Druids Glen

 
The 13th, a diagonal drive from the right of the picture that invites you to flirt with the stream, but would probably tempt you a bit more if the fairway was mown closer to the water

 

The par three 8th - modelled on the 16th at Augusta National

 
The approach to the par four 7th, a hidden creek left of the green
 

Course name: Druids Glen
Location: Newtownmountkennedy, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
Four Word Course Review: Ruddy's attempt at Augusta

I keep hearing how beautiful Druids Glen is in late spring and summer, when the flowers are in bloom, but I find it hard to believe it could look more charming than it did with the leaves turning.

There's no doubt Druids Glen is a beautiful course, but it's not a dumb blonde. There's a great mix of doglegs left and right and holes uphill and down. The 4th was a really fun par four tracking right over a hill that rewarded a brave tee shot and the 7th bent sharply in the opposite direction while falling steeply from an elevated tee, followed by a fun one-shotter based on the 16th at Augusta (the first par three, the 2nd, is modelled on the second shot at The Road Hole at St Andrews).

But as good as those holes are, a brace of two-shotters on the back nine take the cake.

The 13th features a drive from an elevated tee inviting you to flirt with a flanking stream on the right to get the best angle for your long iron second shot. Not only will the approach play shorter if you are brave with your drive, but the further right you go, the more land is available in front of the green.

Two holes later, the flat 15th stakes a claim as perhaps the best hole on the course. Your options from the tee are to throttle back on your drive and play safely left, short of a large lake, or blaze away over a right-side fairway bunker to a peninsula of fairway that gives you little more than a wedge to the green, which has water lapping at its front edge.

An almost island green par three penultimate hole takes the use of water at the short holes to, or perhaps past, the limit. Three of the four involve a considerable water carry, and while they are all enjoyable enough individually, the repetition is a bit tedious.

And how about that 18th?! Not one, not two, but SIX waterfalls!

Having arrived with low expectations, I was impressed. A pleasant way to spend four hours, and perhaps one that sneaks into the GB&I Top 100 on its tournament history. It sits one place behind NZGC, which I think is streets ahead, but it calls for plenty of shots and different shapes, with some good risk/reward decisions to be made.

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.

County Louth

 The blind third green, which funnels away to a sloping tightly-mown chipping area on the left

The skyline sixth green repels balls on all sides


The approach to the 12th possesses everything good about links golf: quirk, natural undulation and room for a running approach

 
The 14th is almost reachable, but is far from a push-over thanks to a wicked green

Course name: County Louth (aka Baltray)
Location: Baltray, Co. Louth, Ireland
Four Word Course Review: Fantastic greensites, ample quirk

Baltray was my first ever game of Irish golf. A 5am alarm saw me on the move for the next seven and a half hours getting from my front door to the first tee, but it was worth the tube/bus/plane/car trip.

The thing that stood out for me was the greensites. They sat atop and flowed so naturally off the sides of the dunes and just looked so perfect in their setting. Pat Ruddy was right to note that it was a masterstroke by Tom Simpson that the greens look so charming but are a major challenge to play to. I'd put the very best of them in the same ballpark as those at The Old Course, and that's saying something!

The third green is the first to really wow you, though the three gentle tiers of the second green are a highlight of that hole. The entire green complex at the third is hidden from view until you're 30 yards short, with a rough-covered dune short left dominating the view on approach.

At the green the land falls strongly to the left, where a steep side slope channels balls away to a closely-shaved chipping area, and gentle slopes on the side of the hill mean the chip is no straightforward recovery.

The fourth hole would probably get more talk were the 14th not such a cracking short par four. Bunkerless, the fairway from 70 yards out right up to the green is a rollercoaster ride, with a main channel running diagonally to the left catching aggressive te shots that end up in "no man's land", forcing a tough 30-50 yard pitch and run to a green that, camouflaged by the more dramatic slopes around it, looks much flatter than it is. There's a slot at the right edge of the green that will help balls run on, but to find it means flirting with tall dunes and thick, deep rough from the tee.

The fifth is the first par three, and probably the best one-shotter on the course. The green slopes hard from right to left, and the slope at the front doesn't mess around either, depositing anything short either into the bunker (from where almost any pin is likely to be cut on land sloping away from you, forcing you to play right and use the contours) or back down the hill 30 yards short, leaving a chip/pitch up the hill reminiscent of the 6th at Deal, but to a far more treacherous green.

If you're not in golfing Nirvana by the time you putt out on the 6th, you have no soul! The drive on this par five is over the right edge of a fairway trap, leaving a tempting second. The green falls away on all sides, and with a bunker right, I over compensated and missed left, leaving a tough chip onto a green that does all it can to shrug balls played from that side into a collection area behind the bunker.

Again, it just looks so natural atop the dune, and some closely-mown grass and subtle green contours provide the challenge.

The 7th is a mid to short-iron to an angled green, and though missing short doesn't look that great from the tee, this slope at the back right is infinitely more demanding, with a strong back to front slope encouraging a recovery struck to firmly to accelerate back down the front.

These two par threes mentioned so far and the really enjoyable 15th (which reminded me of #6 at Sandwich) are perhaps the best set of links par threes I have played behind Rye, and just in front of Sandwich, Trevose and North Berwick. Pity the 17th is a bit of a dog.

So that's five scintillating greens in a row, turning holes of reasonable length into tough pars. From there you come to a bit of quiet time as far as the greens are concerned, with 8 and 11 offering some subtle and even slopes and 9 and 10 being pretty flat, then comes the 12th, which, with its flag just visible beyond rolling "sea swell" dunes, has more than a hint of the 3rd at Deal about it (I know, enough with the Deal comparisons...).

What a fun long iron shot, running the ball the last 30 yards or so over the dip and onto the green, with that great couple of minutes afterwards waiting to see how it turned out! I never tire of that feeling. I also liked that there was plenty of space used in conjunction with the blindness, much the same as 13 at Rye.

The 14th green was so devilish that, at 322 yards, it may well be the shortest par 4.5 hole I have played. I was faced with a pin cut at the front, and saw first-hand that any putt from the top tier was nigh on impossible to stop near the hole. Add in the steep greenfront slopes and it's one of those greens you would take decades to master, if you ever did.

The 16th green demands to be approached from the left, where an opening in the dunes gives you a look right up the green, and brings the running approach into play. Anything driven right leaves a second shot over a tall dune that blocks your vision completely and requires that the ball be flown onto the green.

It's a pity the round ends on a slightly flat note with the par three 17th and par five 18th, but they take nothing away from the holes that come before. If you're planning a trip to the Emerald Isle, Baltray is worth including on the itinerary.