re looking at the complete package.

All in all, Heaven-sent. Looks like God’s work has paid off handsomely.