The European Club

The first glimpse of the sea from the 3rd tee

   
The 8th green, with its perplexing RHS "pimple"

The natural flow of the 10th green was eye-catching (more man-made "pimples" on the low side of the green, however...)

Course name: The European Club
Location: Brittas Bay, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
Four Word Course Review: What could have been...

Standing on the 12th tee at The European Club, I wondered to myself if there was a more idyllic or beautiful spot in the world of golf. By the time I walked off the 15th green, the 12th tee had a few contenders!

But sadly, that's probably the most enjoyable thing about The European. It's a beast of a course, and designer/owner Pat Ruddy's rundown of the links in the course guide makes no secret of the fact that creating a stern test was among his chief goals in building the links. It's fair to say he succeeded.

The thick, gnarly, ball-swallowing rough just metres from the 1st green gives you a good idea of the test to follow. Too few were the great golf holes, replaced instead by golf holes bulldozed flat through great terrain and boasting great views, still many very good holes, but many that "could have been a better hole if...".

For example the rollicking par four 8th, played over a dune to a green that slips of the hillside beautifully... but why is the fairway, sitting between rolling dunes, so flat? Why is the rough grown across the fairway 130m from the green? And why did Ruddy build that godawful pimple on the right-hand-side of the green, interrupting the flow of the land?

The 10th again features a beautiful greensite that opens up the possibility of approaches by air, land or a combination of the two... but played into the wind or even without wind for the shorter hitter, the lack of width teamed with penal rough presents a question to which there may well not be an answer.

The 16th is an eye-catching dogleg right up a gentle slope... but why is it that with bunkers both left and right at the driving zone, there is a patch of thick rough smack-bang in the middle of the fairway? Truly the most confusing thing I have ever seen on a golf course.

Does a golfer who has strayed a few feet off the fairway or a few metres off the green in high wind deserve to almost certainly lose his ball? On a number of TEC's holes this is the very simple reality.

Missing was the subtlety that makes links golf so endlessly charming. The angled stances and lies produced by the natural undulation of the land, the realisation as you move down the fairway that a hazard was not what it appeared from further back and the width that allows you to choose a strategy from the tee: With bunkers left and right at almost every turn and some of the fiercest rough I have ever seen, it is, save for a few exceptions, a course to be played from the centre of the fairway.

To be sure, it satsfies Ruddy's aim of creating a ball-breaking test, but is it fun? Does it draw you back to see if a different strategy here or there might have paid greater dividends? I can only answer for myself, but no, not really.

The course actually has 20 holes, with spare par threes named 7a and 12a that looked to me to be comfortably the equal of the three one-shotters in the first choice layout. Interestingly, you could play all 20 holes or even several 18-hole combinations without any overly-long walks between holes.

Were it my call, I'd drop 2 and 14 in favour of the two spare holes. There are some fantastic greens amongst the ample dunes at 3, 5, 7a, 8, 10, 11, 12a and 14, and many memorable shots, but it's my feeling that much of what was charming and memorable was down to the location more than the architecture.

Ruddy has already made significant changes since the course opened in 1992, and you can be sure there are more to come. I can only hope some bunker removal, bringing one or both of the spare holes into the permanent line-up and a more liberal use of the mower in the rough are among those future plans.