How to Plan a Links Course Trip
Old TamApr 28, 2025
LD TAM LINKS GOLF
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Ireland is about many things—country roads, beaches, dogs, small towns, pubs, music, poetry, shades of green, characters, and full breakfasts. But, most importantly, she is all about Links Golf.
Ireland is full of wonderful courses that anyone can play. Some of these are among the top-rated courses globally. I have told many friends, if Royal County Down, Royal Portrush or Ballybunion or Lahinch were in the US, they would be as difficult to get on as Pine Valley, Cypress Point or Augusta. But that is not what golf is about in Ireland. The welcome visitors, and the income helps the towns. It is also about the people of Ireland. They want to share their experiences, their clubs, their beautiful walks with as many visitors as possible—they want you to enjoy their Country. It is in their souls.
Not only are they very accessible but also they have members that are caddies—just because of their love of the game! Some retired, but most of them are juggling a couple jobs to support their family. All the while, kicking’ their friends’ asses at the club championship, or Member/Member. I call that living’ the dream. Are you kidding me?
It was about a year in the planning. Fourteen tee-times, seven towns. We arrived in Dublin early on a Sunday morning, via Aer Lingus. This go-around, with no luggage or misplaced golf clubs. Simply through customs, clubs and luggage in hand, and 30 minutes later we were at our base camp for the first five nights.
The Courses:
This was our first wide swath trip to Ireland and in my mind extraordinarily successful. It started out by us securing tee times—nine to eleven months in advance—at the two Big Royals of Northern Ireland. So, we filled in around those two, starting in Dublin, then wanting to certainly head to the North (St. Pat’s) and eventually down West & South for a few bucket-list must-play classics. Here is how it wound-up after a lot of planning and coordination, and after calling a couple audibles, a la Peyton Manning (Omaha!!!) which turned out to be great for our aging backs and legs.
Dublin Area: Portmarnock, The Island, The European Club (The Jameson Links was a casualty of jet lag and a well-needed site-seeing day off the course
Newcastle: Royal County Down (both Championship, and Annesley), Ardglass
Portrush: Royal Portrush (Dunluce); Portstewart (Cancelled)
Downings: Rosapenna-- St. Patrick’s, Old Tom Morris
Cruitt Island – we visited by did not play the course
Enniscrone: Enniscrone Golf Club
Lahinch – Lahinch Golf Club
Ballybunion – The Old Course
→→Twelve Total Courses
Downings-my favorite small town
#6, Lahinch - Paradise
I was always fascinated by David Letterman’s Top Ten list, back when his Late-Night show started in 1982. So here you go, by homage to David Letterman
Old Tam’s Top 10 Reasons Scooter and I cannot wait to Return to Ireland
10) Man vs. The Course, Man vs. Nature-The Wind and the Rain & the Walk. Face it, how often do we (Americans specifically) walk a golf course?How often do we even play in the rain? How many times are we able to hit putts from one hundred’ off a green? How many times do you have to aim your shot forty yards right, or left, into the Atlantic so it lands in the right spot
9) Playing with Nine or with Seven Clubs: That is all I need, and certain friends would say, why not five? I also do it at home when I walk. It is about manufacturing shots, a la Sarazen, Hogen, Nelson, Trevino, Watson, et al. Which clubs would you pick? My go-to’s are my Driver or 3-Wood, 5-iron, 7-Iron, 9 or wedge. Can you hit a 7-iron 100 to 160 yards? How about a 5-iron from 130 to 180? Do you really need 3 wedges, or any?
8) Driving the Curves on the country backroads: Behind the wheel, the comradery with your brother/friend riding shotgun. White-knuckled, stomach churning, adrenaline spewing, hyper-focused fun. Hey, it makes the pint that awaits at the end of the day’s journey taste all the better
7) Down County Up County Down: The Slieve Donard experience—no better way to experience Newcastle, Royal County Down—a la Tom Coyne’s article in The Golfers Journal, #31--282 Steps about the walk out the back through the Iron gate to RCD. Where else could you run into the Claret Jug? The Percy French – fantastic pub and restaurant.
The Slieve Donard, Newcastle, it fronts Royal County Down
282 Steps, or with my short legs, 336. Entrance to RCD from The Slieve Donard
6) The Portmarnock Resort & Jameson Links-our great base camp with restaurants, pubs, beach walks, The Menopause Mile, and Malahyde. Portmarnock / The Island / European Club
View from our room, Portmarnock Resort & Jameson Links
5) The Hat Trick of Enniscrone (Pub Crawl): It might have been due to our wonderful host, Padraic (the un-official Mayor, which many servers referred to as “the pillar of Enniscrone). But that aside, still a wonderful experience: Dinner at Ait Elie, the progress to Gilroy’s Pub (upstairs from the Restaurant) then B. Hopkins and The Pilot Bar
4) Downings & St. Patrick’s – The Irish town ‘at the end of the Earth’ St. Patrick’s, The Rosapenna Hotel, the Beach, Downings, The Harbour Bar & Fish Seafood. Everything about it is impressive.
St. Patrick’s and Downings Harbor
3) Portrush – the Riviera of Ireland. The Dunluce Course (The Open, 2019 & 2025) is outrageously beautiful and fun to play, and the overall experience is wonderful. But the town is equally impressive. The Beautiful Beach, the Strand, Harbor Bar, the Views to the Dunluce Castle, The walk from The Golf Links Hotel. The entire experience leaves you smiling.
Wonderful Views from the Dunluce Course-Royal Portrush
2) Playing the Twin Brothers from Different Mothers—Ballybunion and Lahinch. They are the best Links experiences in Ireland—with Royal Portrush being a close second, and St. Patrick’s at 2b.
Drum roll …………..#1
1) Ireland & Links Golf at its best. Sorry Scotland but there is just something magical about the combination of dunes, views, beaches, people, pubs, countryside and the towns of Ireland. Go experience it yourself, and feel free to disagree. Cannot wait to see you again!
Now that we have gone over the top ten reasons that Scooter and I cannot wait to go back to Ireland, I bring you the Best of the Best from the trip:
Ballybunion, #7
The Harbour Bar-Downings, favorite pub, inside and out
Poem: The Old Gal--the Emerald Isle
She is a happy, happy place. She is friendly, she is real. She is a never-ending toboggan ride through 12-foot-wide country roads lined with bushes and stone fences on both sides. Not wide enough for two cars, or in most cases, one car and a bus.
She is about the town’s piazza where people gather, which on this Island are the pubs. She is full of small farms with no crops, only sheep or cattle. She is ancient ruins, and still-standing old churches, blackened on the outside by centuries of raw weather. She is real. She is wonderful, and lovely. She is not about crowds. She is all about the town’s characters that could all be mayor, but do not want to bother as they know too many people.
She is about wonderful, eclectic “rest stops” off the highways with gas stations, Inns, and at least 6 or 8 types of food for the not-so-weary traveler. She is about getting from one side the Country to the other in 4 to 5 hours or less. She is about not having an agenda, rather taking what the day gives you.
She is a chocolate factory on a rural Mountain hideaway road—an oasis of coffee and tea, and pastries. But mostly chocolate, great chocolate at that. She is raw and clean. She is all about the wind. or the rain, or most times, both. Her people revel in the sun when it is out. She is always multiple shades of green that vary with the light. Sometimes Kelly, other times Lime, Forest, Spring, Avocado, Olive, Chartreuse, Hunter, Lime, Sage, or my favorite, Emerald.
She is a bright orangish red Moon over the Dublin coast. She is about the Black Widow Bar, or the perfect pour of Guinness.
She is dunes, dogs, heather and gorse. Late afternoon walks on the beach. A Sunday night church service then ice cream for the young lads and lasses. She is the three old men holding court at the front booth of a pub at The Harbour Bar—telling jokes, embellishing stories and razzing the tourists—from 3:00 to 5:30. Every day.
She is Fibber Magee’s and Flanagan’s, Fitzgerald’s, O’Connor’s Cullinan’s, Kenny’s and the Nineteenth. She is the Seven Old Ladies of Belmullet. She is Totty, The Pilot Bar, Gilroy and B. Hopkins. She is Bushfoot, Bushmills and the Giant’s Causeway.
She is Down County Up County Down by Van Morrison. She is the haunting guitar riff of The Edge, the brilliance of Bono, and the melancholy lyrics of The Waterboys. She is Joyce, Yeats, Beckett and Wilde. She is where the streets have no name.
She is a sixth century Norse Castle, and a new millennium shiny-metal office building. She has a thatched roof, a grounded boat and railway stations.
She is everything you have ever dreamed of her to be. To put it simply, she is poetry. But most of all, she is a late afternoon walk on a links course, slight breeze off the water. Soaking in the views.
